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.