North Dakota law enforcement with shared chilling new details Friday indicating the suspect in the killing of a Fargo police officer last week may have been plotting a much larger-scale terror attack.
Mohamed Barakat was killed at the scene after he shot and killed Officer Jake Wallin and critically injured two others. On the day of the attack, Barakat loaded his car with guns, a homemade grenade, gasoline canisters and more than 1,800 rounds of ammunition, authorities said.
Fargo Police Chief Dave Zibolski says it was obvious Barakat's intentions were to cause significant harm.
"It was clear this individual was a calculated, insidious, murderous individual," says Zibolski. "Dead set on hurting, killing as many people as possible. He had the intent, he had the commitment, he had the means."
Federal and state officials say a search of Barakat's residence turned up multiple guns and ammunition, and a search of his computer showed he was researching mass casualty events.
"In the days leading up to there he's looking specifically, to the region, for large crowd events, and based on the time and the direction where he was going, he was either likely to take a right when he got to Main Avenue, going downtown, taking a left to Main Avenue and going out to the fairgrounds," says North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley. "Those are the two large events going on at that time."
Barakat, 37, was a Syrian national who became a U.S. citizen in 2019. They say while he was Muslim, his faith was not a factor in the case and he had no ties to the Muslim community.
He was apparently driven by hatred and wanting to kill, and didn't seem to be particular about which group or individual he might target, state Attorney General Drew Wrigley said at a news conference Friday.
About 2 miles (3 kilometers) from his home, he came across a fender bender and pulled over to watch from his parked vehicle, authorities said. With police and firefighters busy helping, Barakat watched for several minutes until the officers walked by his vehicle, when he lifted a.223-caliber rifle out of his car window and began firing, Wrigley said.
The rifle had a “binary trigger” that allowed it to fire so rapidly that it sounded like an automatic weapon, the attorney general said. The three officers who were shot had no time to react and fell in rapid succession. He also fired on a woman, Karlee Koswick, who had been involved in the fender bender as she was trying to get away, he said.
The fourth officer at the scene, Zach Robinson, engaged Barakat in a shootout, which ended with Robinson shooting and killing Barakat as bystanders crouched nearby.
Wrigley said he believes the violence could have been the beginning of a bigger attack, as the Downtown Fargo Street Fair and the Red River Valley Fair were underway.
A motive is still unclear.
Officer Jake Wallin's funeral is Saturday in Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. Wallin was from the St. Michael-Albertville area before becoming a police officer in Fargo. He had been on the job only a few months before being shot last week.
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