Two days after two gunmen opened fire on law enforcement officers outside of a Muhammed cartoon contest in Texas, little is known about the two suspects killed during the attack.
News reports have identified the two suspects as Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi of Phoenix, Arizona, but law enforcement authorities have not officially acknowledged the identities of the gunmen.
Some news reports have said the men were roommates, others have said that they merely lived in the same apartment complex in Phoenix and attended the same mosque. Simpson had previously been investigated by the FBI for potential connections to jihadist terrorism, but Soofi did not seem to show signs of radicalization or violence.
Neither suspect had a particularly robust online presence, and with little information from officials about the suspects, the few fragments from family members and court documents paint an incomplete picture of the gunmen who carried out the attack.
In interviews since the attack, family and neighbors seemed surprised that Simpson and Soofi had carried out such an attack.
Usama Shami, the president of Islamic Community Center in Phoenix, where both men attended services, said he was surprised by their actions on Sunday.
“They didn’t show any signs of radicalization or any signs of even thinking about those things in that manner,” Shami, told CNN. “So when that happens, it just shocks you. ‘How good did you know these people?’ That’s the question that people ask themselves.”
Elton Simpson
Simpson was born in Illinois and moved to Phoenix with his family at a young age, according to ABC 7 Chicago.
Shami, the president of Simpson’s mosque, told the New York Times that Simpson converted to Islam in high school and took the name Ibrahim.
Simpson played basketball for Yavapai College in Prescott, Ariz., in 2002 and 2003, according to The Daily Courier. More recently, he played basketball with teens at his mosque in Arizona.
The FBI began investigating Simpson in 2006 after he was linked to a man convicted of terrorism charges, according to the Associated Press. After the FBI recorded conversations between Simpson and an FBI informant, they arrested Simpson in 2010. The FBI charged that Simpson had plans to travel to Somalia to “for the purpose of engaging in violent jihad,” according to the New York Times.
Simpson was convicted in 2011 for lying to a federal officer about his plans to travel to Somalia and sentenced to three years probation. The judge in the case ruled that the FBI did not have enough evidence to prove that Simpson had plans to engage in terrorism.
Shami told the New York Times that after the conviction, Simpson’s demeanor changed slightly.
“There were no flashes of anger or radicalization, just an absence of happiness,” Shami said.
Kristina Sitton, Simpson’s lawyer in 2010, described Simpson as “devout” and “harmless” in interviews on Monday.
“He never struck me as someone who would do this sort of thing,” she told ABC News. “I’ve seen some pretty bad guys and he seemed pretty normal.”
The FBI opened another investigation into Simpson over the past few months after he referenced the Islamic State on social media. Law enforcement officials have reportedly linked Simpson to a tweet sent just before the shooting that mentioned a “Texas attack.”
Shami said that Simpson had stopped coming to the mosque within the past two to three months, according to the Associated Press.
The Simpson family on Monday denounced the attack in Texas.
“We are sure many people in this country are curious to know if we had any idea of Elton’s plans,” the family said in a statement to the Associated Press. “To that we say, without question, we did not.”
Simpson’s father told ABC News that he hadn’t spoken to his son in a few weeks and that the two “had some very serious differences.”
Nadir Soofi
Soofi was born in Dallas and for three years lived in Garland, Texas, the city in which the attack took place, according to the Dallas Morning News.
His mother, Sharon Soofi, told the Dallas Morning News that he was religious but did not show signs of radicalization.
“He was raised in a normal American fashion,” she said. “Yes, he was very politically involved with the Middle East. Just aware of what’s going on. I don’t know if something snapped or if Elton Simpson was just working on him.”
She said that after a few years in Texas, Nadir and his family moved to Pakistan for a six years years. Nadir then returned to the U.S. and attended the University of Utah in 1998. He left the university in 2003 without a degree, a spokesman for the school told the Dallas Morning News.
According to the Dallas Morning News, Nadir Soofi used to own a pizza place in Phoenix and shared interest in a carpet cleaning business along with Simpson.
It’s not clear when authorities will release more information about the two men’s activities leading up to Sunday evening’s attack, or their suspected motives.
Sounds like Simpson ended up with a pretty solid case of depression – probably because he realized he screwed up his life. The fact that being a schmuck was what screwed him up likely didn’t occur to him. He probably saw it as everyone else’s fault.