Coast Guard Lieutenant Christopher Paul Hasson was arrested last week with a stockpile of weapons, including handguns, rifles, shotguns, semiautomatic weapons, and a variety of camouflage, tactical gear and other tools of mass destruction, along with massive amounts of the opioid Tramadol.
The first line of the arrest report is a leading indicator of how seriously the authorities took Hasson's threats. "The defendant intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country," prosecutors wrote.
A detention memo filed in the U.S. District Court in Maryland alleges that Christopher Paul Hasson called for “focused violence” to “establish a white homeland” and that he wanted to “kill almost every last person on earth.” The Washington Post reports that Hasson had created a spreadsheet of targets, including a litany of politicians and journalists. He had also conducted a variety of online searches for phrases such as:
- “best place in dc to see congress people”
- “are supreme court justices protected"
- “what if trump illegally impeached”
- “where in dc to congress live”
- “civil war if trump impeached”
Hasson was arrested on weapons charges last Friday, but won't appear in court until Thursday on new charges based on information that was probably gathered after his arrest. One of his emails said “please send me your violence that I may unleash it onto their heads" and “Guide my hate to make a lasting impression on this world.”
According to prosecutors, Hasson was a student of Anders Breivik, the white supremacist who slaughtered 77 people in Norway.
The Washington Post reports that prior to working for the Coast Guard, Hasson was in the Marine Corps from 1988 to 1993 and the Army National Guard in the mid-90's.
Some of the people Hasson identified on his spreadsheet included Nancy Pelosi, Joe Scarborough, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Richard Blumenthal as well as Chris Cuomo, Ari Melber and Van Jones, among others.
Here is the question: Who radicalized him and where? Maybe we ought to take care of our terrorists here before worrying about the ones overseas.
