Six years ago, a recruiting office in Little Rock was the site of a fatal attack similar to the ones that took place Thursday in Chattanooga, Tenn.
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On June 1, 2009, U.S. Army Pvt. William "Andy" Long, 23, of Conway was shot and killed, and Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, then 18, of Jacksonville was wounded. The shooter, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a convert to Islam, opened fire at the Little Rock Army-Navy Career Center on Rodney Parham Road.
Muhammad, 23, who was born in Memphis as Carlos Bledsoe and lived most of his life in Tennessee, later told authorities that he attacked the soldiers out of anger over American military policies in the Middle East. He told investigators that he had been "fired up" after seeing a video on the Internet about war crimes against Muslims overseas and was looking for a target for his anger.
Armed with two rifles and a semi-automatic handgun, Muhammad fired at least 10 rounds from an SKS 7.62mm rifle from behind the wheel of a black Ford Sport Trac. Three rounds struck Long and another two hit Ezeagwula. Both men had been standing outside the recruiting office at 10:19 a.m. taking a smoke break.
Emergency workers transported Long to Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock, and he died of his injuries less than an hour after the shooting.
Muhammad fled, hoping to drive to Memphis, but police stopped him on the exit ramp from Interstate 630 onto Interstate 30 eastbound in Little Rock.
Police and federal investigators searched Muhammad's Little Rock apartment that day and carried out a computer hard drive, among other things. Days later, the FBI said Muhammad had researched other possible targets, including Jewish and Christian sites. Besides Little Rock, he researched places in Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, Memphis and Louisville, Ky., the FBI said.
The week after the attack, Muhammad told the FBI that he wasn't aware of similar attacks planned against the U.S. military on American soil but that it wasn't the end.
"I don't know anything that's in the works," Muhammad said at the time. "We're not going to turn the other cheek. It's definitely not the end of it."
In an agreement with prosecutors, Muhammad pleaded guilty in Pulaski County Circuit Court in 2011 to capital murder and attempted capital murder. He was sentenced to life in prison and is incarcerated in the Arkansas Department of Correction's Varner unit in Gould, a maximum-security prison.
Recruiting stations also had been targeted before the Little Rock shooting.
In 2008, a small bomb exploded in front of the Armed Forces Recruiting Station in New York's Times Square. There were no injuries, and authorities never identified the bomber.
In 2004, a 42-year-old man went into a recruiting office in San Leandro, Calif., and fired several shots at an Air Force sergeant before killing himself. The sergeant wasn't injured.
On Thursday, Little Rock police spokesman Lt. Steve McClanahan said the department had increased patrols at Arkansas National Guard facilities after the Chattanooga shooting.
He didn't know how many officers had been assigned to the patrols, but said they were going to "keep an eye out for anything suspicious in the area."
"It's basically going to be a visible presence in the area. We're just going to remain extra vigilant," he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Scott Carroll of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
A Section on 07/17/2015