At 6:15 AM on Thursday morning, a man in a vehicle approached the front gate of the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas, and opened fire, hitting a female sailor in her protective vest, inflicting non-life threatening injuries. The suspect then drove towards the entrance but a sailor guarding the gate succeeded in raising a barrier, preventing the suspect from getting onto the base. The suspect crashed into the gate and exited his vehicle, opening fire. The gunman was then shot and killed by a security guard, the FBI said. One member of the naval security forces was injured but was in “good condition,” the U.S. Navy said. It wasn’t immediately clear if the injured person was also the person who neutralized the shooter.
There was an initial concern that the suspect may have an explosive device, but Navy experts swept the area and the car and found nothing.
The suspect has been tentatively identified as 20-year-old Adam Alsahli of Corpus Christi. A preliminary law enforcement investigation into the shooter has identified him as a US resident who was originally born in Syria. His social media contained many posts relating to Islamic theology. A post shared on his Facebook page from 2017 read, “Where are the Muslims?! Where is the Islamic world of what is intended for Jerusalem?! Where is the Islamic nation extended in the mashreb (NW Africa) and Moroccan?! Why not the nation?! Why not say no?! Our nation can’t silence on this injustice!!”
FBI agent Leah Greves told Navy Times that the investigation is “fluid and evolving,” warning that there may be “a potential second related person of interest at large in the community.” Greeves said in a Thursday afternoon briefing that the agency believed the incident was motivated by terrorism, and they were looking for a second person of interest.
The warning was first announced via Facebook.
One hour later, the announcement was made that the emergency was over.
The shooting is the third such incident on a Navy base in the past six months and the second that was attributed to terrorism. A Saudi flight student at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, shot and killed three sailors on the base in December. This week, authorities released information connecting that shooting with Al Qaeda.
In the same month, a sailor opened fire at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, Hawaii, killing two Defense Department workers and wounding a third before taking his own life. This shooting did not seem to be terrorist-related.