White supremacist allegedly plotting to bomb hospital of virus victims is shot in arrest attempt
Even in this time of national crisis, we must still reckon with the ever-present threat posed by white supremacist terrorism. The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced on Wednesday evening that a white supremacist was killed while they trying to take him into custody — and that he was intent on bombing coronavirus victims.
Timothy Wilson, 36, was “actively planning to commit an act of domestic terrorism — a bombing — and over the course of several months had considered several targets,” reports the FBI.
Sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News that Wilson had decided on a hospital full of coronavirus victims as his target and showed up armed to pick up a fake explosive supplied by federal agents.
“Wilson considered various targets and ultimately settled on an area hospital in an attempt to harm many people, targeting a facility that is providing critical medical care in today’s environment. Wilson had taken the necessary steps to acquire materials needed to build an explosive device. At all times during the investigation, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force kept close track of Wilson in order to protect public safety” said the FBI’s Kansas City Field Office.
Wilson was known to have “espoused white supremacist ideology” and “made a threat that if any agent attempted to [search his property] they should ‘bring a lot of body bags.’”
The FBI discovered Wilson’s plans through the apprehension of another would-be white supremacist terrorist, Private First Class Jarret William Smith, who was arrested in September after he told an undercover agent that “he was looking for ‘radicals’ like himself…Smith talked about killing members of Antifa and destroying nearby cell towers or a local news station.”
Wilson was one of those “radicals like himself;” the two men shared bomb-making instructions before Jarret’s arrest.
Original reporting by Mike Levine at ABC News.
