How will Chattanooga mend its broken heart?
How will a city rocked to its core by something that should never have happened here – should never happen anywhere – heal?
These are questions we all have asked ourselves right after we whispered prayers for six broken families who lost loved ones in a bloody rampage here just over a week ago when Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, 24, of Hixson, unleashed a barrage of gunfire at two Chattanooga military facilities. First he drove a rented silver Mustang convertible in front of the Army recruiting center on Lee Highway and sprayed bullets into the window. Then he drove several miles to a Navy and Marine reserve center where he ran inside and began shooting. In a matter of minutes, four Marines were dead, and a sailor lay fatally wounded. Abdulazeez died during the ensuing gun battle with police. Another Marine and a Chattanooga police officer were injured.
Abdulazeez, 24, was a Kuwait-born, Chattanooga-raised Jordanian whose parents were of Palestinian descent. On Wednesday, the FBI called him a “homegrown violent extremist,” but said it is too early to say whether he was “radicalized” before the attacks. Meanwhile the shooter’s uncle in Jordan, with whom he recently spent several months, had been detained for questioning since the day after the attacks on July 16.
Forget the semantics involved in the terms “homegrown violent extremist,” “domestic terror” suspect or simply “mass-murder” suspect – the fact remains that we and our Chattanooga have been slapped, battered, critically wounded and left emotionally vulnerable. Our leaders have termed it heart broken. But that may be too kind.