Nevada officials announced Friday that authorities are investigating a car-ramming incident as a “terrorism-related event.”
New York resident Dawson Maloney, 23, is accused of ramming his vehicle into a power substation owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, near Boulder, Nevada. Maloney drove cross-country before crashing through the substation’s security gate, according to investigators. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s counterterrorism team discovered him dead at the scene from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. The FBI is leading the investigation into the incident.
“In a message to his mother, the suspect referred to himself as a ‘dead terrorist son,’” LVMPD Sheriff Kevin McMahill said, “and stated he felt he had to carry out his act.”
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The incident occurred on Thursday morning. Las Vegas officials released footage of the incident the following day and said that there is no ongoing threat to the public.
When asked about the suspect’s motive, McMahill said authorities are probing a “morgue of radical literature” found in a hotel room linked to Maoloney.
“This is something we have seen in the last couple of years that individuals will take very left-wing ideology, very right-wing ideology, combine it with the occult and a number of different types of things and they come up with their own ideology, so we really don’t know here what has caused this extremism,” he said.
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Maloney was found wearing “soft-body armor,” according to police.
He had two shotguns, an assault rifle-style pistol, and flame throwers in his rental car, McMahill said. Investigators found explosive materials and multiple books “related to extremist ideologies” in Maloney’s hotel room. Authorities also discovered a 3D printer and several gun components to assemble a firearm from an Albany residence.
