U.S. Navy: Sailor Injured In Chattanooga Shooting Has Died

“For many years, our son suffered from depression”, Abdulazeez’s family said in the statement, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal on Saturday. An officer said Abdulazeez “was unsteady on his feet at times” and that he slurred and mumbled his speech. “People with depression do not turn, necessarily, into psychopathic killers – as he did”.

“However, the FBI investigation into his activities while overseas and the nature and extent of his affiliation with FTOs (foreign terrorist organizations) is ongoing”.

The suspected gunman, Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, a Kuwaiti-born naturalised United States citizen, also died on Thursday in a firefight with police after the rampage at a military recruiting office and a training centre four kilometres away.

Abdulazeez died Thursday in a gunfight with police, after allegedly firing a rifle at two military facilities in Chattanooga.

The claim fits a pattern of behavior by Abdulazeez that includes a drunken driving arrest earlier this year and the loss of a job over a failed drug test. After his initial barrage, he led responding police officers on a high-speed chase down Amnicola Highway to a second military installation, where he opened fire again and was killed after a gun battle that one witness estimated lasted 20 minutes. “We have no evidence he was killed by self-inflicted wounds”. They still do not know what motived him.

The friend, who has not been publicly identified, told Reuters he thought nothing of the text initially but now wonders if it was a hint of Thursday’s attacks. And we now know that he texted a friend just before the attack with a link to a verse from the Koran that suggested the motivation for his actions.

The New York Times also reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the text message. “Watch closely over Angie and your three girls and we will tell them all the stories we can about you”.

After Abdulazeez returned, he seemed more mellow to his friends, less interested in partying. Abdulazeez was not on law enforcement’s radar and there was no intelligence indicating an attack was forthcoming.

Authorities are now combing through the gunman’s past travels, contacts and online postings in the hopes of identifying whether the attacks were inspired by ISIS or other terror groups.

The USA military has not named the wounded sailor or the slain Marines.

While Abdulazeez was a devout Muslim, he didn’t appear to be radical, according to some who knew him.

Jordanian sources said Abdulazeez had been in Jordan as recently as 2014 visiting an uncle. She said she is not dissuaded by what happened.

“We understand there are many legitimate questions that need to be answered”, they said.

Authorities have seized four guns connected with Abdulazeez, a law enforcement official said.

“He used it to de-stress, when things were hard at home, or whatever”, the first friend said, adding that tensions between Abdulazeez and his Palestinian parents had upset him. The father “actually apologized for what his son did to the community at large and to the Muslim community and I told him we all feel distraught, we all feel shocked”.

The governors of Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas issued the orders as security at recruiting centers comes under increasing scrutiny in the wake of the shootings. In addition, qualified Guard members will be adequately armed. “We made plans to hang out on the weekend”, the friend said. “Arming the National Guard at these bases will not only serve as a deterrent to anyone wishing to do harm to our servicemen and women, but will enable them to protect those living and working on the base”.

Governors in at least a half-dozen states ordered National Guardsmen to be armed.