Suspect in Custody for 'Suspicious' Backpack Is Marine Corps Reservist

[Dusty]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/17...#ixzz1PYEuEs2Y


The man in custody for carrying a backpack with "suspicious items and products" inside Arlington National Cemetery overnight is a U.S. Marine Corps reservist, military and law enforcement sources tell Fox News.

Yonathan Melaku, a Lance Corporal Marine corps reservist who lives in Virginia and who is Muslim, has been identified as the suspect in custody, Fox News has learned.

Sources close to the investigation also said a notebook believed to belong to the man was found containing threatening phrases like "Al Qaeda," "Taliban rule" and "defeated coalition forces."

Yonathan Melaku, a Marine corps reservist, was arrested after he was found overnight inside Arlington National Cemetery with a "suspicious" backpack and notebook containing words like Al Qaeda and Taliban, sources tell Fox News.

Authorities said Friday they are investigating the man, whom they did not name, after he was found inside Arlington Cemetery overnight when the cemetery was closed.

FBI special agent Brenda Heck said during a press conference Friday that the man, described as in his 20's, had a backpack containing a "non-explosive, unknown material" that she said will require further investigation.

"The products in the backpack are inert," Heck said, though she described its contents as suspicious.

Though the man was "not forthcoming" when taken into custody, Heck said authorities later found his red 2011 Nissan near the Pentagon. She said authorities found "no suspicious activity" related to the vehicle.

Melaku, who lives in Alexandria, Va., joined as a reservist in August 2007 but military officials say he never deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Law enforcement officials also told Fox News that police found five pounds of a substance labeled ammonium nitrate inside the backpack -- field tests, however, came back negative.

Heck would not confirm reports that a notebook was found, saying only that the investigation is still unfolding.

Heck went on to say that the man is believed to have acted alone and remains in custody. No charges have been filed against him, she said.

According to the Leesburg Police Department, a person with the same name and date of birth was arrested last month for breaking into vehicles at around 3:30 a.m. on May 26 in Leesburg, Va. Twenty-seven vehicles were damaged during the break-ins, according to police.

[JimP]

Yonathan Melaku, a Lance Corporal Marine corps reservist who lives in Virginia and who is Muslim



No kidding??? Must be the racist DC police just hatin' on another peaceful muj..., er,....I mean Mooselimb. Dang - when are we going to learn...??

[Pete]

I think when the truth comes out you'll find he was a Tea party Plant and really Jewish.

Death to the Juice

[Dusty]

Originally Posted by JimP

Yonathan Melaku, a Lance Corporal Marine corps reservist who lives in Virginia and who is Muslim



No kidding??? Must be the racist DC police just hatin' on another peaceful muj..., er,....I mean Mooselimb. Dang - when are we going to learn...??

When it's too late.

[LongWire]

Originally Posted by JimP

Yonathan Melaku, a Lance Corporal Marine corps reservist who lives in Virginia and who is Muslim



No kidding??? Must be the racist DC police just hatin' on another peaceful muj..., er,....I mean Mooselimb. Dang - when are we going to learn...??

When indeed. That would mean infringing on someone else's freedoms.....Sheesh!!!!!

He was just probably looking for some of his brothers in arms!!!!!!

[Ret10Echo]

Metro news MSM has been full of this one. The kicker was the "shutdown" of I-395 beginning at about 0530. (NoVA traffic teeters on the brink on a GOOD day...needless to say there were some snarls.)

With the arrest of someone "With the same name" in May.... Link here. Media here is saying that it WAS in fact this guy who was arrested.


I am just waiting for this story to unfold...


Oh, and it was not the racist DC police, it was the jack-booted Ft Meyer police

[Buffalobob]

I am just waiting for this story to unfold..

It seems to be unfolding in the usual and general way. He's just one more Virginia Looney Tune with a gun. I understand that Virginia does not want to admit that it has one of the largest endemic populations of Looney Tunes east of the Mississippi River because then the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service might open an assessment of whether to list the Virginia Looney Tune as a threatened or endangered species.

forensic evidence links Melaku to five shootings at military buildings in October and November........

"We immediately wondered when we found him near the Pentagon in the early morning hours if he might be responsible for the shooting, and information we've developed since then confirms it," a law enforcement official said.

Shots were fired at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Va., on Oct. 17 and Oct. 30. On Oct. 19, shots were fired at the Pentagon, shattering windows just before 5 a.m. Shots fired at the Marine Corps recruiting center in Chantilly on Oct. 26 and the Coast Guard recruiting station near Potomac Mills on Nov. 2 were linked to the other incidents.

JimP


My advice for you is to not appear on "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader". Most fifth graders know the pentagon is in Virginia not DC.

[Pete]

"...............forensic evidence links Melaku to five shootings at military buildings in October and November.... ....................."

If I recall correctly - as we had a running thread back then - didn't the profilers paint the picture of a disgrunted redneck?

And it turns out he's a ............. shhhhhhhhh

[TOMAHAWK9521]

They should sentence this pile of excrement to Leavenworth on a forced labor detail to the hog farms in the surrounding countryside. That or hang his ass from the yard arm to rot in the sun.

[Ret10Echo]

As the world turns....

Va. man charged in 2010 DC-area military shootings
June 23, 2011


By MATTHEW BARAKAT and ERIC TUCKER
Associated Press

LEESBURG, Va. (AP) - A Marine Corps reservist arrested in a security scare near the Pentagon last week was charged Thursday in a series of pre-dawn shootings at military buildings in the Washington area last year.

Federal prosecutors said in court documents that they found bomb-making materials in a backpack carried by 22-year-old Yonathan Melaku and found a list of suspicious items inside his home. They also said authorities discovered a video he took of himself firing shots outside one building last fall and repeatedly saying the Arabic words "Allahu Akbar," which means "God is Great."He was detained early Friday for trespassing inside Arlington National Cemetery. Investigators said he was carrying a backpack with a quantity of ammonium nitrate, which is widely used in explosives and is available commercially as fertilizer; a spiral notebook containing references to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden; spent 9 mm shell casings; and cans of spray paint.

The ammonium nitrate was contained in plastic bags marked "5 lbs" and "AN," though it was not clear from the court papers if he actually had five pounds of the substance. Authorities said the ammonium nitrate was inert.

Full story here.