UPDATED
Here’s the lowdown on what the police are now telling us about the Garland terror attack last night, and as my title suggests, they aren’t calling it a terrorist attack yet:
One of the suspects has been named and he is Elton Simpson from Arizona. He was a Muslim and apparently well known to the FBI. He should have been in jail for trying to join a terrorist group but instead he was only given probation:
ABC NEWS – One of the suspects in the shooting in Garland, Texas, late Sunday has been identified as Elton Simpson, an Arizona man who was previously the subject of a terror investigation, according to a senior FBI official.
Overnight and today FBI agents and a bomb squad were at Simpson’s home in an apartment complex in north Phoenix where a robot is believed to be conducting an initial search of the apartment.
Officials believe Simpson is the person who sent out several Twitter messages prior to the attack on Sunday, in the last one using the hashtag #TexasAttack about half an hour before the shooting.
John Iannarelli, Assistant Special Agent in Charge FBI’s Phoenix office, said authorities in Texas traced both suspects to the Phoenix apartment and that the two appear to have been roommates. The second suspect has not been publicly identified.
Followers of ISIS had been sending messages about the event in Texas for more than a week, calling for attacks. One referenced January’s Charlie Hebdo massacre in France and said it was time for “brothers” in the United States to do their part.
Simpson was well known to the FBI. Five years ago he was convicted for lying to federal agents about his plans to travel to Africa where investigators alleged he planned to join a terror group.
The investigation into Simpson reached back to July 2007, when he was recorded saying of fighting with Islamists, “I know we can do it, man. But you got to find the right people that… Gotta have connects.”
Despite that and other recordings, a judge ruled the government did not adequately prove Simpson was going to join a terror group and Simpson was sentenced to three years’ probation for lying to investigators.
Kristina Sitton, who represented Simpson in the 2010 trial, said her former client had been on a no-fly list and that the FBI had attempted to get Simpson to cooperate with them, even after his conviction. She saw him, she said, as “harmless.”
“He grew up the most normal guy. Just a normal high school guy… Converting to Islam seemed like a good thing for him. He had been going down a bad path and then he found Islam,” Sitton told ABC News. “He never struck me as someone who would do this sort of thing. I’m not a bleeding heart, I’m a Republican. I’ve seen some pretty bad guys and he seemed pretty normal.”
UPDATE: This was just tweeted by ABC’s Brian Ross:
Just spoke w Elton Simpson's father. He said "My son made a bad choice." http://t.co/HrTyJfLzRV #garlandshooting pic.twitter.com/7KX3nrV4Nw
— Brian Ross (@BrianRoss) May 4, 2015