Little Rock recruiting office shooting

Attack Bledsoe drove by the Little Rock U.S. Army recruiting center at 9112 North Rodney Parham Road near Reservoir Road in a black 2003 Ford Explorer Sport Trac at 10:19 a.m. on June 1, 2009. Private William Andrew "Andy" Long, 23, of Conway, Arkansas, and Private Quinton I. Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville, Arkansas, were standing outside the recruiting center in uniform, smoking cigarettes. The two victims had completed basic training two weeks prior, and volunteered to work as recruiters, which was not their regular assignment. Bledsoe approached them in his vehicle, stopped, and shot them with an SKS rifle. A witness, Lance P. Luplow, heard approximately seven loud bangs and then saw a black truck with tinted windows speeding away, with its tailgate down spilling bottles of water onto the street. Luplow ran to Long, who had been shot several times and appeared to be dead. Ezeagwula was crawling to the door, holding a bloodied ear. Ezeagwula exclaimed: "Tell me this isn't real, tell me this isn't real". Other soldiers came to perform first aid and attempted CPR on Long. Long was dead upon arrival at a hospital. Ezeagwula, who was shot in his back, head, and buttocks, was rushed into surgery at Baptist Hospital in critical condition. In 2015, the Purple Heart was awarded to those who were shot. Attempted escape Bledsoe drove away from the scene, hoping to reach Memphis, Tennessee, where he intended to switch cars. With police in pursuit, Bledsoe got confused in a construction zone and was captured, eight miles from the recruiting center, near the intersection of Interstate 30 and Interstate 630 in Little Rock. He surrendered to Little Rock police officers without incident. He was wearing an ammunition belt when he exited his vehicle. He said: "It's a war going on against Muslims, and that is why I did it". Motive and other targets Bledsoe later said he intentionally killed the soldiers, and would have killed more people if more had been there. Law enforcement officials said Bledsoe had researched various targets around the United States, including military bases, government facilities, and synagogues. ==Perpetrator==

The shooter, Carlos Leon Bledsoe, was born on July 9, 1985, in Memphis, Tennessee, to Melvin Bledsoe, a businessman and owner of Blues City Tours in Memphis, TN and his wife Linda. He has a sister Monica. Raised as a Baptist and considered a "sunny child", Bledsoe converted to Islam in 2004 at Masjid As-Salam, a Memphis mosque. He has said "I've loved jihad ever since I became Muslim." He became more devout and prayed regularly at the Islamic Center of Nashville, and wore Arab-style clothing. By 2007 he was a deeply religious Muslim and had legally changed his name to Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad. Muhammad was investigated by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force when he returned. The Task Force also investigated the suspect's visit to Columbus, Ohio; authorities had monitored some Somali Americans traveling from there to Somalia to "wage jihad." According to Muhammed's seven handwritten letters from May to October 2010, which he sent to The Commercial Appeal newspaper, he described his planning and activities related to his June 2009 attack. He claimed to have bought several used guns as a way to avoid scrutiny, stockpiled ammunition, practiced target shooting, and bought a .22-caliber rifle at Walmart to determine whether he was being watched. In an interview, Muhammad said his jihad started in Little Rock. He then drove to Nashville and threw a Molotov cocktail at an orthodox rabbi's house, but the device failed to detonate. He drove to an Army recruiting center in Florence, Kentucky, because it was close to the highway and near the Ohio border. But the center was closed. Mention in Congressional hearings In a March 2011 Congressional hearing addressing the issue of domestic radicalization of Muslims, Muhammad's father spoke of his son's descent into extremism. Bledsoe described his son's religious conversion and travels to Yemen, where he had been "trained and programmed" to kill. Bledsoe said, "Our children are in danger," and that, "It seems to me that Americans are sitting around doing nothing about radical extremists. This is a big elephant in the room." On an earlier occasion, Bledsoe had said, "If it can happen to my son, it can happen to anyone's son." ==Legal proceedings==

Bledsoe was charged by the state of Arkansas with capital murder, attempted capital murder, and 10 counts of unlawful discharge of a weapon. That same month, in a two-page, handwritten letter to the judge in his case, Bledsoe changed his plea to guilty. He claimed to be a "soldier in Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" (AQAP), and described the recruiting office shooting as a "Jihadi attack." He said he was part of Abu Basir's Army, a reference to Naser Abdel-Karim al-Wahishi, the AQAP leader in Yemen. Bledsoe affirmed that his sanity was intact, and that he was acting of his own volition in changing his plea. At the time the County Prosecutor Jegley said that he was still intending to go to trial; he would have had to recommend that Muhammed's plea be accepted for the court to do so. He said he was not going to have the defendant determine the course of the trial. Bledsoe wrote at the time, "I wasn't insane or post-traumatic, nor was I forced to do this Act. The attack was justified according to Islamic Laws and the Islamic Religion. Jihad—to fight those who wage war on Islam and Muslims." Bledsoe did not discuss his change in plea with his lawyers ahead of time. Discussing his claim of affiliation with the Al-Qaeda group in Yemen led by al-Awlaki (killed in September 2011) and al-Wahishi, he wrote in his letters of May to October 2010: Far as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ... yes, I'm affiliated with them. ... Our goal is to rid the Islamic world of idols and idolaters, paganism and pagans, infidelity and infidels, hypocrisy and hypocrites, apostasy and apostates, democracy and democrats, and relaunch the Islamic caliphate ... and to establish Islamic law (Shari'ah). Bledsoe's father Melvin Bledsoe said he doubted whether his son had any such ties. Bledsoe described his son as "unable to process reality" and being so "brainwashed" that he wanted to be convicted of terrorism and executed, thus becoming a martyr. ==Charges and trial==

The lead prosecutor for Pulaski County, Arkansas, believed Bledsoe acted alone, as did other law enforcement officials: "If you strip away what he says, self-serving or not, it's just an awful killing, it's like a lot of other killings we have." Both the prosecutor and Bledsoe's lawyers wanted to go to trial, which started in 2011. His lawyers defended him on the grounds that he suffered "a delusional disorder." During the trial, Bledsoe changed his plea to guilty. On July 25, 2011, the judge sentenced Muhammed to life in prison without the possibility of parole. ==Significance==

The suspect was noted in early press accounts as among recent Muslim converts planning or carrying out violent attacks that security experts called a disturbing new domestic trend. The attack came less than two weeks after a foiled bomb plot on two synagogues in Riverdale, New York, led by four men with records of incarceration, drug abuse and mental illness. the New York Times reported that their religious affiliation was uncertain, and they had never served together in prison. Two had registered as Baptist and one as Catholic in earlier prison terms; one said he had converted to Islam and another listed no religion. They had no ties to any international terrorist organization. == Parents for Peace ==

In 2015, Melvin Bledsoe and his daughter Monica Holley established the non-profit Parents for Peace Initially established primarily as a support group, the focus of Parents for Peace moved to policy and prevention after there had been growing extremist violence within a couple of years. Parents for Peace is based in Boston and led by psychotherapist Myrieme Churchill, with Kevin Lambert as program director. Its helpline has taken calls from families concerned about loved ones whose radicalization covers a variety of ideologies, including white supremacy, jihadism, eco-terrorism, and Antifa. In 2023, the number of calls (over 700) increased by nearly 60 percent compared with 2022.The main aim of the organization is to help families guide their loved one away from extremism by examining any underlying issues and also to find other significance in their lives outside of the ideology they're following, which can take a long time. Parents for Peace also runs support groups for families to talk about their experiences. ==See also==