If anyone ever needed yet another reason to start and maintain a robust church security program in your place of worship, a story out of Idaho provides it. The Feds picked up Alexander Mercurio, a Muslim convert, the day before he planned to attack churches and then set them ablaze until he got to meet his 72 virgins.
Yes, nobody ever accused Alex Mercurio of being smart. He clearly never heard that no plan survives first contact. In his case, his great plan didn’t even make it to first contact.
What was Mr. Mercurio’s grand plan? Glad you asked. He was going to “incapacitate” church members by bludgeoning them with a metal pipe. Then he would set the house of worship on fire and “rinse and repeat” at other churches. For a kid who looks like he never spent a day at the gym in his life, had he considered that swinging a metal pipe hard enough to hurt someone is work?
Did this aspiring mass murderer think his victims would try talking with him as he tried to beat people with his pipe? Had he not considered that his would-be victims might instead opt to employ defensive tactics, up to and including shooting him deader than an organ donor?
He also had plans to incapacitate his father and then break into dad’s locked closet where the father stored his guns. It sounds as though dear old dad already correctly recognized that his son shouldn’t have access to firearms. Someone forgot to tell Alex that dad gets a vote in this matter, too.
From the Coeur d’Alena/Post Falls Press:
COEUR d’ALENE — The 18-year-old Coeur d’Alene resident accused of planning to attack local churches on behalf of the terrorist organization ISIS pleaded not guilty to a criminal charge in federal court Wednesday morning.
Alexander S. Mercurio is charged with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terror organization. Prosecutors say Mercurio told confidential sources he planned to donate “every last cent” in his bank account to ISIS, a sum of about $11,000, before carrying out a “martyrdom operation” in Coeur d’Alene on April 7.
U.S. marshals uncuffed Mercurio’s hands as he entered the courtroom at the federal courthouse in Coeur d’Alene. He wore a red and white striped jumpsuit.
If convicted, Mercurio faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and up to a lifetime of supervised release.
All assets belonging to Mercurio are subject to forfeiture to the United States upon conviction, as well as any property “which constitutes or is derived from proceeds traceable to the offense or a conspiracy to commit such offense.” In court Wednesday, Mercurio denied the forfeiture allegation.
A multi-year investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force culminated in Mercurio’s arrest April 6, the day before federal prosecutors believe he planned a deadly attack on churchgoers in Coeur d’Alene.
“The defendant allegedly pledged loyalty to ISIS and sought to attack people attending churches in Idaho, a truly horrific plan which was detected and thwarted by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force,” FBI Director Chris Wray said in a news release Monday.
Mercurio allegedly planned to incapacitate churchgoers by beating them with a metal pipe, “slit their throats with a knife or a machete” and then start fires inside the building…
Mercurio must have thought those Christians would just turn the other cheek as he slit their throats with his S&W fixed-blade knife. Did he also plan to wear the ISIS flag on his back as well?
He described plans to build a “crude flamethrower” or a “flame sword,” according to court records, and purchased a metal pipe. A search of his bedroom reportedly yielded the pipe, as well as a machete, a black Smith and Wesson fixed blade knife, a folding saw, handcuffs, two canisters of butane fuel, two lighters and a black and white “ISIS” flag, as well as other materials.
If the feds convict this man, they will take his freedom for the next 20 years along with his piggy bank, which contains roughly $11,000. He will get a generation or so to work on his Muslim skills in federal prison when he’s not auditioning as someone’s wife.
He needs to start hanging out in iron foundries..to get used to the much hotter climates when he dies..
He’ll get some pipe where he’s going.
They say the Eskimos thought Heaven was hot.
“Converts to Islam, Planned to Attack Churches in N. Idaho”? Translation: groomed by FBI informants and given marching orders to attack Idaho churches.
curious to see what influence the feds had here…..
Probably would not be the first time a gullible idiot ruined his life by listening to undercover feds, if indeed that is the case.
If not, I stand by my claim of “gullible idiot.”
Probably about $11,000 worth of influence.
considering that HMS Director Mayorkas is under fire with a possible Impeachment in his future along with FBI Director Wray stating on numerous occasion the threat level for a terrorist attack is at it’s highest levels in decades. Surely the FBI wouldn’t instigate such a scenario just to make themselves look good and give some of that credit to Mayorkas to save his azz.
