Gunman fires on soldiers

He kills one, injures one at LR center

 A soldier talks on his cell phone in front of the military recruiting office in west Little Rock after a gunman shot two soldiers outside the office Monday, killing one.
A soldier talks on his cell phone in front of the military recruiting office in west Little Rock after a gunman shot two soldiers outside the office Monday, killing one.

CORRECTION: William Long of Conway was 23. The following story misstated his age.

A Tennessee man who converted to Islam and opposes American military actions overseas is charged with shooting two United States Army privates outside a west Little Rock recruiting center, killing one and seriously wounding the other Monday morning, police said.

Armed with two rifles and a handgun, Abdul-Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, who was born Carlos Bledsoe, specifically targeted the Army-Navy Career Center in the Ashley Square shopping center at 9112 N. Rodney Parham Road, police said.

From behind the wheel of a black Ford Sport Trac, police said, Muhammad fired at least 10 rounds from an SKS 7.62mm rifle. Seven recruiters were inside the office. None was injured.

Document

http://showtime.ark…">Read the police report from the arrest of Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad

The two soldiers were taking a smoke break outside the recruiting office at 10:19 a.m. when the gunman arrived in the dark-colored truck.

William Long, 25, of Conway suffered at least three gunshot wounds and died at Baptist Health Medical Center less than an hour after the shooting, police said.

Bullets hit the other soldier, Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville, at least twice, police said. Also taken to Baptist, he is expected to survive.

"We believe that he acted alone, but we believe that he had political and religious motivations," Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas said of Muhammad.

Thomas declined to offer more information about Muhammad's motives or why investigators believe he chose that office.

Police charged Muhammad with one count of capital murder and 16 counts of committing a terroristic act. He had lived in Little Rock for two or three months, police said, and had previous addresses in Nashville, Tenn., and Memphis. Little Rock police were unsure late Monday whether Muhammad had a criminal record as well as when he changed his religion and his name.

Police and agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives served a search warrant on Muhammad's apartment, No. 4205 in the Bristol Park complex at 12201 Mara Lynn Road in Little Rock. Investigators also interviewed Muhammad's parents, who manage a tour bus operation in Memphis, when they voluntarily submitted to questioning at Little Rock police headquarters, Thomas said. Attempts to contact the parents Monday night were unsuccessful.

"Shooting a military man, that's worse than shooting a police officer," said Stephon White, 22, who said he heard six or seven shots from the balcony of his apartment down the street.

White and a friend who lives in the same apartment complex, Bradley Davis, 30, ran to see where the gunshots came from.

"This one dude was like, 'Oh, that's just firecrackers,'" Davis said.

White said he immediately knew otherwise.

"Man, I am from the projects," he said. "I am from Detroit. I know a shot when I hear one."

When they arrived, they saw Long and Ezeagwula on the ground. One was on his back and not moving except to roll his head from side to side. The other crawled back inside the recruiting office.

Another witness, Lance Luplow, 26, who ran across Rodney Parham from his apartment, said he could hear the crawling soldier say over and over, "I can't believe this is happening."

White said he saw the shooter's truck pull out fast from the parking lot onto Rodney Parham and blow through a red light at Brookside Drive.

"He was driving like he was late to work," White said.

A short time later on the eastbound side of Interstate 630, a detective supervisor was the first to spot a truck matching witnesses' descriptions heading the other way. Others called in similar sightings.

On the exit ramp from Interstate 630 onto Interstate 30 eastbound, police stopped the black Ford Sport Trac 12 minutes after the shooting. They found Muhammad inside alone with the SKS rifle as well as a .

22-caliber rifle and a .380-caliber automatic pistol, Thomas said.

Police closed the ramp as the bomb squad searched the truck twice based on information from detectives and to see what was inside two bags and a cooler.

As they served the search warrant on his apartment, police evacuated the three-story building where Muhammad lived and the two buildings on either side of it at about 1 p.m., residents said.

After a couple hours, residents were allowed to return to the two surrounding buildings and part of the building where Muhammad lived. The rest of the building where the suspect lived was reopened shortly after 4 p.m.

Two recruiters were shot, one of who later died at the hospital, on Monday morning.

Drive-by kills one

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Just before 4 p.m., investigators at Muhammad's apartment could be seen carrying out a computer hard drive, a printer, a cell phone and another small electronic device. Thomas declined to describe anything investigators removed from the apartment.

