FIRST, there was Ralph DeLeon, a 26-year old Filipino-American who received a 25-year prison sentence after a jury found him guilty of three terrorism related charges last fall.
Now, Balitang America Correspondent Steve Angeles reported about the arrest last Friday, June 19 of another Fil-Am, 19-year-old Justin Nojan Sullivan of Morganton, NC, for allegedly plotting an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack intended to massacre 1,000 Americans in a theater or a club.
Justin’s mother is Filipina, but he lives with his stepmom and father, who called 911 last April because of his son’s disturbing behavior.
We aired on Balitang America the video footage of Justin being arrested while the audio of the 911 call was being played.
The father could be heard frantically telling the operator that his son was destroying Buddha figurines and had doused their religious objects with gasoline.
“We are scared to leave the house,” the father told the operator, and Sullivan could he heard in the background asking, “Why are you trying to say I’m a terrorist?”
Sullivan’s first court appearance was last Monday, June 22 and his parents reportedly were shocked by the allegations in a criminal complaint, which revealed that in addition to planning an attack that would wipe out hundreds of people, Sullivan allegedly also wanted someone to kill his parents.
Because of the 911 call made by Sullivan’s father, the FBI put Justin under surveillance. An undercover operative made contact with Sullivan, who reportedly told him, “I liked IS from the beginning, then I started thinking about death and stuff so I became a Muslim.”
The FBI said Sullivan talked about buying an assault rifle from a gun show in North Carolina, which he planned to use to shoot people last weekend “because his parents would be out of town at the time.”
He reportedly did not buy a rifle before he was arrested Friday but allegedly planned to purchase one at the Hickory Gun Show last weekend.
A criminal complaint says Sullivan told the undercover agent he might want to kill as many as 1,000 people, by setting off a big vehicle bomb or using chemical weapons.
He also reportedly talked about coating bullets with cyanide and robbing banks, the feds say.
Sullivan reportedly confessed to plotting an attack, telling authorities that he looked for possible targets in the online Yellow Pages and had even asked the undercover agent to kill his parents, according to a criminal complaint.
It was a good thing Sullivan’s father was proactive in his response to what he observed to be a big difference in his son’s behavior. It sure saved their lives, and the lives of about a thousand people if his son’s plan materialized.
We as parents should learn from this and do whatever it takes to stop a crime from happening, even if it may mean tipping off authorities about our own family members’ sinister plans or bizarre behaviors.
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