Thank you. I was just going to post that very thing. Don’t trust anything you hear about this case from the Feds.
@007 Yep. See below.
How strange it is that FBI does not arrest real Jihadi terrorist from Dearborn Michigan who shouted publicly on video “Death To Cream”
He bought the metal pipe from a federal informant. They’ve been chatting with him online for two years (since he was 16). They probably encouraged his descent.
The FBI searched his home while he was at work. Then they picked him up on his way home after work! So they are capable of doing that. It’s just that they choose not to sometimes. Why is that?
Mercurio said he was coming home from his job at Walmart when two FBI agents introduced themselves to him, eventually telling him they knew about his plan and arresting him.
Mercurio told people in chats that his parents were Christian and unsupportive of his Muslim faith.
Mercurio said he was a normal kid with friends until the last three years of high school when he isolated himself while doing school online.
That’s when he found Islam.
“I radicalized myself through that,” he said, squinting frequently. “The purpose is revenge. It’s an eye for an eye.”
Initially, he was interested in more mainstream Islam, but then began reading posts about how Western Christian countries voted for politicians who will interfere in predominately Muslim countries and attack civilians, he said.
“It’s retribution,” he said. “If our people will be slaughtered, it should happen to you.”
He continued praying and studying, Mercurio said, and eventually began to support terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. In the interview Tuesday, Mercurio praised Osama Bin Laden.
He said his planned attack had nothing to do with race but instead religion, and that he hoped to target all non-Muslims.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/apr/09/mercurio-folo/
He was ready to take out the people the MSM and Democrats have labeled as the bad guys. He didn’t realize those were the bad guys until he converted to the Religion of Peace.
Makes you wonder how much more interaction he had with the FBI before the pipe sale. Maybe chatted with a radical Islamic informant that was looking to please his FBI handlers?
Of course. Then they suggested a weapon for him, and told him they could get one for him. Now they have proof that he bought a weapon for a specific purpose. It’s easy to hate on this kid for what he was planning. When you take a step back, and examine everything, you could see him being a victim as well.
They force kids to stay home because the federal government was all in on pushing Covid fearmongering for the purpose of attaining and maintaining power. Children/teens with developing brains are isolated from society for the first time in their life. At the same time, our culture, the government, and Big Tech ($$) encourages and incentivizes everyone to stay online as much as possible.
Children with a broken family life, or teens who don’t have friends within walking distance would be especially vulnerable.
P.S. The FBI has a documented history of encouraging terrorist acts, then swooping in to arrest the terrorist right before they attack.
Dude,
“The FBI has a documented history of encouraging terrorist acts, then swooping in to arrest the terrorist right before they attack.”
That is standard government script: create problem and then offer a “solution” to the very problem which they created. Of course said government entity intentionally fails to tell the masses that they designed their problem and “solution” explicitly and exclusively to increase their wealth, control, and power.
This whole thing stinks to high Heaven, it reminds me of the FEEB “assets” at the “Draw the Moo-Ham-Mud” contest in Texas and worse it happens just a day or so before a crucial vote on the “FISA 702” renewal where the corruptocrats are allowed to spy on everyday Americans without a warrant. Color me skeptical unless junior here is a member of PantiFa or some other Democrat-controlled domestic terror franchise.
The zealotry of recent converts who always seem to feel the need to prove themselves as more pious, devout, and radicalized than those who followed the faith since birth.
ojs email
/ / \ \ esc
You guys forgetting about Alexia Willie, the tranny from a small town in IL who planned to storm into a Christian private school, rape some of those young Christian girls in their tartan skirts in the bathrooms and then shoot up the place? Why? Because those Christian nationalists are all white supremacists, or so they Biden Administration told this freak of nature.
https://thepostmillennial.com/were-going-to-kill-their-f-cking-children-trans-identified-male-arrested-after-alleged-vow-to-copy-nashville-school-shooter
“We’re going to kill their f****** children,” this mentally-ill nutbag told folks.
Don’t miss the picture. Alexia is a real knockout! “She” missed her chance to compete for Miss America.
Any kin to Wet?