Residents said Muhammad moved into the apartment about a month ago and drove a tour bus. A mat outside of his second floor apartment says, "Wipe your paws." Neighbors Monday night described Muhammad as quiet and said they knew very little about him.

Asked about police statements that Muhammad was a convert to Islam and opposed U.S. military action overseas, Mostafa Mostafa, president of the Islamic Center of Little Rock until the end of last year, said anyone steeped in the religion should abhor violence.

"Our stand, the stand of Islam, is very clear against violence of any kind, no matter what religion, no matter what origin," Mostafa said.

He said Muslims in the state had been embraced. He did not anticipate retaliation.

"We have a very good relationship with our neighbors here in Arkansas," Mostafa said.

FRESH FROM BASIC

At Long's rural Faulkner County home between Conway and Vilonia, Long's mother said, "I'm not saying anything," and walked away.

Three flags are mounted to the house - one a Navy flag, another an American flag. A car parked outside had a "Support Our Troops" ribbon magnet on it.

Christmas lights still dangle from the small house, hidden from the nearby road by a forest of tall trees. Small dogs bark in the back from a fenced yard.

In Little Rock at the hospital, family and other worried visitors crowded the emergency room's small waiting room hunting for any information. One woman fainted and was rolled outside for fresh air in a wheel chair on the emergency room's loading dock.

Capt. Mathew Feehan, commander of the Little Rock Army Recruiting Company, waited with two other uniformed Army officials outside the emergency room entrance, answering and making numerous cell phone calls. Feehan said police told them not to talk to anyone.

Feehan said Long and Ezeagwula were not recruiters, but temporarily working at the recruiting station as part of the Army's Hometown Recruiter Assistance Program. The program allows enlisted soldiers who have completed their initial training to return to their hometowns for up to two weeks at a time to work in recruiting offices. The soldiers accompany recruiters to tell about their experiences as relatively new soldiers. Participants receive a $2,000 bonus for each enlistment they refer.

"It's just a tragic loss," he said.

Long enlisted as an infantry soldier in January and was waiting to be sent to Fort Lewis in Washington state. He has a brother in the Army stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, Feehan said.

Ezeagwula, a former linebacker at Jacksonville High School, enlisted in October as a heavy construction equipment operator. His next assignment was scheduled to be at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.

Feehan has seven recruiting centers in Little Rock under his command, including the Rodney Parham site. Police retained control of the shooting site throughout the day Monday as they collected evidence and talked to witnesses. None of the others closed.

SURPRISE ATTACK

John Soos, the public affairs officer for the U.S. Army recruiting battalion in Oklahoma City,which oversees Little Rock operations, said the threat level was raised in the Little Rock area immediately after the shooting and a "cautionary message" was sent to all recruiters in the battalion's region, which includes Arkansas, Oklahoma and northern Texas.

"There's not an overly reactive concern," he said. "This seems to be an isolated event."

Violence in military recruiting centers is not uncommon in recent years. War protests have ended in damage or injury in recruiting centers in various locations, from California to Wisconsin. Last year a bomb blew the door and windows out of a recruiting station in New York City's Times Square, but no one was injured.

"This to my knowledge is the first time ever that we've had anything like this happen in the region," Soos said. "We've had demonstrators, but they've been relatively peaceful."

At noon, yellow police tape blocked off the parking lot in front of the recruiting center as police continued to search for evidence. The camouflage fatigues belonging to one of the victims sat crumpled on a sidewalk, cut away as emergency medical personnel had done their work more than an hour earlier.

A Navy recruiter paced around the corner, juggling two cell phones as he updated his superiors.

Steven Johnson of Pulaski County stood nearby, leaning against the shade-covered glass storefront in a white T-shirt with "Hooah" across the front. He was waiting to see his recruiter, who was inside talking to police.

"I've been working with my recruiter to pass the [Army's entrance exam]," he said, pushing the camouflage Army baseball cap up from his brow.

Johnson, 18, is scheduled to head to basic training at the end of the month. The papers are signed, the plan set. He wants to be a mechanic, but needed a higher score to guarantee he'd be placed in that program after basic training.

"I'm just waiting until they let me in," he said. "It's ridiculous that troops go and fight a war, then come home and have to fight again." Information for this report was contributed by Andy Davis, Michelle Day, Kristin Netterstrom, and Debra Hale-Shelton, of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Front Section, Pages 1, 6 on 06/02/2009

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