BELTON, Mo. – A Missouri man who was plotting to bomb a hospital was killed in a shooting this week after he “decided to accelerate his plan” due to the coronavirus pandemic, federal authorities said Wednesday.
Timothy Wilson, 36, was severely injured Tuesday in Belton, a suburb of Kansas City, when FBI agents tried to arrest him after a long-running domestic terrorism investigation, according to a statement Wednesday from Timothy Langan, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Kansas City office, Fox News reported.
According to the FBI, Wilson was armed at the time he was injured in the shooting. However, he died later at a hospital. The statement did not say how he suffered the fatal injury or give further details on the shooting incident.
A months-long investigation determined Wilson was a potentially violent extremist, motivated by religious, racial and anti-government beliefs, according to the statement. They did not specify his religious ideology.
He planned for several months to carry out a bombing and decided to target a Kansas City-area hospital using a “vehicle-borne” improvised explosive “to cause severe harm and mass casualties,” the FBI said. The name of the hospital was not given, Fox reported.
Wilson was under surveillance by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task force when he took steps to acquire material for the bomb. Furthermore, he was picking up a device he believed to be a bomb when agents tried to arrest him Tuesday. The bomb was real, according to the feds, but they did not elaborate.
The FBI described the incident as an “an agent-involved shooting” and said it will be investigated by the FBI’s Inspection Division in accordance with agency policy.