PRISON for All? Biden Gun Control Order is HERE! Statistics say it is Flawed and Wrong. (deception and lies abound)
No sympathy for this a-LlaH simpleton. Happy the feds waited until this “convert” turned 18.😀
Now drop him into a Hamas occupied part of Gaza dressed in an Israeli military uniform.
“If anyone ever needed yet another reason to start and maintain a robust church security program in your place of worship, a story out of Idaho provides it.”
That statement is accurate for people who operate on truth, facts, and logic. Unfortunately, that statement is false for Pollyannas who operate on emotion and an irrepressible desire for absolute group conformity.
I mentioned it on this site several days ago: I have only identified ONE church (and I only discovered it days ago), out of the dozens/hundreds of churches in my region, which embraces a robust church security program.
I went out of my way to calmly, gently, patiently, respectfully, and factually steer a key church leader to armed defenders. Leadership rejects that concept, opting instead for locking the main church doors during the bulk of church services (although leaving the doors unlocked for several minutes after the beginning and before the end of services–as well as in between services) like the other 99% of churches in my region.
The situation in my region only leaves me with VERY unsavory options. Those options are:
1) Stop going to church.
2) Go to that “secure” church whose doctrine I do not support.
3) Go to church unarmed and physically vulnerable.
4) Go to church armed and legally vulnerable.
My conclusion: people suck.
I’ll take what’s behind door number 1, Monty.
(Who ever said that you had to go to church, synagogue, temple, mosque or whatever in order to pray to the god of your own choosing? The Romans often had shrines in their homes where they cold pray, so can you.)
Something about fellowship, blah,blah,blah
Tons of armed security at First Baptist Hammond,Indiana.Undercover,uniformed,cops & guys like me and other’s. Insist on security or go elsewhere!!! Pretty simple. I am my own 1st responder.
FBI needs renaming to FBE.
Alex Mercurio’s arrest will validate the Bureau’s request for a 2024 budget increase of $13 million for 20 new special agents to investigate “counterterrorism”.
What does it say when reading just the headline the first question we ask is how much was the FBI involved?
Defund the FBI. Repeal all the laws that created it. They are a morally degenerate organization.
Maybe keep the crime lab. It seems to have some usefulness in the past.
“A multi-year investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force culminated in Mercurio’s arrest April 6, the day before federal prosecutors believe he planned a deadly attack”
Interesting timing, huh? Did it take that long for them to convert him?
Speaking of timing…
The House approved reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) today.
His plan would fall apart shortly after being initiated in my church.
We’ll smile, shake your hand and greet you earnestly until you go to start hurting people. Then make no mistake, there are a LOT of firearms in that place and no shortage of people that know how to use them.
So he was 18 at the time of his arrest, which was the culmination of a multi year “investigation”? Jesus, they’re pretty much openly admitting what they’ve done here
I wonder what “incentives” the FEEBs showered upon a 16yr old to get him to be their patsy, a new video game system perhaps?
Holy crap they spent a lot of time and money to bust a kid with a pipe.
No wonder they stole his money.
…A pipe that they gave him.
Did the fibbies actually cover their costs with the asset seizure?
Come on all you pony soldiers, islamb is da religion of peace! Ask all the hostages in Gaza, they will tell you what princes of peace these folks are…
Never Again – Dueteronomy 20:10-18 the way to deal with Philistines.
How many of the guests of Hamas are still alive?
Maybe a handful just to prolong one more possible ceasefire long enough to move more missiles into firing positions or trade for more terrorist prisoners to be released.
From the river to the sea, Israel shall be free for God’s chosen people. Deuteronomy 20:10-18
So, this is one where the FBLie put a stop to it before it could happen.
Huh.
I wonder why…
This is IDAHO, after all..
This moron would have been perforated either immediately or very shortly after his first move.
Not only would that bring the false flag operation to a screeching halt, but it would THOROUGHLY ruin the propaganda points put forward by the gun grabbers that ONLY arms in the hands of the LEOs would be effective, and that Hicksville ARMED CITIZENS are too stupid to defend themselves..
Idaho isn’t the best place to play stupid games. I’m about 10 miles from the Idaho border and go over every two weeks or so. People carry there, A LOT. I carry there. I hold an Idaho Enhanced Permit as do many good folks who wouldn’t hesitate putting a round in that putz’ head. Too bad it didn’t go down in a more pleasing way.