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Curtis Culwell Center attack

Coordinates: 32°57′34″N 96°38′31″W / 32.95956°N 96.64191°W / 32.95956; -96.64191
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Curtis Culwell Center attack
Curtis Culwell Center
LocationGarland, Texas, U.S.
Coordinates32°57′34″N 96°38′31″W / 32.95956°N 96.64191°W / 32.95956; -96.64191
DateMay 3, 2015
6:50 p.m. (UTC−5:00)
TargetAmerican Freedom Defense Initiative exhibition
Attack type
Shooting; terrorist attack
Weapons
Deaths2 (both perpetrators)
Injured1
PerpetratorsElton Simpson and Nadir Soofi[2]
MotiveRetaliation for depictions of Muhammad

The Curtis Culwell Center attack was carried out by two men who fired assault rifles at officers at the entrance to an exhibit featuring cartoon images of Muhammad on May 3, 2015, at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas.[3]

The attackers shot a Garland Independent School District (ISD) security officer in the ankle.[4] Shortly after the gunmen pulled up and opened fire at the entrance to the center, both were shot and killed by a police officer.[5] The Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack, the first time ISIS took credit for an attack in the U.S.[6][7][8][9] Law enforcement officials have not confirmed or denied the Islamic State's involvement.

Minutes prior to the attack, one of the gunmen posted a tweet on Twitter with the hashtag #texasattack: "May Allah accept us as mujahideen." He also wrote that he and the other gunman had pledged allegiance to "Amirul Mu'mineen", a likely reference to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. The gunman also requested others to follow on Twitter an ISIS propagandist. After the shooting, that propagandist tweeted: "Allahu Akbar!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire."[10]

Background

Muhammad exhibit and contest

The event was advertised as the "First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest", presented by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), or Stop Islamization of America. A $10,000 reward was offered for the winning cartoon, which was selected from among 350 submissions. The prize was awarded to Bosch Fawstin, a former Muslim and a critic of Islam who submitted six drawings, with the text "You can't draw me!"/"That's why I draw you."[11] He was to collect an award of $12,500.[12][13][14]

Dutch politician Geert Wilders was the keynote speaker at the event.[15]

The event featured speeches by Pamela Geller, president of the AFDI, and Geert Wilders, a Dutch lawmaker known for his outspoken criticism of Islam. Congressmen Keith Ellison and André Carson, both Muslims,[16][17] had tried unsuccessfully to block Wilders from entering the United States.[18] Wilders is currently on an Al-Qaeda hit-list following the release of Fitna, a 2008 short film that he had written.[19] The event was motivated by the terrorist attack on the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo four months prior, and was the first of a planned annual contest.[14] At the time of the attack, the "First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest" exhibit was attended by approximately 200 people.[20]

The organizers of the event had paid over $10,000 to a total of forty off-duty police officers and private security guards.[4] The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a SWAT team, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were all ready[vague] in case of any incidents.[21] At the time, there was reportedly "no immediate credible threat" of an attack.[20]

Before the start of the event, ISIS had recently urged followers living in the U.S., Europe, and Australia who were unable travel to fight in Syria and Iraq to instead carry out jihad in the countries where they lived.[6][22]

American Freedom Defense Initiative

The AFDI was organized by Geller and Robert Spencer in 2010 to oppose the building of Park51, an Islamic center near the World Trade Center site.[23] The AFDI, which describes itself as a "human rights organization dedicated to free speech, religious liberty and individual rights", says "creeping jihad" is a problem in America.[24] The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) lists AFDI as an "anti-Muslim hate group".[25][26]

Commenting on the SPLC's classification of her organization as a hate group, Geller said in a CNN interview, "Who designated the SPLC as a legitimate authority? They are a radical leftist group who targets patriots, vets and even GOP presidential candidates. They have never named a jihadi group as a hate group." After the shooting occurred, she added that the shooting would not deter her group from hosting similar events in the future: "I will not abridge my freedoms so as not to offend savages ... Freedom of speech is under violent assault here."[27]

Location

The "First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest" event was hosted at the Curtis Culwell Center, rented from the Garland Independent School District. The center previously hosted a fundraiser in January called "Stand With the Prophet in Honor and Respect", which was organized to combat negative stereotypes of Islam.[28] Geller had spearheaded about 1,000 picketers at that event.[29][30]

