An Arizona man was arrested earlier this week for alleged ties to the Islamic State group and a plan to target midnight Masses in Phoenix.
Derrick Thompson, 30, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with one felony count of participating in a criminal syndicate, one charge of assisting a criminal syndicate and one felony count of misconduct involving weapons. Court documents released Thursday say he has been an “avowed jihadist” since July 2014.
“From the period of July 2014 to the present Derrick Thompson was involved in communications and activity that show material support for the Islamic State Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS/IS),” court documents said, a local CBS affiliate reported Thursday. “Specifically, on our about January 26, 2015, Thompson attempted to obtain a handgun from a seller on backpage.com.”
The suspect’s attempts to obtain the handgun failed due to a prior felony conviction.
“The search history from his Google accounts include numerous contacts with ISIL websites, and a post to his Google Plus account in October 2016 stating, ’Right, we need to get down with this ISIS s-t.’ His Google account has been used as recently as October 2016 to search for midnight mass,” the court documents continued.
Mr. Thompson also goes by the alias Abu Talib al-Ameriki, court documents show.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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