SEATTLE — Two ex-convicts planned an attack on a Seattle military recruiting station hoping that it would get attention from the media, authorities say, and even imagined the headlines: “Three Muslim Males Walk Into MEPS Building, Seattle, Washington, And Gun Down Everybody.”
Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, also known as Joseph Anthony Davis, 33, of Seattle, was arrested Wednesday when he and another man showed up at a warehouse garage to pick up machine guns they planned to use in the attack, authorities said Thursday. The weapons had been rendered inoperable by federal agents and posed no threat to the public.
Authorities learned of the plot this month when a third person recruited to participate alerted Seattle police, according to court documents. Agents set up the sting through the confidential informant, who had known Abdul-Latif for years.
Abdul-Latif had little knowledge of weapons but served briefly in the Navy in the mid-1990s and was familiar with recruiting stations like the one they targeted, a criminal complaint said.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Seattle said he and his alleged accomplice, Walli Mujahidh, planned to attack Joint Base Lewis-McChord but later changed targets.
“If we can get control of the building and we can hold it for a while, then we’ll get the local news down there, the media down there, you know what I’m saying,” Abdul-Latif was quoted in a court document as saying. “It’s a confined space, not a lot of people carrying weapons, and we’d have an advantage.”
Authorities said the two planned to use machine guns and grenades in the attack. In audio and video recordings, they discussed the plot, including strategies to time their attack on military recruits, such as by tossing grenades in the cafeteria, the complaint said.
Abdul-Latif was recorded in conversations with the informant where he spoke admiringly of the 2009 massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, in which 13 died.
Court-appointed lawyers for the men declined to comment.
