Navy: Sailor injured in Chattanooga shooting has died

The U.S. Navy said Saturday that the sailor who was shot earlier this week at a military support center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, has died.

The death occurred two days after a deadly shooting killed four Marines and injured three others, including the sailor, in Chattanooga.

The Navy statement did not give the sailor's name. But he was earlier identified as Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith, a reservist serving on active duty in Chattanooga.

Authorities say Kuwait-born Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, of Hixson, Tennessee, unleashed a barrage of fire at a recruiting center in Chattanooga, then drove several miles away to a Navy and Marine reserve center, where he shot and killed the Marines, and wounded the sailor. Abdulazeez was shot to death by police.

Abdulazeez pulled up to his military targets in a rented, silver Mustang convertible, wearing a vest with extra ammunition, wielding at least two long guns — either rifles or shotguns — and a handgun. His once clean-shaven face was covered with a bushy beard.

That image described by investigators doesn't square with the seemingly pedestrian suburban man described by neighbors and classmates: A clean-cut wrestler, the brother of a tennis player, the son of parents who drove no-frills cars. A man who played with the neighborhood kids growing up, gave a lift to a neighbor who became stranded in a snowstorm.

Just days before the shootings, Abdulazeez was seen dribbling a soccer ball in his yard, and he told two longtime friends he was excited and upbeat about his new job at a company that designs and makes wire and cable products.

"Everything seemed fine. He was normal. He was telling me work was going great," said one of the friends, Ahmed Saleen Islam, 26, who knew Abdulazeez through the Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga and saw him at the mosque two or three nights before the attacks. "We are so shocked and angry," Islam said. "We wish he would have come to us."

Hailey Bureau, 25, recalled sitting next to Abdulazeez in high school because their last names were close alphabetically. She said she broke down Thursday when she learned he was the gunman, saying, "It's so shocking. I imagine him the way I knew him then, laughing and smiling."

Bureau recalled Abdulazeez's sense of humor, evident in a wry quote next to his yearbook photo, one that has since taken on bitter irony: "My name causes national security alerts. What does yours do?"

Abdulazeez opened fire on two U.S. military sites in Chattanooga. It's not clear what set him on the path to violence that ended with him being gunned down by police.

He did not appear to have been on federal authorities' radar before the bloodshed Thursday, officials said. But now counterterrorism investigators are taking a deep look at his online activities and foreign travel, searching for clues to his political contacts or influences.

"It would be premature to speculate on exactly why the shooter did what he did," FBI agent Ed Reinhold said. "However, we are conducting a thorough investigation to determine whether this person acted alone or was inspired or directed."

The Associated Press