Before the start of the "First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest", concerns were expressed by Garland citizens about the center hosting the event due to potential backlash and retaliation, a sentiment that had also been voiced prior to the "Stand With the Prophet in Honor and Respect" event. However, officials allowed both events to proceed as planned, since the school district was bound by a nondiscriminatory leasing policy. Garland ISD board president Rick Lambert said in January, "The Culwell Center is available for rental as long as you comply with the law. Because it is a public facility, the district is not allowed to discriminate based upon viewpoint."[30][31]

Attack

Minutes prior to the attack, a man, identified by police as one of the gunmen, posted a tweet with the hashtag #texasattack: "May Allah accept us as mujahideen." In his tweet, he also said he and an accomplice had pledged allegiance to "Amirul Mu'mineen", which terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank said probably refers to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. In addition, the user asked his readers on Twitter to follow an ISIS propagandist. After the shooting occurred, the aforementioned ISIS propagandist tweeted: "Allahu Akbar!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire."[10]

Just before the event was set to end at around 7:00 p.m.,[20] two men wearing body armor and armed with two AK-47 assault rifles and two handguns[1] pulled up in a vehicle beside a police car parked next to a barricade set up in front of the center. Seated inside the police car was a Garland traffic police officer and an unarmed Garland ISD security guard. The two gunmen got out of their vehicle and opened fire on the police car, shooting the Garland ISD security guard. The men were then shot and killed by the unidentified traffic police officer using his duty .45-caliber Glock pistol. SWAT officers also opened fire on the gunmen.[4][11][19][32][33][34] The Garland ISD officer, identified as 58-year-old Bruce Joiner, was shot in the ankle.[4][35] He was treated at a local hospital and confirmed to be released at 9:00 p.m.[34][36]

Authorities were worried that the suspects' car could contain an incendiary device; as a precaution, several nearby businesses were evacuated and a bomb squad was called to the scene. Police cordoned off a large area and at least three helicopters circled overhead.[37] An officer in SWAT gear took the stage toward the end of the event and told attendees that a shooting had occurred, stating that one officer and two suspects had been shot.[38] It was later confirmed that there were no explosives inside the vehicle.[39] After the attack, Phoenix police began searching the two assailants' apartment.[39]

Perpetrators

Elton Simpson (c. 1985 – May 3, 2015) and Nadir Hamid Soofi (c. 1981 – May 3, 2015), roommates living in an apartment in Phoenix, Arizona, were the assailants in the attack. Simpson had been convicted of a terror-related charge, and supported an ISIS propagandist.[10][40] Simpson was an employee at a dentist's office, while Soofi was running a carpet cleaning business.[41]

Elton Simpson

Elton Simpson
Born
Elton Simpson

c. 1985
Illinois, U.S.
DiedMay 3, 2015 (aged 30)
Garland, Texas, U.S.
Cause of deathGunshot wounds
NationalityAmerican
OccupationDental office employee

Simpson was born in Illinois and grew up in suburban Westmont.[42] He moved to Phoenix at a young age.[43] He converted to Islam while attending Washington High School. His lawyer described him as "particularly devout" and "entrenched in Islam", but said he didn't seem to be a threat to anyone.[42][44] Simpson was a longtime worshiper at the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix, starting in approximately 2005, but according to the mosque's president, he stopped showing up months prior to the attack.[21][45][46][47][48][49] He attended Yavapai College, a junior college in Prescott, Arizona.[50][51]

Simpson was the subject of an FBI investigation in 2007, during which it recorded him stating his intent to travel to Somalia and join fellow jihadists. He had attracted the FBI's attention in the previous year due to his ties to Hassan Abujihaad, a former United States Navy sailor arrested in Phoenix and convicted of terrorism-related charges; leaking the locations and weaknesses of Navy ships to a jihadist website.[45]

