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Adams man with ties to Boston charged as would-be domestic ISIS fighter
By adamg on Mon, 07/13/2015 - 2:55pm
The US Attorney's office in Boston reports the arrest of an Adams man it says was planning to shoot up a college cafeteria, then set off grenades and Marathon-inspired pressure cooker explosives to kill the people who fled.
The FBI charges that after his July 4 arrest on charges of being a felon in possession of firearms, Alexander Ciccolo, 23, stabbed a prison nurse in the head with a pen as she was conducting a routine health screening of him.
ABC News reports Ciccolo is the estranged son of a Boston Police captain who was once of the first to respond to the Marathon bombings. In a statement released through Boston Police today, the family says:
While we were saddened and disappointed to learn of our son’s intentions, we are grateful that authorities were able to prevent any loss of life or harm to others. At this time, we would ask that the public and the media recognize our grief and respect our desire for privacy.
According to FBI affidavits, the FBI assigned a "cooperating witness" to see how serious Ciccolo, who also went by the Arabic name Ali al Amriki ("Ali the American"), was about carrying out ISIS-related attacks after learning he had told a friend last September that he wanted to go overseas and fight for the group. One affidavit also notes that Ciccolo has a history of mental illness.
Ciccolo, FBI agents write, told the other man that he had a specific bar in mind because it had put up a poster supporting the Supreme Court decision in favor of gay marriage - and had plans to take on a nearby state university with explosives and guns, which he allegedly said he would excel at in part because he had 'grown up with guns." According to the FBI, he said he would first place a few improvised explosives, including the pressure-cooker devices, around the campus, then shoot up the campus cafeteria at lunchtime, then explode the devices as people fled the gunfire.
On July 3, the FBI continues, agents watched him buy a pressure cooker at a Walmart in North Adams.
The next day, agents arrested him, allegedly in possession of a duffel bag containing four guns - all supplied by the "cooperating witness." Because he had a drunk-driving conviction his record, he was charged with being a felon in possession of firearms. He faces a detention hearing on July 13.
The FBI continues that agents found several partially constructed Molotov cocktails in his apartment, containing shredded Styrofoam soaked in motor oil - which they allege Ciccolo thought would stick to victims' skin and make it harder to put out any fires.
Affidavits in the case (scroll to the bottom of the page).
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
Entrapment?
Seems to me that the FBI here has crossed the line from investigating crime to facilitating it.
Nope, Ron
The planning (and partial construction of incendiary devices) seems to have been his own idea. This does not seem to be a case where a do-nothing blowhard is "coaxed" into trying to do something illegal.
FBI does their own spin
Sounds like a dangerous career criminal
except we learn elsewhere that it was for drunk driving. Herald reports his history is of mental illness.
As for entrapment, I'd rather that a gun seller call the FBI when some nutter wants to buy an arsenal, rather than send him to another seller.
https://firstlook.org
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/25/fort-dix-five-terror-plot-...
Highly unlikely
Entrapment is action by the police to make someone commit a crime he otherwise would not commit. According to the affidavits, that doesn't appear to be the case here considering he purchased a pressure cooker, had multiple firearms, and expressed an intent to carry out these attacks with specificity. (Innocent until proven guilty, if the affidavits are true, etc.)
You watch too many movies.
You watch too many movies. This is reality.
Just more nonsense.
I agree. Just more nonsense from the FBI which has nothing to do but troll teenage Islamics on the internet and entrap them in "Terrorist" plots of their own devising. The FBI are not college educated enlightened law abiding "investigators." They are Pinkertons. Thugs- for the elite.
He was a big no nukes save
He was a big no nukes save the environment go green eco-friendly protester type before switching over to Jihadism.
Some people are just cause whores and need to be true believers in something. No matter how personally destructive it is to them or the people around them.
Right
Because eco friendly and go green are BIGTIME KILLAHS!!!!!
Unless you count the ELF wackos in CA.
More like someone was so passionate about one cause and when it wasn't emotionally fulfilling enough they latched onto something else. Didn't matter how whacked out or different than their previous cause. All that mattered was the satisfaction.
You know how adrenaline junkies jump from one extreme sport to the next upping the ante? I suppose the same neurosis drove this unstable person towards -what was in their deranged mind- a bigger cause.
I've read his father actually alerted the FBI some time ago
His father is a BPD Captain. More news is coming out now.
Brian Ross?
I guess googling "Alexander Ciccolo" and "tea party" didn't return any links.
Instead of jailing mentally
Instead of jailing mentally challenged people would it not be a better idea that when we identify one of these people to place them in a program of "reeducation"? It has been shown that these insidlviduals are easily swayed towards violance, why not sway them in the opposite direction? How much money could be saved in the long run if we give these people a job and environment that they could thrive as a productive member of society.
In a slightly different situation, the US govt educated german POWs in the US to hate the Nazis and what their government had done.
These people went back and successfuly rebuilt Germany into the powerful democratic country it is now.
Not nice (or normal) to stab
Not nice (or normal) to stab a nurse. This sad story is another reminder of how vulnerable an unstable mind can be to extreme rhetoric and manipulation.
Absolutely,
from the political far right or far left. They both have bloody hands. And the sad fact is, ideological cult-like groups, con artists, criminals, even mainstream marketing, etc., all prey on the mentally unstable, sometimes to act as shock troops. If you witness anyone espousing extreme views, engaging in obvious irrational grand standing, odds are very good they're mentally unstable, minus trolls. Unfortunately, some in our society like to romanticize 'eccentric' (PC for mentally ill) behavior, viewpoints, etc. There's nothing romantic or charming about mental illness.