A teenager in suburban Chicago, who was arrested before carrying out a mass shooting plot at a Hindu temple last weekend, had been planning the attack for over two years, according to court documents. Prosecutors from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office said the suspect, Alexandros Paporakis, 19, told his coworkers at Taco Bell in Palatine that he “couldn’t wait to kill Indian” people.
Palatine Police Chief William Nord said a red Acura RDX registered to Paporakis entered a temple parking lot on Sunday around 12:25 pm and left less than 15 minutes later.
The American teenager’s bloody plans were foiled in time after one of his colleagues reported him to the police. Later, the Mount Prospect and Palatine police departments coordinated to locate and arrest Paporakis while he was leaving his home on Sunday afternoon, the same day prosecutors believe he was planning to execute his plans. Also found at his home were items with Nazi symbols, including swastikas, and a gas can labelled with an anti-Indian slur.
Though the exact intended location of Paporakis’ killing plot is still under investigation, police officials in Palatine, Illinois, and FBI investigators said they believe the teenager was planning to attack a large Hindu temple in Aurora, about 40 miles west of Chicago. Palatine Police Chief William Nord said a red Acura RDX registered to Paporakis entered a temple parking lot on Sunday around 12:25 pm and left less than 15 minutes later. He was seen alone inside the car around 2 pm near his home in another suburb.
During searches at his home, which the man had shared with his mother for about a year, police found a rifle, multiple loaded rifle magazines and hundreds of rounds of additional rifle ammunition, a tactical vest containing body armour and a patch displaying imagery associated with white supremacist extremism, officials said. Detectives also examined his electronic communications and a document attributed to Paporakis titled: “Why I Fought: A.K.A.: (Aurora Shooter’s Manifesto)”, which described Indian, Jewish and African American people as “subhumans” and outlined a plot to kill as many of them as possible, according to a court document. He also reportedly sent a video to his co-worker showing how his gun, an AR-style rifle, had failed to fire and told them that he was trying to fix the weapon so he could “retry” and that “the man that he fired at was ‘certainly saved by his God today,'” the court document showed, according to an NYT report.