In May 2009, Simpson told an FBI informant, "I'm telling you, man, we can make it to the battlefield. It's time to roll."[45] He was also recording saying, "If you get shot, or you get killed, it's [heaven] straightaway... That's what we here for ... so why not take that route?"[45] In 2010, one day before Simpson was scheduled to travel to Somalia, he was arrested by federal agents after a four-year terror investigation.[51] The Islamic Community Center of Phoenix posted cash bond of $100,000 to have him released from custody.[52] Simpson was convicted of making a false statement involving international and domestic terrorism, and sentenced to three years of probation and a $600 fine in August 2011 after lying to a federal agent about his travel plans. His lenient sentence was the result of U.S. District Court Judge Mary H. Murguia not finding sufficient evidence to conclude that he planned to join a terrorist organization.[11][10][53][54] He was put on the U.S. federal No Fly List.[10] He had previously intended to travel with others to Syria to fight with ISIS, though his accomplices were arrested during simultaneous FBI raids in San Diego and Minneapolis.[55] Authorities had an open investigation targeting Simpson at the time of the attack.[51]

He was also in contact with Junaid Hussain, a British-born hacker and member of ISIS, and Muhammed Abdullahi Hassan, an Al-Shabaab recruiter and propagandist of Muslim extremism from Minnesota, via Twitter. Hussain was also the founder of a pro-ISIS hacker group called "CyberCaliphate", which was responsible for a cyber-attack on the United States Central Command's Twitter account in January 2015.[1][56][57] A week prior to the attack, Simpson mentioned the "First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest" event in a tweet sent to what is believed to be Hassan's Twitter account. Simpson then asked, "When will they ever learn?", and Hassan responded: "The brothers from the Charlie Hebdo attack did their part. It's time for brothers in the #US to do their part."[57]

Simpson was identified as the same user who posted a tweet with the hashtag #texasattack: "May Allah accept us as mujahideen."[10] The profile photo on #texasattack was of Salafi imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who had repeatedly called for violence against cartoonists who insulted the Muslim prophet Muhammad prior to being killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011 in Yemen.[58] Junaid Hussain was identified as the ISIS propagandist Simpson recommended his readers to follow in that same tweet.[57]

Nadir Soofi

Nadir Soofi
Born
Nadir Hamid Soofi

c. 1981
Dallas, Texas, U.S.
DiedMay 3, 2015 (aged 34)
Garland, Texas, U.S.
Cause of deathGunshot wounds
NationalityAmerican
OccupationBusiness owner

Soofi's father is Pakistani, and his mother, Sharon Soofi, is American.[10] According to his mother, he was born at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas and lived in Garland until age three.[59] The family then moved to Plano, Texas, and then Alabama.[60] His mother, who was raised Catholic, converted to Islam at the request of his father.[45][60] Soofi was also raised as a Muslim by his father.[41] When his parents divorced, he and his brother moved to Pakistan to live with their father and stepmother. During his time there in the 1990s, Soofi attended the International School of Islamabad, a private school in Islamabad, Pakistan, where he was said by friends to have been popular among his classmates.[10][40][50]

In 1998, after living in Pakistan for six years,[61] Soofi moved back to the U.S. to live with his mother in Utah.[10][41][62] The two later moved to Phoenix in the mid-2000s.[50][60] According to his friends in Pakistan, he had difficulties adjusting to the American culture upon moving to the U.S.[62] He took a pre-medical course at the University of Utah starting in the fall semester of 1998, but dropped out in the summer of 2003.[60][41][63] At one point, he also owned Cleopatra Bistro Pizza, a pizza and hot wings eatery that served halal food, though the business struggled and eventually closed down five months prior to the attack.[50][63]

Soofi was arrested and charged for more than twenty minor offenses, most of them traffic violations.[41][64] On June 2001, when he was twenty, he pleaded guilty to possession of alcohol by a minor. On March 2002, he pleaded guilty to alcohol-related reckless driving, followed by another guilty plea in June 2002 for driving on a suspended license. In 2003, he was charged for distributing a controlled substance and possessing drug paraphernalia, although the case was later dismissed. That same year on July, Soofi pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge. The case was also dismissed.[22][64]

He was survived by his parents and an eight-year-old son.[46][60][65][66] After the attack, his mother said she did not blame police for killing her son.[67]

ISIS claim of responsibility

In addition to the gunman's tweet pledging allegiance to ISIS, the jihadist group claimed responsibility for the attack, stating on its Al Bayan radio station that "two soldiers of the Caliphate executed an attack on an art exhibit in Garland, Texas.... This exhibit was portraying negative pictures of the Prophet Mohammed."[67] It marked the first time ISIS has taken credit for an attack in the mainland U.S.[6] ISIS promised to launch further attacks in the future.[68] There was initially no evidence that the terror group had contact with the perpetrators, though law enforcement groups are still investigating a possible link.[69] Some counterterrorism experts expressed doubts on the legitimacy of those claims, citing that ISIS had a history of claiming responsibility for attacks they actually had no involvement in.[22] One U.S. official said the attack was "certainly more than just inspiration" by ISIS.[69] A law enforcement official said the attack did not appear to be a clear-cut case of a lone wolf, nor a pure case of someone directed by others to act, but rather something in between the two extremes.[69] According to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, the shooting was inspired, but not directed, by ISIS.[70]

