Shooting Suspect IDed, Linked to #TexasAttack Tweet

One of the gunmen killed in the attack last night on the "Draw Muhammad" cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, has been identified as 30-year-old Elton Simpson, an Arizona man convicted in 2010 of lying to the FBI, ABC News reports; the agency feared he was headed to Africa to join a terror group, but the New York Post notes he was given three years' probation after a judge found the feds didn't prove their case. An FBI agent tells the news station that they've traced Simpson and an unidentified accomplice to an apartment in Phoenix, where they appear to have been roommates. And before the Garland attack—which injured a security guard, per WFAA—a series of tweets that ABC reports are believed to have come from Simpson appeared to foreshadow the violence.

A now-deleted Twitter account called "Shariah is Light" tweeted with the hashtag #TexasAttack moments before the shooting, per Fox News. That same handle directed users to a "AbuHussainAlBritani" Twitter account (also since suspended), the LA Times reports. That handle tweeted before and after the shootings with messages like "The knives have been sharpened, soon we will come to your streets with death and slaughter!" and "Allahu Akbar!!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire at the ... art exhibition in texas! Kill Those That Insult The Prophet." (A top Charlie Hebdo cartoonist announced he won't draw Muhammad anymore.)