FBI investigating ‘terrorism-related’ occasion after driver rammed automobile into Nevada energy substation | EUROtoday

Police and the FBI are investigating after a automobile stuffed with weapons was rammed into an influence substation close to the Hoover Dam Thursday, in what has been described as a “terrorism-related event.”

It is the latest in a string of incidents targeting electric infrastructure in recent years but there is no ongoing threat to the public, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a news conference Friday.

Police received a 911 call at 10 a.m. Thursday reporting a vehicle had crashed through a secured gate at the substation in Boulder City, located approximately 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of Las Vegas, McMahill said.

A witness called in the incident after seeing the car crash then hearing gunshots, according to the sheriff. The driver of the vehicle was 23-year-old Dawson Maloney of Albany, New York, police said.

Prior to the crash, Maloney had been reported missing. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, McMahill said.

Security video, shared by Vegas police, shows a vehicle speeding towards the facility, swerving past a gate, then driving through a chainlink fence.

Maloney’s vehicle, a rented Nissan Sentra, later crashed into large wooden bales of wire, police photos show. Fallen traffic cones were strewn across the substation in the wake of the incident.

The man communicated with family members before the crash, referencing self-harm, and said he was going to commit an act that would gain media attention. He referred to himself as a terrorist in a message sent to his mother, police said.

Authorities found explosive materials and multiple books “related to extremist ideologies” in Maloney’s hotel room, McMahill said. The books included ones about right- and left-wing extremism, environmental extremism, white supremacism and anti-government ideology, he said. Police photos also show multiple U.S. military weapons manuals recovered from his possessions.

“These findings significantly elevate the seriousness of this incident,” McMahill said during the press conference.

The official described the materials as a “smorgasbord of radical literature” and mentioned legislation enforcement companies are seeing an increase in people combining disparate extremist concepts.

“This is something that we have seen in the last couple of years that individuals will take very left-wing ideology, very right-wing ideology, combine it … and then they come up with their own, their own ideology,” he said.

Hotel guest Logan Stubbs said he saw Maloney before the crash.

“He had his hoodie up and just looked really sketchy,” Stubbs instructed ABC7. “There was just something off about him.”

Maloney is listed as a scholar at Albany Law School within the class of 2027. He was additionally an honors scholar at New York’s Siena University.

“We are heartbroken to hear of the tragic passing of one of our law students, Dawson Maloney, in an off-campus incident,” Tom Torello, director of communications and advertising and marketing at Albany Law School, mentioned in an announcement.

Two shotguns, an assault rifle-style pistol, and flame throwers have been present in his rental automobile, McMahill mentioned. A police picture reveals the weapons piled on prime of one another close to one of many automobile seats. About six shotgun shells may be seen close by. Maloney was carrying what police described as “soft-body armor” on the time of the crash.

Authorities recovered a 3D printer and several other gun elements wanted to assemble a firearm from an Albany residence. Officials have searched two Albany residences general as a part of their investigation.

Maloney had pushed a rental automobile from Albany to Boulder City, based on Christopher Delzano, the FBI’s Las Vegas particular agent-in-charge.

The New York man rented the automobile on February 12 and started driving throughout the nation two days later.

Boulder City is dwelling to the Hoover Dam, offering water to tens of millions of individuals throughout Nevada, Arizona and California. The energy substation that was rammed is owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Boulder City Police Chief Timothy Shea mentioned there was no proof of main injury to vital infrastructure and no service disruptions because of the crash.

In 2023, a person rammed a automobile by means of a fence at a solar energy facility within the desert northeast of Las Vegas, setting the automobile on hearth. The solar energy facility served Las Vegas Strip casinos. He was declared unfit for trial.

Electrical substations have additionally been focused in Washington, Oregon and North Carolina.

“The risk is continued disruption of our economic system in our country — not only that, but there’s also lives at stake,” Jon Wellinghoff, a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, instructed The New York Times after the incident in North Carolina.

Extremists have focused such infrastructure for a wide range of causes, based on specialists, together with “accelerationist” views that search to hasten the collapse of society.