Heroic actions of service members in Chattanooga hailed
CHATTANOOGA -- A military official says several troops "ran back into the fight" after getting their colleagues to safety during an attack in Chattanooga that left four Marines and a sailor dead.
Maj. Gen. Paul W. Brier, commanding general of the 4th Marine Division, said during a news conference Wednesday in Chattanooga that there were 20 Marines and two Navy corpsman inspecting equipment at a joint Marine-Navy facility when the attack happened on Thursday.
Brier says the troops "reacted the way you would expect" during an attack, rapidly going room to room to get others to safety. They had just returned from a training exercise in California.
He says once they got to safety, several ran back into the fight. Brier would not provide further details about what happened.
The gunman, Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, died after a gunfight with police.
The Marines who were killed were identified as Gunnery Sgt.Thomas J. Sullivan of Hampden, Massachusetts; Staff Sgt. David A. Wyatt of Burke, North Carolina; Sgt. Carson A. Holmquist of Polk, Wisconsin; and Lance Cpl. Squire K. Wells of Cobb County, Georgia, who a family spokesman says went by Skip. The sailor was identified as Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith.
Lance Cpl. Squire Wells was swapping text messages Thursday with his girlfriend of 2 1/2 years, excited that she had booked a flight to visit him in Chattanooga after months apart.
"Can't wait anymore," Wells texted. "Yes you can honey," his girlfriend, Caroline Dove, replied.
His next two words would be the last she'd ever hear from him.
"ACTIVE SHOOTER," he wrote.
She thought he was kidding: "You are so weird," she replied.
Hours of silence. "I love you," she tried. Hours more passed, the news out of Chattanooga becoming clearer. "Hon, I need you to answer me please," she wrote.
It would not be until Friday that she learned his fate.
Ed Reinhold, the FBI's special agent in charge in Knoxville, said during a news conference Wednesday that a service member fired at the shooter after he crashed his rented, silver Mustang convertible through the gates of a joint Marine-Navy facility.
Reinhold says the gunman went inside the building and shot a service member. He then made his way through the building and continued shooting. Abdulazeez went out the back, and then shot and killed two more people before Chattanooga police opened fire on him.
The FBI says two weapons recovered at the scene of the shooting did not belong to the gunman.
Abdulazeez had three guns; two other guns recovered at the scene belonged to service members. When asked if anyone was hit by friendly fire, Reinhold said preliminary reports indicated the four Marines and one sailor killed all were hit by bullets from the same gun.
The FBI says it is treating the Chattanooga gunman as a "homegrown violent extremist" and that it is too early to determine if he had been radicalized.
Reinhold said that investigators were still looking into whether Abdulazeez had been radicalized. Reinhold also said authorities believe Abdulazeez acted alone, without the assistance of anyone else.