Jammed Rifle Stopped Aurora Temple Attack, Prosecutors Say

A 19-year-old Palatine man drove to a location in the Aurora, Illinois, area on Sunday, Oct. 11, tried to fire an AR-style rifle at a man and the gun jammed, Cook County prosecutors said in court Wednesday.

Alexandros Paporakis is charged with making a terrorist threat, a Class X felony, and unlawful possession of a weapon for having a rifle with a barrel shorter than 16 inches, a Class 3 felony. A judge ordered him detained Wednesday. He is due back in court Oct. 30.

Palatine police say the specific intended location has not been confirmed and that part of the investigation remains open. Investigators believe the target was a Hindu temple in Aurora, which is why they notified the Aurora Police Department.

The phone call that ended it

Paporakis worked as a cashier at a Taco Bell in Arlington Heights for about seven months. On that Sunday afternoon, prosecutors said, he texted a co-worker and asked the man to call him. When the co-worker did, Paporakis told him his gun had jammed and that he had gotten out of there "super-fast." The co-worker believed Paporakis was driving during the call.

What came next, according to the detention proffer, was a video of an AR-style rifle failing to fire when the trigger was pulled, followed by a photo of Paporakis in a tactical vest. In messages described by prosecutors, he said he was lucky he had fired while inside his car and that nobody had seen him. He talked through possible repairs. He wrote that he could "retry when I fix this."

He also told the co-worker he did not believe in divine intervention, prosecutors said, but that the man he had fired at was "certainly saved by his God today."

The co-worker and another employee called 911.

Warnings on the schedule the day before

The co-worker told investigators that Paporakis regularly made disparaging comments about people of other races at the restaurant, openly identified as a white supremacist, and frequently discussed Nazis and armed struggle. He expressed particular hatred toward people from India.

On Saturday, the day before, Paporakis allegedly told that co-worker he could not wait to kill Indian people and said he was planning an attack at the largest Hindu temple in Aurora, using a large amount of ammunition. A second employee told investigators that Paporakis described the following day as a "special day," prosecutors said at the hearing.

The messages that followed the next afternoon went out over Signal, according to prosecutors, including a copy of an eight-page document Paporakis wrote about himself.

3:42 p.m. in a Palatine parking lot

The Mount Prospect Police Department took the first report from someone who had received concerning electronic communications, then passed the information to Palatine police. Officers from both departments went looking for Paporakis.

They found him at about 3:42 p.m. in a parking lot near his apartment in the 1300 block of North Baldwin Court, according to the proffer. Police said he was taken into custody as he was leaving his residence. There was no struggle and no further incident.

Police said afterward that they have not identified any known ongoing threat to the public connected to the case. The FBI's Chicago Field Office assisted with the investigation.

What was in the bedroom

Officers executed a search warrant at the apartment after the arrest. In the bedroom, according to the proffer, investigators recovered a bag holding an AR-style rifle with no serial number, a tactical vest, eight loaded magazines, one loaded extended magazine and 300 rounds of rifle ammunition.

They also recovered a gas can and items depicting Nazi symbolism, including swastikas. Palatine police described the vest as containing body armor and a patch displaying imagery associated with white supremacist extremism.

Palatine Police Chief William Nord said the recovered items included the rifle, loaded magazines, hundreds of rounds of rifle ammunition and body armor.

Eight pages, and the name he gave himself

The document Paporakis allegedly sent his co-worker is titled "Why I Fought: A.K.A. (Aurora Shooter's Manifesto)." Prosecutors said it runs eight pages and contains racist slurs and hateful statements aimed at people of Indian ancestry, Jewish people and Black people. He called those groups "subhumans" and described a plan to kill as many of them as possible.

In pretrial detention documents, prosecutors said Paporakis described himself as a "sociopathic white supremacist Neo Nazi filled with hatred." The writing also encouraged other people to commit violent acts, and portrayed the author as an ordinary white college student with a job who kept his beliefs hidden.

Nord, who read it, described what was in it plainly. "Reading through the manifesto, he did state some extremist ideologies and talked about violence, he talked about mass killings and how he wanted to carry out this mass shooting," the chief said.

Two years of planning, two months on one building

Paporakis wrote that he had been planning an attack for two years and had narrowed his focus to one specific location over the previous two months, according to the proffer. The document described how he obtained and modified the AR-style rifle.

His scouting was done from a screen. Prosecutors said he researched the intended target using YouTube videos and Google Street View.

Court records cited by ABC7 Chicago say the planning stretched back two years. After the gun failed, according to a newly filed court record described by NBC Chicago, he went home and searched the internet trying to learn how to clear the jam.

In court at Rolling Meadows

Paporakis appeared Wednesday, Oct. 14, at the Cook County Third Municipal District Courthouse in Rolling Meadows, where prosecutors from the Cook County State's Attorney's Office laid out the allegations and a judge ordered him held. His next appearance is set for 9 a.m. Oct. 30, in Room 108 at the same courthouse.

Court documents say Paporakis had mental and emotional health issues and had been without prescribed medication. Prosecutors said he lived with his mother, who they said failed to stop him from making violent plans and buying a firearm.

His public defender told NBC Chicago that the statements coming from police and prosecutors are allegations at this stage and can change as the investigation continues. It was not clear as of Wednesday night whether he had retained private counsel, Newsweek reported. Palatine police said they are still working with the FBI and reviewing whether more charges are warranted.

Aurora police called the temples

Once Palatine investigators flagged the possible target, Aurora police coordinated outreach to Hindu places of worship in their jurisdiction so congregations would know about the threat. Police have not released the name of the temple.

The chairman of the Hindu temple in Aurora told NBC Chicago the congregation already had a strong security presence in place, and praised suburban police for heading off the threat.

Aurora Alderwoman Shweta Baid said she was deeply saddened by the reported attempted shooting targeting devotees at the Hindu temple in Aurora. "No one should ever feel unsafe while practicing their faith or gathering in a place of worship or anywhere," she said in a statement Wednesday evening, calling such threats unacceptable.

The reaction, from the FBI to Congress

Ryan Whalen, special agent in charge of the FBI's Chicago office, credited the two suburban departments after the charges were announced. "Thanks to the swift action by the Palatine and Mount Prospect Police Departments, the subject was taken into custody without harm to our community," he said in a statement.

Nord put it this way in a statement: "The seriousness of this alleged threat cannot be overstated. Protecting our communities and places of worship remains a priority, and we will continue working with our law enforcement partners as this investigation moves forward."

U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois said he was horrified that a white supremacist allegedly attempted to massacre Indian Americans at a Hindu temple in Aurora. "I am grateful to the coworkers who sounded the alarm and the law enforcement officers who intervened," he said in a statement Wednesday evening.

The Consulate General of India in Chicago said it is monitoring the case. "We appreciate the timely action by law enforcement authorities. We are in touch with members of the Indian diaspora and are closely monitoring developments," the consulate said.

A pattern investigators say shows up almost every time

John Cohen, a former DHS intelligence chief and ABC News contributor, said the outcome here turned on how fast local police moved. "It's highly likely that were it not for the quick action and the investigative activities of the local law enforcement authorities, we very may well have had yet another mass shooting in this country," he said.

Cohen said people planning attacks almost always leave a trail first. In nearly every case, he said, someone planning an attack shows behavior online or in person that amounts to stating an intent to commit violence. He argued the public needs better guidance on what to report, and that local agencies need more resources to act on those reports quickly.

In this case the signals came over a Taco Bell shift, a Signal thread and a phone call from a car. Two employees dialed 911, and officers had their suspect in a parking lot within hours. The case remains under investigation.