Tag: chattanooga
Biden Plan Enables Towns To Build Their Own Broadband Networks

Biden Plan Enables Towns To Build Their Own Broadband Networks

The rural borough of Kutztown, Pa., couldn't convince companies to bring faster internet to its community. So the town, about 70 miles northwest of Philadelphia, built its own broadband network. Since 2000, Kutztown's 5,000 residents can buy internet service from a municipal entity, just like the water and electricity they purchase from borough utilities. The publicly-owned, fiber optic network has not only provided improved download speeds, but has also lowered prices, the town says. A private company has since slashed its rates to compete, it adds. "Whether you subscribe to the service or no...

Biden Calls Chattanooga Shooter A ‘Perverted Jihadist’ During Memorial

Biden Calls Chattanooga Shooter A ‘Perverted Jihadist’ During Memorial

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) – Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday called the man who fatally shot four U.S. Marines and a Navy sailor a “perverted jihadist” during a eulogy for the servicemen at a memorial in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Biden told a packed arena that the ideology that drove Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, a 24-year-old engineer, to go on a rampage at two local military facilities was no match for national character.

“When this perverted jihadist struck, everyone responded,” Biden said. “We have a message for those perverted cowards around the world. America never yields, never bends, never cowers and never stands down.”

Abdulazeez sprayed gunfire at a military recruiting center in a strip mall in Chattanooga, then drove to a nearby Naval Reserve Center, where he killed four Marines before he was shot to death on July 16, according to authorities.

Investigators have been trying to establish whether Abdulazeez, a Kuwaiti-born naturalized U.S. citizen, was part of an organization or a “lone wolf” militant.

The Marine Corps identified the four slain Marines as Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Sullivan of Hampden, Massachusetts, Staff Sergeant David Wyatt of Burke, North Carolina, Sergeant Carson Holmquist of Polk, Wisconsin, and reservist Lance Corporal Squire Wells of Cobb, Georgia.

Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith of Paulding, Ohio, also died in the shooting.

Biden described them as heroes and as “men of honor, men of faith, men of determination” who “had a sense of duty … a sense of commitment.”

He said the servicemen typified the 4.2 million young people who joined the U.S. military forces after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America.

“They were part of the remarkable 9/11 generation,” he said. “The finest generation of warriors the world has ever known.”

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Peter Cooney)

The Troubled Young Terrorist Next Door

The Troubled Young Terrorist Next Door

The details about Mohammad Abdulazeez, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga grad accused of murdering four Marines and a sailor, dripped out in the familiar pattern. The first thing to come out of the shocking news is the name of the alleged attacker. Then there is speculation about what sick ideology may have inspired the horrendous act. And there are pictures of the comfy suburban nest the killer came from alongside interviews with baffled neighbors.

Finally comes the inside story bearing the inevitable headline, “Family Troubles Before Killings in Chattanooga.” Abdulazeez’s mother had tried to divorce the father in 2009, accusing him of abusing her and the children and planning to take a second wife, which he held would have been allowable under Islamic law. The parents reconciled, but that’s a lot of craziness.

As for Mohammad, he was facing a court date for drunken driving and illegal drug use and had been fired from a job at a nuclear plant. A family spokesman said the 24-year-old had been fighting depression, pointing to mental illness as a possible cause.

It takes an extremely twisted personality — twisted for whatever combination of reasons — to shoot unarmed strangers, which the Marines and sailor were. So the terrorist needs a larger cause to hide behind.

It appears that Abdulazeez chose radical Islam as a cover for his personal disintegration — though investigators do not yet know whether organized Mideast terrorist groups got to him during a visit to Jordan.

Look at the back stories of other young men who committed or are accused of committing acts of terrorism in this country. The similarities are hard to ignore.

Consider Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old charged with massacring worshippers at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina. His parents had gone through multiple divorces, and he had reportedly attended at least seven schools.

The kid was obviously unbalanced. He had previously dressed in black and asked creepy questions of workers at a mall. Police found drugs on him, and he was ordered to stay away from the shopping center.

Quite the mess, Roof found grandiosity among the fumes of white supremacist ideology.

