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FBI: Too early to say if Chattanooga gunman radicalized

by Jesse Byrnes - 07/22/15 12:50 PM ET

Federal authorities investigating the gunman who opened fire at two military sites last week in Chattanooga, Tenn., said Wednesday that it is too early to tell if he was radicalized.

{mosads}Ed Reinhold, the FBI special agent in charge of the investigation, said during a press conference that officials are treating the gunman as a “homegrown violent extremist.”

Reinhold said that it appears the suspect, Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, a 24-year-old Kuwaiti born citizen, acted alone in the attack that left four Marines and a sailor dead.

Abdulazeez had reportedly kept a blog briefly to chronicle his religious thoughts.

The gunman drove up to a military recruiting office shortly before 11 a.m. last Thursday and fired shots without leaving his vehicle, Reinhold said.

He then drove to a second military site, where he crashed his car through the gates when a service member opened fire, according to the FBI.

The gunman responded by shooting into the building, a joint Navy-Marine center, before entering the facility, where he shot one service member, according to the FBI. Four more service members were shot outside the building but within the facility’s fence.

Authorities said the gunman had three guns, and that preliminary reports indicate the five service members shot and killed were hit by bullets from the same gun.

Maj. Gen. Paul Brier, commanding general of the 4th Marine Division, said during the press conference that 20 Marines and two Navy corpsmen were at the facility when the attack took place.

Brier said that service members “reacted the way you would expect” to the attack, going room to room to make sure others were safe before “some willingly ran back into the fight.”

The FBI is investigating nearly 400 leads and has hundreds of personnel on the ground and across the country investigating the shooting, Reinhold said.

“Marines and sailors are warriors and we are resilient,” Brier said, acknowledging the pain felt across the country.

Tags Chattanooga Terrorism