Heroic actions of service members in Chattanooga hailed



CHATTANOOGA -- A military official says several troops "ran back into the fight" after getting their colleagues to safety during an  attack in Chattanooga that left four Marines and a sailor dead.

Maj. Gen. Paul W. Brier, commanding general of the 4th Marine Division, said during a news conference Wednesday in Chattanooga that there were 20 Marines and two Navy corpsman inspecting equipment at a joint Marine-Navy facility when the  attack happened on Thursday.

Brier says the troops "reacted the way you would expect" during an attack, rapidly going room to room to get others to safety. They had just returned from a training exercise in California.


He says once they got to safety, several ran back into the fight. Brier would not provide further details about what happened.

The gunman,  Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, died after a gunfight with police.

The FBI says a military service member opened fire on the Chattanooga gunman after he crashed through the gates of a military facility there.

Ed Reinhold, the FBI's special agent in charge in Knoxville, said during a news conference Wednesday that a service member fired at the shooter after he crashed his rented, silver Mustang convertible through the gates of a joint Marine-Navy facility.

Reinhold says the gunman went inside the building and shot a service member. He then made his way through the building and continued shooting. Abdulazeez went out the back, and then shot and killed two more people before Chattanooga police opened fire on him.

The FBI says two weapons recovered at the scene of the shooting did not belong to the gunman.

Reinhold said that at least one service member opened fire on the gunman.

Abdulazeez had three guns; two other guns recovered at the scene belonged to service members. When asked if anyone was hit by friendly fire, Reinhold said preliminary reports indicated the four Marines and one sailor killed all were hit by bullets from the same gun.

The FBI says it is treating the Chattanooga gunman as a "homegrown violent extremist" and that it is too early to determine if he had been radicalized.

Reinhold said that investigators were still looking into whether Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez had been radicalized.

Reinhold also said authorities believe Abdulazeez acted alone, without the assistance of anyone else.

Read more at: CBS

The commander of the Naval Reserve station there returned fire with a Glock. They're trying to decide wherther or not to reprimand him. I'd say it's fire mission time.

I'm with you brother.....Been banging the drum for the good folks here to support those we lost and those that are serving by calling, emailing, writing and/or visiting the local office of their federally elected officials to respectfully voice their opinion on this matter!

Working together...We will prevail!

Who writes this junk? If I was pushing out articles of this caliber, I would claim we have our interns do this crap.

Well considering it came from CBS....Probably a summer intern.

What BS...but I've seen it before:  what some would consider heroic others consider reckless and/or against regulation.