WILMINGTON, NC – A U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant working in the nation’s capital lived a secret life as a “domestic terrorist” who aspired to mass murder and compiled a target list of prominent politicians and journalists, federal prosecutors allege in court papers.
Christopher Paul Hasson was arrested February 15th on drug and gun charges, but prosecutors said in a detention memo this week that he intended “to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country.”
He has espoused extremist views for years, the court papers say, and he read the manifesto of Anders Breivik, the white supremacist Norwegian terrorist who shot and killed 77 people in 2011.
From January 2017 to January 2019, “the defendant conducted online searches and made thousands of visits for pro-Russian, neo-fascist, and neo-Nazi literature,” the document says.
“I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth,” reads a draft email found on his computer. “I think a plague would be most successful but how do I acquire the needed/ Spanish flu, botulism, anthrax not sure yet but will find something.”
In another letter to himself found on his computer, court papers say, he says, “I am a long time White Nationalist, having been a skinhead 30 plus years ago before my time in the military.”
A search of his Silver Spring, Maryland, residence yielded 15 firearms and 1,000 rounds of ammunition, court documents say.
Read more: https://nbcnews.to/2E3wvY7
