CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- Marines and sailors risked their lives for one another in Chattanooga last week trying to distract the gunman who assaulted a naval reserve center, helping people scale a fence to reach safety and returning fire at the attacker, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.
Twenty Marines and two Navy corpsmen were in the middle of an otherwise mundane task, checking their equipment after a training mission, when a silver Mustang convertible barreled through the gates of the center on the banks of the Tennessee River.
The driver blasted his way through the center for the next three to five minutes, officials said during a news conference, which provided the most complete account yet of last Thursday's assault.
Some of the five servicemen who were fatally wounded effectively sacrificed themselves, diverting the gunman away from the larger group of potential victims, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation into the killings.
"This could have been a lot worse," said the official, who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation. "It could have been a horrible, horrible massacre -- so much worse."
At Wednesday's news conference, the FBI confirmed that at least one service member shot at the attacker, but did not say whether he managed to wound the gunman, who was killed minutes later in a shootout with Chattanooga police.
Authorities have identified the attacker as Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, 24, but the correct spelling of his name is in dispute, with federal officials and records giving at least four variations.
"A service member from inside the facility observed [Abdulazeez] and opened fire on him, firing several rounds at him," said Edward Reinhold, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Knoxville office.
Two guns belonging to service members were recovered from the scene, he said, and "at least one of those weapons had been discharged." The military will investigate whether the service members were authorized to have those weapons.
The five people who were fatally shot were all apparently killed by Abdulazeez, Reinhold said when asked about the possibility that the police or a fellow service member had accidentally shot any of the victims.
"All indications are -- and we do not have the ballistic reports back -- preliminarily, it looks like all victims were killed with the same weapon," he said.
The dead have been identified as Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan, Staff Sgt. David Wyatt, Sgt. Carson Holmquist and Lance Cpl. Squire Wells, all of the Marines; and Randall Smith, a Navy petty officer second class. Wyatt formerly lived in Arkansas and was a graduate of Russellville High School.
Gunfire, chaos
Reinhold described a chaotic confrontation at the Navy and Marine reserve training center lasting just three to five minutes.
In a first stop before going the the center, Abdulazeez drove up to a military recruitment office and, without getting out of his rented silver convertible, opened fire.
Then he raced off, with the police not far behind, to the reserve center a few miles away. There he crashed through the security gate and got out of his car with an assault rifle -- apparently the only weapon he used -- and a handgun, leaving a third firearm in the car.
Wearing a vest with extra ammunition, Abdulazeez fired as he moved toward a center building. A service member inside saw Abdulazeez approaching and fired at him. The gunman shot back and then proceeded inside.
Once inside, he fatally wounded Smith and "continued to shoot those he encountered," Reinhold said.
When the shooting started, troops inside the building went from room to room to rush their colleagues to safety, said Maj. Gen. Paul Brier, commanding general of the 4th Marine Division. Then some rushed back into the fight.
As police followed the gunshots, Abdulazeez walked out the back door into a gated motor pool area, where troops tried to scramble over a fence to safety. It was there that the remaining four were killed. Two Marines tried to "provide cover" while their comrades tried to escape over the fence, Reinhold said.
At one point, Abdulazeez tried to run back into the building. When he did, Chattanooga officers confronted him, and a shootout broke out. One police officer was wounded; Abdulazeez was killed.
"There were hundreds of rounds fired" by Abdulazeez and the Chattanooga police, said the law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, making for an unusually complex forensics effort to piece together what happened. He said Abdulazeez used a derivative of an AK-47 assault rifle.
Witness accounts and the volume of shots fired have raised questions about whether the gun was fully automatic or had been modified to be operate that way. Reinhold did not confirm the specific type of assault rifle used but said none of the weapons had been modified.
He said investigators know where the guns were purchased, but he would not say where or whether they were bought legally.
Investigators are trying to determine whether Abdulazeez was in contact with extremists who might have radicalized him, inspiring or even directing his attack. But Reinhold cautioned on Wednesday that it was too early to answer such questions, saying that agents were pursuing nearly 400 leads in the case.
"At this point we're treating him as a homegrown violent extremist," he said.
"We do not have any indication that anyone else was assisting him that day," he added, but he did not address the possibility of prior help.
Abdulazeez was born in Kuwait to Jordanian parents but had lived most of his life in the Chattanooga area and was a naturalized U.S. citizen. Investigators are combing through his electronic communications and his travel history, including a seven-month stay in Jordan last year.
One of his uncles has been detained in Jordan for questioning by U.S. and Jordanian intelligence officials.
"The FBI will explore every possibility and every relative that he has, no matter where they are located," Reinhold said.
Gun toters show up
As the investigation continues, gun-toting people have begun showing up to military recruiting centers around the country, like the one where last Thursday's attacks began, saying they plan to protect the service members who work there.
The people, some of them private militia members, said they're supporting the recruiters, who are not armed. A 1992 Department of Defense directive restricts weapons to law enforcement or military police on federal property, including recruiting centers.
"We're here to serve and protect," Clint Janney said, wearing a Taurus 9mm handgun as he stood in a parking lot across from a plaza recruiting center on the west side of Columbus, Ohio. "What the government won't do, we will do."
Similar posts have been set up outside recruitment centers in several cities around the country, from Spanaway, Wash., to Hiram, Ga. Other sites are in Madison, Wis.; McAllen, Texas; Auburn Hills, Mich.; Phoenix; and several locations in Tennessee, including Murfreesboro.
There's no evidence that such centers are in immediate danger, and the government isn't changing how they're staffed. But some governors have temporarily moved National Guard recruiting centers to armories, and several -- including Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Wednesday and Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson last week -- have authorized Guard personnel to carry weapons at state facilities.
Janney, 38, who runs his own garage door company, was at the Columbus plaza Wednesday with four fellow members of the Ohio branch of the "3 Percent Irregulars" militia. In Ohio and many states, it is legal to carry an openly displayed handgun or rifle.
Franklin County Sheriff Zach Scott said that as long as the owner of the plaza didn't ask them to leave, the men were not violating any laws.
On Tuesday, the founder and president of Oath Keepers, a Las Vegas-based Constitution activist group made up of current and former veterans and first responders such as paramedics, issued a national call to members to guard centers.
Many were already guarding centers in Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma, President Stewart Rhodes said, adding that it's "absolutely insane" that recruiters aren't allowed to be armed.
"They're sitting ducks," Rhodes said. "They'd be better off if they were walking down the streets of Baghdad because at least in Baghdad, they could move. Here, they're stationary."
Capt. Jim Stenger, a Marine Corps public affairs officer, said he hopes the gun-toting civilians will go home.
"While we greatly appreciate the support of the American public during this tragedy, we ask that citizens do not stand guard at our recruiting offices," Stenger said in an emailed statement. "Our continued public trust lies among our trained first responders for the safety of the communities where we live and work."
Information for this article was contributed by Richard Fausett, Richard Perez-Pena and Matt Apuzzo of The New York Times and by Eric Schelzig, Travis Loller, Karin Laub, Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Kantele Franko, Kate Brumback, Todd Richmond and Jacques Billeaud of The Associated Press.
A Section on 07/23/2015