NASHVILLE – State officials hope to have Tennessee National Guard recruiters back in their storefront offices in Chattanooga and across the state next week as final touches on security upgrades are made in response to the July 16 deadly attack.
“We’re ready to go back to business,” state Adj. Gen. Max Haston said, noting National Guard recruiters have been working out of armories since July.
The temporary relocation of the seven offices, many in suburban strip malls, was prompted by 24-year-old Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez’s Chattanooga shooting rampage. Abdulazeez first shot at a U.S. military recruiting office, located next door to a state National Guard office in a Lee Highway strip mall.
The gunman then drove to the U.S. Naval Reserve Center on Amnicola Highway, where he killed four Marines and fatally injured a Navy petty officer before he was shot to death during a confrontation with Chattanooga police.
Lisa Camp stands in the rain and holds up a cross in front of the Armed Forces Career Center on Lee Highway on Sunday, July 19, 2015, in Chattanooga, Tenn. A Thursday terrorist attack at this location and the U.S. Naval and Marine Reserve Center on Amnicola Highway killed four Marines and one member of the U.S. Navy. The shootings prompted a national discussion about U.S. and National Guard security on American soil in an age of worldwide extremism. Federal law enforcement officials have balked at calling Abdulazeez a terrorist, instead referring to him as a “violent homegrown extremist.” But Vice President Joe Biden called him a “perverted jihadist” during a Chattanooga memorial service.