Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, the 24-year-old engineer who killed four Marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Thursday, was not on "anyone's radar," and there was nothing to predict that his actions were going to happen, Gov. Bill Haslam said Friday.
"It obviously shows a sense of, the heightened sense we all have to have about what could happen anywhere at any time,"
the Republican governor told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "It makes it hard to predict, to make certain we're protected against it; something like this where evidently the shooter was not on anyone's radar. Nothing helped us predict this, and it makes you more concerned as a public official."
While initially the attack has been called one of "domestic terrorism," now investigators are "saying it's too preliminary to put a name on it," said Haslam. "They're basically doing all the work they can to chase the lead to understand what happened.
"I've been impressed with the resources [the] FBI flooded in here to literally make certain they know exactly what happened and find out everything they can about the motivation."
The Marines who were killed were unarmed, as is custom on the nation's military bases, but Haslam said that before ending that practice, it should be learned why that procedure was put in place.
"The military has protocol in place about carrying weapons on these facilities," he said. "It's worked up through the chain of command. We'll all begin by saying, help us understand — on a day when that doesn't make much sense — help us understand why that policy is in place."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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