UPDATE: Suspect in recruiting center shooting pleads 'not guilty'

Abdulhakim Muhammad, 23, of Little Rock, right, listens as his attorney Stephen Thomas enters a not guilty plea to a capital murder charge in a Little Rock, Ark., courtroom Tuesday.
Abdulhakim Muhammad, 23, of Little Rock, right, listens as his attorney Stephen Thomas enters a not guilty plea to a capital murder charge in a Little Rock, Ark., courtroom Tuesday.

— A Muslim convert who pleaded not guilty to killing a soldier outside a recruiting center had the firepower to take out many more while on a mission to "kill as many people in the Army as he could," police said.

In documents released Tuesday, authorities said they recovered Molotov cocktails, three guns and ammunition from Abdulhakim Muhammad's pickup after the attack Monday in a suburban Little Rock shopping center that left Pvt. William Long dead and Pvt. Quinton I. Ezeagwula wounded.

Muhammad targeted soldiers "because of what they had done to Muslims in the past," authorities said. Both Long, 23, and Ezeagwula, 18, had recently completed basic training and had never seen combat. They had volunteered to help attract others into military service, and were shot as they stood outside the recruiting center smoking cigarettes.

On Tuesday, Muhammad, also 23, pleaded not guilty to one count of capital murder and 16 counts of committing a terrorist act. He is being held without bond. Federal prosecutors are also considering charges.

Police stopped Muhammad moments after the shootings on a highway.

Search warrant affidavits showed that police recovered weapons and caches of ammunition from Muhammad's truck and apartment. Officers confiscated an SKS assault rifle believed to be used in the shootings, a .22-caliber rifle with a laser sight, other firearms, Molotov cocktails, homemade silencers and compact disks with Arabic writing on them.

The truck also held a plastic tub filled with bottles of water, "canned food, boxed food, bagged food and a butane lighter" and a golf score card.

Once in custody, one affidavit said, Muhammad told officers what he had wanted to accomplish.

"Mr. Muhammad ... advised that his intent was to kill as many people in the Army as he could," according to Little Rock police Detective Robert A. Martin.

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

Drive-by kills one

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Document

http://showtime.ark…">Read the police report from the arrest of Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammadhttp://showtime.ark…">Read search warrant affidavit

During the court proceeding Tuesday, Deputy Prosecutor Scott Duncan said Muhammad told investigators that "he would have killed more soldiers had they been in the parking lot." Duncan said Muhammad admitted shooting the soldiers "because of what they had done to Muslims in the past."

Muhammad had been under investigation by an FBI-led terrorism task force since he returned to the United States from Yemen last year, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official said Muhammad had been arrested and jailed in Yemen at some point for using a Somali passport. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation, spoke on condition of anonymity.

An FBI spokesman in Little Rock did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

Muhammad, formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe, had moved to Little Rock this spring as his father, Melvin Bledsoe of Memphis, expanded a tour bus company. Muhammad was one of the drivers and served clients from a Hilton hotel in Little Rock.

Bledsoe's Twin City Tours had an airport shuttle for hotel guests and would also take patrons on tours of Little Rock and North Little Rock, Hilton general manager Bob Martorana said Tuesday.

Martorana said he knew Muhammad, who went by Hakim, and regularly saw him behind the wheel of a Twin Cities motorcoach since April, when the company expanded to Little Rock.

Bledsoe appears to be pulling back to Memphis. "They ceased operations as of yesterday," Martorana said.

"We were just given the direction by Mr. Bledsoe to remove everything. We just put it aside," he said. Martorana said he expects Bledsoe to pick up his materials next week.

An answering service picked up calls to Bledsoe's Little Rock office. A man answering the phone at the Memphis office said Bledsoe wasn't there and wouldn't comment on the business.

Muhammad is in protective custody at the Pulaski County jail. Prosecutor Larry Jegley said it could be nine weeks before his office receives the case file from police. Defendants have to be charged in circuit court within 60 business days of their first court appearance.

John Soos, a civilian spokesman for the Oklahoma City Recruiting Battalion, said Ezeagwula will likely be transferred to a military hospital for continued treatment and the Army was willing to provide a military funeral for Long.

"We just have to wait and see what needs they have," he said.

See today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for a story about the shooting

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