CHATTANOOGA, Tenn — A few months before he killed five U.S. service members in a shooting rampage here, the 24-year-old gunman, who often joked that he was just an “Arabian redneck,” was smoking marijuana with friends.
It was getting late and Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez had work the next morning at his new job some two hours away in Franklin, said a close friend who was with him that night and spent several hours with him in the days leading up to the shooting.
Abdulazeez dropped off a couple of his friends at their homes on the night in April, snorted some crushed caffeine pills and started to drive.
A little after 2 a.m., Abdulazeez was arrested for driving under the influence, according to court papers, an incident sharply at odds with blog posts in which he portrayed himself as a devout Muslim and his existence in this world a “prison of monotony and routine.”
The portrait emerging of Abdulazeez isn’t one of a committed Muslim or vengeful jihadist, but rather an aimless young man who came from a troubled home and struggled to hold down a job after college, said friends and law enforcement officials.
In a statement, his family said Abdulazeez’s mental illness had contributed to the crime. “For many years, our son suffered from depression. It grieves us beyond belief to know that his pain found its expression in this heinous act of violence,” the statement said.
Abdulazeez had been in and out of treatment for his depression and frequently stopped taking his medication, despite his parents’ pleas for him to continue, said a person close to the family.
Abdulazeez smoked pot occasionally and then would feel guilty for violating his faith and beat himself up for it, said the close friend who has known Abdulazeez for 15 years and was recently questioned by the FBI. The friend, also a Muslim, spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because he is concerned for his family’s privacy.
The friend said Abdulazeez was especially ashamed of his DUI arrest, which led to his mugshot being posted online and in Just Busted, a newspaper sold at local gas stations.
Abdulazeez’s friends said he liked to shoot guns, drive four-wheelers through the mud and hike in the mountains. Within the past year, he bought two assault rifles — an AK-74 and an AR-15 — and a Saiga 12 pistol-grip shotgun from an online weapons site. Abdulazeez and his friends would drive out to the Prentice Cooper State Forest, where they would blast away at the state park’s gun range.
None of his friends thought twice about his decision to purchase military-style assault weapons.
Abdulazeez’s father was angry when he spotted one of the assault rifles in their home, and Abdulazeez hid other guns from him.
The friend and Abdulazeez — along with two other young Muslim men — spent hundreds of hours together over the past four years, including the weeks and months leading up to the violent attack.
Abdulazeez also struggled to find work after he graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with an engineering degree.
He briefly landed a job at a nuclear power plant in Ohio but was dismissed when he failed a background check. He told friends he had failed the company’s drug test after smoking marijuana.
