The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is begging the Department of Justice to dismiss a case in which the FBI was named as an accomplice to a terrorist attack. The 2015 shooting in Garland Texas, at the “Draw Muhammad” event drew a festive crowd, but also two Islamic radicals – encouraged and supported by the FBI– were nearly able to kill all those in attendance.
The attack was one of the very first in which ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack within the US. Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi planned an attack on the site, driving to Garland with six guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition. The attackers had opened fire as they were stopped at a nearby check post where a security guard, Bruce Joiner, was shot in the leg. The attackers were killed just yards from the venue before the crazed Muslims could act out the tenants of their Islamic faith.
Bruce Joiner, the Security guard, went on to file a lawsuit last October, blaming the FBI for his injuries. He says that the FBI, “solicited, encouraged, directed and aided members of ISIS in planning and carrying out the May 3 attack,” and is demanding over $8 million in damages.
The Court filings from the Thursday’s hearing are now confirming that an undercover FBI agent was also present in a separate car right behind the attackers when they had opened fire and that the agents, “were dressed in Middle Eastern attire and police almost killed him, but he saved his life by claiming to be an FBI agent.”
The lawyers with the Justice Department went on to ask for a dismissal of the case, saying that the FBI is immune from any liability under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
The origins of this attack stretched all the way to Paris, France, in January of the year 2015 when these radicalized Islamists killed almost 12 people at the offices of the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, for their depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in their latest issue.
Just a few weeks after the Charlie Hebdo attack, an Islamic group went on to hold a conference at the Culwell Center in Garland, which was then titled as “Stand with the Prophet in Honor and Respect.”
As a counter to the Islamic conference, the free speech advocate, and Anti-Sharia Activist, Pamela Gellar went on to organize the “First Annual Muhamed (sic) Art Exhibit and Contest,” to be held on the same venue for May of 2015.
Simpson and Soofi were the part of a small cell of the radical Islamists present in the Phoenix area, which the FBI had been constantly monitoring. An undercover agent, who was also identified in the Thursday’s filings only as “UCE-1,” had infiltrated the group after some time and had been in constant communication with Simpson.
Joiner’s attorney, Trenton Roberts, is of opinion that his client has sued in an effort to get to the bottom of the FBI’s involvement in the attack.
Roberts further say that there are only two possible explanations of what had happened that day, he said, “It seems like it had to have been one or the other. Just a complete botched operation where they [the FBI] don’t want the attack to actually take place, or, it’s something where they need the attack to take place in order for this guy [the agent] to advance in the world of ISIS.”
“And that’s really what I think. I think that they thought, ‘he’s undercover and in order to advance, he needed to get pictures or video of this attack,’ and then that would bolster his street cred within ISIS,” Roberts said.