Reactions

Following the attack, Texas Governor Greg Abbott released a statement, calling the attack "senseless" and promising there was an investigation underway. He also issued his gratitude to the Garland police officers for their swift action against the assailants.[20] U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said that the attack "serves as a reminder that free and protected speech, no matter how offensive to some, never justifies violence of any sort. This attack also underscores the importance of close collaboration between federal, state and local authorities in our Nation's homeland security efforts, as well as public awareness and vigilance." Johnson urged American citizens to not "misdirect" their anger at Muslims.[11] Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn said the contest was an expression of free speech.[71] U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned the attack in a statement.[72]

Muslim organizations also reacted to the attack. The Council on American–Islamic Relations issued a statement condemning the attack and saying, "Bigoted speech can never be an excuse for violence."[11] Dr. Nasim Rehmatullah, National Vice President of the U.S. chapter of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, also said in a statement, "Violence is never an acceptable response to hate speech, no matter how inflammatory and uncivilized that speech is. While we do not yet know what motivated these shooters, we urge calm and defer to local, state, and federal authorities to peaceably and justly resolve this."[32]

In an interview with The New York Times, the editor of Charlie Hebdo, Gérard Biard, rejected "attempts by right-wing activists to exploit that attack for their own agendas ... We have nothing to do with Pamela Geller's work. When Islam or the Prophet Muhammad jump out of the news, we comment on it, we mock it, maybe. But we are not obsessed about it."[73]

Following the attack, ISIS supporters expressed their support online with postings on ISIS-affiliated websites.[74] Bosch Fawstin, the winner of the cartoon contest, has received numerous death threats and has gone into hiding.[75] In the wake of the attack, the Garland Independent School District announced it would begin reviewing its policy for hosting events at the Curtis Culwell Center.[76]

Criticism of Geller

In an interview with CNN, Geller denied that the event was intentionally provocative,[77] criticized the media for not defending the First Amendment to the United States Constitution,[77] and pointed out that other religions have been similarly offended but do not react violently.[77] Geller later told CNN that the shooting would not stop her and the AFDI from organizing similar events in the future. She said regarding the attack, "Freedom of speech is under violent assault here."[78] She also said that the shooting showed how "needed our event really was."[79]

On the day after the shooting, Donald Trump, appearing on Fox & Friends, questioned Geller's motives. He said, "It looks like she's just taunting everybody. What is she doing? Drawing Mohammed and it looks like she's actually taunting people. (...) You know, I'm one that believes in free speech, probably more than she does. But what's the purpose of this?" In response to Trump's remarks, Bill O'Reilly said in his program The O'Reilly Factor, "Mr. Trump is correct. By setting up a contest and awarding $10,000 for a depiction of the Prophet Mohammed, the American Freedom Defense Initiative spurred a violent attack. (...) Insulting a religion with more than a billion followers does not advance the cause of defeating the fanatical jihadists. It hurts the cause."[80][81]

Fox News' On The Record host Greta Van Susteren criticized Geller for putting police officers' lives in danger. She said, "It's one thing for someone to stand up for the First Amendment and put his own you-know-what on the line, but here, those insisting they were defending the First Amendment were knowingly putting officers' lives on the line — the police."[82]

Garland Mayor Douglas Athas said he wished Geller hadn't picked his town as the site for her event and explained, "Her actions put my police officers, my citizens and others at risk. Her program invited an incendiary reaction. She picked my community, which does not support in any shape, passion or form, her ideology. (...) But at the end of the day, we did our jobs, we protected her freedoms and her life."[83]

Depictions of Muhammad and blasphemy

See also: Depictions of Muhammad and Islam and blasphemy

Though images of Muhammad are not explicitly banned by the Quran itself, prominent Islamic views have long[when?] opposed human images, especially those of prophets. Such views have gained ground among certain militant Islamic groups.[84][85][86]

See also

References

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