The four marines killed in a shooting rampage on a military base in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the United States (U.S.) were identified on Friday by local officials and various media outlets.
The mayor’s office in Springfield, Massachusetts, said Sergeant Thomas Sullivan, who grew up in the city, was among the marines killed in Thursday’s attack.
Mayor Dominic Sarno said in a statement that Sullivan’s death was “a tragic loss not just for the Springfield community but for our entire nation”.
“Sergeant Sullivan dedicated his life in brave service to his country and to see it end under such tragic circumstances is heartbreaking,” the statement said.
Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker expressed his condolences to Sullivan’s family in a post on Facebook. Following the attack, Baker ordered the U.S. and state flags to be lowered to half staff to honour the marines killed in Tennessee.
“Terror comes home to Massachusetts,” Baker said in the post, which linked to a Masslive.com profile of the marine. “God Bless Tom Sullivan and his family and friends.” According to the news site, Sullivan, 40, served two tours in Iraq and earned a purple heart for his service.
A family friend identified the second marine killed as Skip Wells, who was from the Atlanta area and was in his early 20s, according to the Associated Press.
Andy Kingery, who is acting as a family spokesman, told the agency a Marine Corps notification team delivered the news to the family Thursday.
Kingery said Wells had spent about a year at Georgia Southern University before changing course and joining the Marine Corps. He told the AP he believes Wells “died doing what he wanted to do and had chosen to do”.
The third victim has been identified by neighbours and on social media as David Wyatt of Chattanooga, Tennessee, according to the Tennessean.
The paper reported that condolences flooded relatives’ social media pages, and a deputy from the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office guarded the family’s residence on Friday morning.
The fourth victim was named by the New York Daily News as Sergeant Carson Holmquist, 27.
The 24-year-old gunman, identified as Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, opened fire on Thursday at two military sites in the city, killing four marines and injuring three others, one seriously. The FBI has said Abdulazeez had no known direct links to international terrorist groups. Officials are continuing to investigate the motive behind the deadly attack.
The killer was also shot dead, although the circumstances of his death are not yet known.
An unnamed U.S. government source told Reuters on Friday that the gunman was believed to have visited the Middle East between April and November 2014.
Investigators strongly believe Abdulazeez visited Jordan and other countries in the region, where he may have family, the source told the news agency.
The White House said on Friday that Barack Obama had been briefed by the FBI director and his top counterterrorism adviser on the shooting of the four marines.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the investigation of the shooting continues.
Bill Killian, U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Tennessee, told reporters officials were treating the attacks as an act of “domestic terrorism”, although the FBI said it would be “premature to speculate on the motives of the shooter at this time”.
Security was being stepped up at some federal facilities, Jeh Johnson, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement.
But officials in Tennessee stressed there were no safety concerns for the general public, and the suspect was thought to have acted alone.
In a late-night briefing on Thursday, Ed Reinhold, FBI special agent in charge, said the gunman had been in possession of several weapons.
But he said that at this stage of the investigation, officials had “no idea” of the suspect’s motivation: “At this point, we don’t have anything that directly ties him to international terrorist organisations.”
Reinhold said there were three active crime scenes – including the Armed Forces career centre, the site of the first attack, at which the gunman fired several bullets without leaving his car, a silver open-top Ford Mustang.
The shooting began around 10.45am at a strip mall on the Lee Highway in Chattanooga. A man in a car stopped in front of the recruiting center, shot at the building and drove off, said Brian Lepley, a spokesman with the US army recruiting command in Fort Knox, Kentucky.
The four victims and the gunman were all killed at this location.
Three injured people – identified locally as a female Navy sailor, a marine and a male police officer – were taken to Erlanger hospital.
Speaking late on Thursday night, Tennessee Senator Bob Corker said the sailor was in a serious condition, and described her as “fighting for (her) life”.
He said the police officer’s injuries were “not too serious”.
*Culled from Reuters, Associated Press
