Killeen - Greg Ebert just didn't like the way the guy acted, his rude demeanor as he shopped in the gun store.His purchase of an unusually large amount of smokeless gunpowder – six cans of varieties that burn both fast and slow, a very volatile combination if mixed – set off alarm bells, too.
Add in the fact that the guy arrived in and left by taxi; it just didn't add up to good news.
When he paid for his purchases, a magazine for a semiautomatic pistol, three boxes of shotgun shells and the large quantity of gunpowder, he asked, “What's smokeless powder?”
Mr. Ebert thought, “If you don't know, then why are you buying it?”
As an ex-Marine and an ex-cop, the whole thing just bothered Mr. Ebert, so he contacted an acquaintance who still works at the Killeen Police Department. Through the taxi company, the police tracked the guy to an area motel, where they found out that Pfc Naser Jason Abdo is wanted on a warrant for child pornography out of the Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, Provost Marshal's Office.
He is AWOL.
A search of his room yielded a bomb in a back pack, “suspicious materials” the police declined to identify.
Was he plotting an attack on Ft. Hood or its civilian surroundings? Police aren't saying. They expect a U.S. Magistrate in Waco will charge him with possession of bomb making materials when U.S. Marshals transport him to the Federal Court House.
Guns Galore is the gun shop where Major Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged with carrying out a deadly attack on unarmed GI's at the Soldier Readiness Center in November, 2009, bought his handgun and ammunition. Another patron shot himself at the store earlier this month.
Killeen Chief of Police Dennis Baldwin told newsmen the character of his briefing could have been a lot different had it not been for the quick thinking of the man behind the counter at the gun store and an alert staff of police investigators.
When he paid for his purchases, a magazine for a semiautomatic pistol, three boxes of shotgun shells and the large quantity of gunpowder, he asked, “What's smokeless powder?”
Mr. Ebert thought, “If you don't know, then why are you buying it?”
As an ex-Marine and an ex-cop, the whole thing just bothered Mr. Ebert, so he contacted an acquaintance who still works at the Killeen Police Department. Through the taxi company, the police tracked the guy to an area motel, where they found out that Pfc Naser Jason Abdo is wanted on a warrant for child pornography out of the Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, Provost Marshal's Office.
He is AWOL.
A search of his room yielded a bomb in a back pack, “suspicious materials” the police declined to identify.
Was he plotting an attack on Ft. Hood or its civilian surroundings? Police aren't saying. They expect a U.S. Magistrate in Waco will charge him with possession of bomb making materials when U.S. Marshals transport him to the Federal Court House.
Guns Galore is the gun shop where Major Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged with carrying out a deadly attack on unarmed GI's at the Soldier Readiness Center in November, 2009, bought his handgun and ammunition. Another patron shot himself at the store earlier this month.
Killeen Chief of Police Dennis Baldwin told newsmen the character of his briefing could have been a lot different had it not been for the quick thinking of the man behind the counter at the gun store and an alert staff of police investigators.
Thank heaven for cops and Marines.
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