FBI arrests man, foils July 4th plot

The FBI in Cleveland has arrested a 48-year-old man who was planning a July Fourth attack in the city’s downtown, authorities said.

The man — Demetrius Pitts, who also used the names Abdur Raheem Rahfeeq and Salahadeen Osama Waleed — was taken into custody Sunday and charged with attempted material support of a foreign terrorist organization. He was expected to appear in federal court later Monday.

According to an FBI affidavit, Pitts had extensive discussions with someone he believed to be working for the al-Qaida terrorist network about attacking the city — possibly with a remote control car equipped with a bomb or a van laced with explosives — and considered himself more of a planner or scout than an on-the-ground attacker.

The man with whom Pitts was speaking was working undercover for the FBI, and their interactions were being recorded.

“I’m trying to figure this out. I’m trying to figure out something that would shake them up on the 4th of July,” Pitts told the undercover FBI employee last month, according to the affidavit.

“What would what would hit them in the core?” he added later, the affidavit says. “Blow up in the, have a bomb to blow up at the 4th of July parade.”

FBI Special Agent in Charge Stephen Anthony conceded it was unclear whether Pitts had the means to carry out an attack by himself. “His precise ability to do specific things, again, we may never know,” he said. But he said Pitts’ extensive conversations with the undercover FBI employee, combined with a criminal record that included charges for assault, domestic violence and carrying a concealed weapon, gave agents cause for concern.

He said the FBI arrested Pitts after he met with the undercover employee for a final time Sunday.

“We don’t have the luxury of hoping that an individual decides not to harm someone or get others to act, especially when his continued repeated intentions were to do just that,” Anthony said.

In Washington, White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that “President Trump commends the work of the DOJ and the FBI in helping stop this wouldbe attacker.”

The FBI had been tipped to Pitts as far back as 2015, when he sent a private Facebook message to The Craig Sewing Show, a California-based political commentary show, saying, “The USA will be destroy. Allahu Akbar.” In 2017, he made public Facebook comments suggesting violence, and an FBI investigation that continued into 2018 determined he was “willing to conduct a U.S. based attack,” according to the affidavit.

The FBI began investigating Pitts when he lived in Cincinnati and continued to monitor him when he moved in May to a Cleveland suburb, Anthony said. Last month, an undercover FBI employee posing as someone with al-Qaida ties met with Pitts, and Pitts talked of chopping off people’s heads and hands, according to the affidavit.

Pitts broached the idea of a July 4 attack in a conversation later in June, saying, “I did tell myself that that their, their holiday is coming up, the 4th of July, Independence Day,” according to the affidavit. He eventually told the FBI employee he would take surveillance pictures and footage in downtown Cleveland, and asked for a phone and bus pass to help his efforts, according to the affidavit.

Pitts indicated to the FBI employee he did not want to detonate any bombs himself, at one point saying, “My part is just to go scope, get the information we need, and bring it back.” He also, on Wednesday, seemed to suggest the attack should be called off.

“They are all ready on high alert. I seen it on the web. Cancel the party for now. To bad for family to go. Very very bad weather,” he said, according to the affidavit.

Days later, though, the FBI employee told Pitts the attack was a “go,” and Pitts acknowledged receiving the message, according to the affidavit. He then asked to meet in person to discuss another plan he had for an attack in Philadelphia, and the next day, showed the FBI employee a map with landmarks that he considered worthy bombing targets in that city, according to the affidavit.

A defense attorney for Pitts could not immediately be located. A fireworks display is still planned in Cleveland for July 4, and U.S. Attorney Justice Herdman urged residents not to be deterred from going by someone who “wanted to strike at the values that are at the very core of our nation.”