A man was arrested after shooting himself in the leg and calling
an ambulance. When the police arrived, they followed a trail of blood to his
car and found weapons, ammunition, and notes on potential targets. There was
evidence found in his car that the man was planning an attack against churches.
He is also being questioned for the murder of a 32 year old woman that occurred
on Sunday and then planning a larger attack later on. Though he hasn’t been
named, he has been identified as a 24 year old computer science student
originally from Algeria. He has never been convicted of a crime. Although he
had no convictions, according to a prosecutor, he had been known and under
surveillance because of his wishes to go to Syria. He never made it to Syria,
but computer searches revealed that the man had been in contact with someone in
Syria who asked him to target a church. The connection between the man and the
32 year old woman is not known, Aurelie Chatelain, but authorities claim that
he is behind her murder. Ballistics, DNA, satellite navigation, and other
evidence connected him to Chatelain’s death.
Hopefully this guy does not walk free any time soon. It’s
good that this guy was caught before he was able to carry out any attack,
especially against a church. There were documents found in his apartment that
were linked to Islamic State and al-Qaeda, which gives reason to assume that he
is linked to them as well. Since the names of the churches targeted weren’t
released, one can assume it was any of them. What if the church he was
targeting was the famous Notre Dame? That is scary. It seems that there’s
always someone out there plotting some attack. While I know that the US isn’t
the safest place on Earth, I am glad that I live somewhere where I’m not afraid
to walk out my front door.
Bethany Shaffer
4/22/2015
4:27 p.m.
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