![]() ![]() He had, however, been reported to something called the Guardian Threat Tracking System. ![]() The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is looking into whether he got any of the gun components illegally. Nothing from online, Barakat’s phones, the community or his family suggested he had a hatred of the police, he said.Īt this stage in the investigation, it seems all of his weapons were purchased legally, and he had many of them in his car on the day of the shooting, Wrigley said. And his internet searches about causing mayhem date back to 2018, with periods in which they abated before picking back up, the attorney general said. In recent years, Barakat amassed his arsenal. He said Barakat had some family in the U.S., but not in the Fargo area, and that investigators are still looking into his history before he arrived in the country. citizen in 2019, Wrigley said, adding that he didn’t appear to have any ties to the Muslim community in Fargo. on an asylum request in 2012 and became a U.S. Wallin and Hawes were so new that they were still undergoing field training.īarakat was a Syrian national who came to the U.S. “What he was standing between was not just the horrible events that were unfolding there, but between the horrible events that Mohamad Barakat had envisioned, planned and intended and armed himself for - beyond fully - that day,” he said.īarakat killed Officer Jake Wallin, 23, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Minnesota Army National Guard, and wounded Officers Andrew Dotas and Tyler Hawes. Wrigley described Robinson as “the last man standing in that blue line at that moment.” It ended with Robinson shooting and killing Barakat as bystanders crouched nearby. Robinson, who was badly outgunned but was the only officer at the scene who hadn’t been shot, engaged Barakat in a two-minute shootout. He also shot and wounded a fleeing woman, Karlee Koswick, who had been involved in the fender bender, he said. The three officers who were shot had no time to react and fell in rapid succession. A binary trigger is a modification that allows a weapon to fire one round when the trigger is pulled and another when it is released - in essence doubling a gun’s firing capacity. The rifle had a binary trigger that allowed it to fire so rapidly that it sounded like an automatic weapon, he said. 223-caliber rifle out of his car window and began firing, Wrigley said. With police and firefighters busy helping, Barakat watched for several minutes until the officers walked by him, when he lifted a. He said Barakat’s car was loaded with guns, a homemade grenade, more than 1,800 rounds of ammunition, three “largish” containers full of gasoline, plus two propane tanks, one completely filled and the other half-filled not with propane, but with “explosive materials concocted at home, purchased lawfully.” It’s unclear if it was the intended target, though, as Barakat also searched for information on the Red River Valley Fair, which was just a 6-mile (10-kilometer) drive from the scene, the attorney general said.Īfter driving by the fender bender, Barakat pulled into an adjacent parking lot to watch from his parked car, Wrigley said. On the day of the attack, the downtown fair was in its second day and was less than 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the crash scene. “Those events fell into place and fell into his path.” “The horrible winds of fate sometimes,” he said. All evidence suggests that Barakat came upon the traffic crash by “happenstance” and that his ensuing ambush was a diversion from his much bigger intended target, Wrigley said. Had Officer Zach Robinson not killed Barakat, authorities said they shudder to think how much worse the attack might have been. But perhaps the most chilling search was for “area events where there are crowds,” which on July 13 brought up a news article with the headline, “Thousands enjoy first day of Downtown Fargo Street Fair.” ![]() Over the past five years, Barakat, 37, searched the internet for terms including “kill fast,” “explosive ammo,” “incendiary rounds,” and “mass shooting events,” state Attorney General Drew Wrigley said Friday during a news conference in Fargo, a city of about 125,000 people. Mohamad Barakat killed one officer and wounded two others and a bystander before a fourth officer shot and killed him, ending the July 14 attack. (AP) - The heavily armed man who ambushed Fargo police officers investigating a fender bender last week likely had a bigger and bloodier attack in mind, with at least two fairs taking place at the time in and around North Dakota’s largest city, authorities said Friday. ![]()
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