Adam Lanza was the 20-year-old who shot up an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, murdering 26, mostly children. He was mentally ill, beyond a doubt. But even more craziness reigned behind his freshly painted suburban front door. Lanza’s mother was a gun nut who left weapons and ammunition lying around the house. He hadn’t seen his father in two years.

Neighbors saw Lanza as “a little weird” but not homicidal, according to a New Yorker article. But psychiatrists observed a deeply disturbed individual, his feelings of worthlessness alternating with flashes of self-importance.

And although Lanza didn’t seem glued to a particular ideology, the article did not hesitate to label him a terrorist: “Adam Lanza was a terrorist for an unknowable cause,” it said.

About half of mass murderers kill themselves at the end. As a Harvard psychiatrist noted, they want to “end life early surrounded by an (aura) of apocalyptic destruction.”

As such, Andreas Lubitz, the 27-year-old Germanwings co-pilot who crashed a planeload of passengers into a mountainside, could be called a terrorist, as well.

The question remains about what mix of toxic thinking and brain chemicals would motivate these people, all men in their 20s, to kill masses of unarmed innocents. And with that, we must wonder how much a role teachers of cracked belief systems play in causing such atrocities.

Do they create terrorists out of normal people, or do they provide the match that ignites walking tinderboxes of inner chaos? No easy answers are forthcoming.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo: U.S. flag flies alongside a sign in honor of the four Marines killed in Chattanooga, Tennessee July 17, 2015. REUTERS/Tami Chappell

Chattanooga Shooting Suspect’s Mideast Travel Being Probed

Chattanooga Shooting Suspect’s Mideast Travel Being Probed

By Rich McKay

CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (Reuters) – U.S. authorities are investigating trips that the suspect in the fatal shootings of four Marines in Tennessee took to the Middle East, including at least one to Jordan and a possible visit to Yemen, a source close to the probe said on Friday.

Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, identified as the shooter by the FBI, was shot to death in a rampage on Thursday at two military facilities in Chattanooga.

The suspect, seen driving an open-top Ford Mustang, first went to a joint military recruiting center in a strip mall and sprayed it with gunfire, riddling the glass facade with bullet holes. The gunman then drove off to a Naval Reserve Center about 6 miles (10 km) away, fatally shooting the four Marines before being shot and killed in a firefight with police.

The attack, which comes at a time when U.S. military and law enforcement authorities are increasingly concerned about the threat ‘lone wolves’ pose to domestic targets, also injured three people, including a sailor who was critically wounded.

Investigators are trying to determine whether the suspect had any contact with militants or militant groups, but at this point have no evidence that he did, the source told Reuters.

U.S. law enforcement officials said they were investigating whether he was inspired by Islamic State or a similar group.

Islamic State had threatened to step up violence in the holy fasting month of Ramadan, which ends on Friday evening.

The extremist group, also known as ISIS and ISIL, claimed responsibility when a gunman in Tunisia opened fire at a popular tourist hotel and killed 37 people in June. On the same day, there was an attack in France and a suicide bombing in Kuwait.

At a news conference late Thursday, Edward Reinhold, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Knoxville, Tennessee, division, said investigators had found nothing that tied the suspect to an international terrorist organization.

The SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist groups, said that Abdulazeez blogged on Monday that “life is short and bitter” and Muslims should not miss an opportunity to “submit to Allah.” Reuters could not independently verify the blog postings.

The New York Times, citing unnamed law enforcement officials, reported that his father had been under investigation several years ago over possible ties to a foreign terrorist organization. His name was later removed from a terror watch list.

According to a resume believed to have been posted online by Abdulazeez, he attended high school in a Chattanooga suburb and graduated from the University of Tennessee with an engineering degree.

(Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago, Eric Johnson in Seattle, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, David Bailey in Minneapolis, Frank McGurty and Katie Reiley in New York, Emily Stephenson, Julia Edwards, Lindsay Dunsmuir, Doina Chiacu and David Alexander in Washington, Dan Whitcomb and Victoria Cavaliere in Los Angeles; Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Photo: Police tape and a makeshift memorial sit on the lawn in front of an Armed Forces Career Center in this handout photo provided by the U.S. Navy, where earlier in the day a gunman opened fire, injuring one U.S. Marine in Chattanooga, Tennessee, July 16, 2015, (REUTERS/Damon J. Moritz/U.S. Navy/Handout via Reuters)