(Corine Gatti, Headline USA) The FBI sat on information that could have prevented the recent murder of a police officer and shooting of two others, along with a civilian bystander.
Even more damning for the disgraced law-enforcement agency, however, was that, except for the bravery and sharp-shooting of another police officer in the line of fire, a far greater tragedy might have been on its hands in Fargo, North Dakota.
According to FrontPageMag, the FBI received an anonymous tip in July 2021 regarding Mohamad Barakat, the 37-year-old gunman whose unprovoked roadside rampage killed 23-year-old Officer Jake Wallin.
Inside Barakat’s vehicle, investigators found a homemade hand grenade, as well as a vest with loaded magazines, more firearms and canisters of gasoline. There were more weapons back at his apartment.
“When you look at the amount of ammunition this shooter had in his car, he was planning on more mayhem in our community,” Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney said.
The initial story reported that the Syrian immigrant’s motive was unknown and that he had no prior ties to terrorism—a tale that appears untrue.
At first, Mac Schneider, the Biden Justice Department’s U.S. Attorney for North Dakota, claimed he did not have evidence of Barakat’s motive, declining to comment on whether the cop-killer was on the FBI’s radar.
Schneider cited information from federal partners suggesting Barakat was not on the terrorist watch list. He referenced a Guardian report—the FBI’s web-based counterterrorism incident management system—claiming it found no related threats of violence.
Meanwhile, the FBI gave the problem to the local police.
“In July 2021, the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center received an anonymous tip expressing concern about the mental state of Mohamad Barakat,” the statement from the FBI and Fargo Police said in an email to Fargo’s Inforum.
“The tip indicated that Barakat had access to a significant number of firearms and had used threatening language,” noted the website.
Fargo police visited Barakat’s residence three times in two weeks and made contact during the third visit. They noticed that Barakat had firearms in his apartment, but they were not illegal and he was allowed to possess them. Barakat then denied having ill intentions during the interrogation, FrontPageMag reported.
For some reason, the Fargo Police Department declined an open-records request for any incident reports that mentioned Barakat—including police reports filed before the shooting, the outlet noted.
However, the FBI became interested in Barakat investigation hours after Barakat shot officers from the open driver’s side window of his parked vehicle, North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley said.
Authorities wanted to know what the FBI was hiding in the first place.
“But we were wondering, what aren’t they telling us?” said Wrigley, who acknowledged the existing Guardian report, said in an interview with Inforum after the shooting.
He noted Barakat searched online about mass-casualty incidents before the shooting, suggesting that he had intentions of attacking people at the Downtown Street Fair in Fargo.
