Yeah, I guess it's better to be circumspect about the motive until there's some kind of hard evidence, although if you eschew the typical political correctness at a time like this, it's terribly obvious. (That is, if you're a normal and normal-thinking person.) The shooter Abdulazeez was a hardcore jihadist. It's not hard.
In any case, at the Chattanooga Times Free Press, "Live Updates":
SCENES OF PANICLots more at the link.
A normal workday for many Chattanoogans swiftly turned to bedlam as the shootings began.
Bobby Gray dropped his son, Nicholas, off at the Lee Highway military recruiting office a little after 10:30 a.m. to sign up for the Air Force.
Less than an hour later, Gray answered a call from his son.
"Hey, I don't know if you've heard, I'm fine," Nicholas said.
Nicholas told his dad he was sitting at the recruiting desk when the shooting started. An Air Force recruiter started to shout and helped everyone through a back door, where they huddled in a storage unit.
Two Marines ran out the front door after the shooter, trying to stop him, but he sped away.
When Gray walked back inside the building, there was a bullet lodged in his camouflage backpack.
"I'm just relieved he's OK," Bobby Gray said of his son.
Multiple witnesses at the Lee Highway site said the driver sprayed bullets into at least four of the five branches of the military's offices before he zoomed away.
Keegan Green, who was laying down mulch across the street at McDonald's, said he saw the shooter unload two clips, never leaving his car. When Green ran across the highway to see if anyone was hurt, the shooter sped away toward Highway 153.
"I'm CPR-certified and I wanted to check to see if anyone was hurt," he said.
Chloe Carter was handing an order out of the McDonald's drive-through window when she heard what sounded like hammers banging. She looked up and saw screaming people running out of businesses across the street.
"I've never seen anything like this," she said.
Keith Wheatley, the property manager of the recruiting center building, said he arrived about five minutes after the shooter left.
When he walked inside he said, "It looked like a TV set."
Bullets were lodged in the walls and in television sets, he said. Four of the five branches of military offices located at the recruiting center had been shot at.
"It was obvious that they were intentionally shooting at all five branches of the military."
At Carquest Auto Parts downhill from the U.S. Army Recruiting Office, counter salesman Fred Wright said he heard the shots, then saw recruiting office personnel come running.
"All of them starting running through the brush and the briars," Wright said. "One of them was yelling, 'Call 911, someone's shooting at us.'"
Workers reported similar scenes around Amnicola Highway as police filled the area and barricaded off a long stretch of the road.
The Marines were killed at the Navy Operational Support Center, often referred to as a "reserve center." The center is home of Battery M, 14th Marines, known as Mike Battery.
It's used by both Navy and Marine personnel to provide training and readiness support for reserve components to support the services. The Navy maintains 123 such facilities across the United States and its territories, according to The Associated Press.
Mike Battery members have deployed three times for service in the Iraq war. During its first deployment, 2004-05, members took part in the Battle of Fallujah, and members deployed stateside to provide aid in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The troops were unarmed. A day after the gunman attacked the unit, Gen. Ray Odierno, chief of staff of the Army, told reporters that arming troops in those offices could cause more problems than it might solve...
0 comments:
Post a Comment