The father of Elton Simpson, one of the men suspected of opening fire Sunday on a Muhammed cartoon contest near Dallas, said that he had not spoken to his son in weeks because the two “had some very serious differences.”
“We are Americans and we believe in America,” Dunston Simpson told ABC News. “What my son did reflects very badly on my family.”
Elton Simpson was reportedly one of two men who were killed after they opened fire outside an event held by an anti-Muslim group in Garland, Texas. FBI agents on Monday searched the Phoenix apartment where Simpson is believed to have lived with the second suspected gunman, Nadir Soofi.
Dunston Simpson told ABC News that his son worked at a dentist’s office but told his father he was “on vacation” for the past few weeks. Simpson said that he spoke to his son about three weeks ago but “had not much to talk about, because we had some very serious differences.”
He added that his son was “always a good kid.”
Kristina Sitton, a lawyer who represented Elton Simpson in a 2010 case, told ABC that he seemed “harmless.” Sitton said that Simpson was on the FBI’s no-fly list and that the FBI wanted him to cooperate with them.
