FOX NEWS
Four Marines were killed Thursday at a Chattanooga, Tenn., Navy training center, in what authorities called a possible "act of domestic terrorism" that consisted of two attacks carried out by a lone gunman at military facilities just seven miles apart, officials said.
The unidentified gunman shot up a recruiting center before driving to the Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center and killing four Marines before he was shot, authorities said. Sources told Fox News police chased the gunman from the recruiting center to the Center, where the killings took place. The FBI and military police were investigating the attack, but authorities could not rule out the possibility of terrorism.
“We are treating this as an act of domestic terrorism,” said Bill Killian, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
The names of the Marines who were reportedly shot were not immediately released pending notification of their families. The Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center lies along a bend in the Tennessee River, northeast of downtown Chattanooga.
Despite Killian's statement, an FBI Special Agent Ed Reinhold told reporters that it may have been a criminal act. The gunman was killed, but authorities did not comment on his identity, motivation or the circumstances of his death. Authorities said the gunman did not work at either military facility.
Reinhold said all the dead were killed at the Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center Chattanooga. It sits between Amnicola Highway and a pathway that runs through Tennessee RiverPark, a popular park at a bend in the Tennessee River northeast of downtown Chattanooga. It's in a light industrial area that includes a Coca-Cola bottling plant and Binswanger Glass.
The two entrances to the fenced facility have unmanned gates and concrete barriers that require approaching cars to slow down to drive around them.
