In June of last year, Ali Mohammad Brown shot 19 year-old Brendan Tevlin 10 times while Brendan was stopped at a traffic light in Essex County, New Jersey. The murder itself was underreported, and media watchdogs and activists took to social media to demand an explanation for the lack of coverage of such a violent, inexplicable crime. (You can read Legal Insurrection’s coverage HERE.)
They were right to do so.
After Brown was caught and arrested, he told police that the murder was a “just kill” and said it was an act of “vengeance” to compensate for U.S. military killings in the Middle East. He was vocal in his opposition to American intervention overseas, emphasized multiple times the vengeful nature of the act—and yet the media did nothing to expose what could have been the next act of violent jihad come to America.
The media’s malpractice in this case has been well documented, yet outlets for the most part have only just begun to scratch the surface of what happened. True justice for Brendan, however, is in reach. Last Thursday, Brown was indicted on charges of terrorism, murder, felony murder, carjacking, and robbery, as well as multiple weapons offenses.
Brown has a long history of extremely violent crime—specifically, murder. From NJ.com:
Tevlin’s killing marks one of a series of crimes allegedly committed by Brown after coming to New Jersey from Washington State, where he also is charged with killing three men.Four days after the fatal shooting, Brown allegedly robbed a man on June 29, 2014 at a coffee shop in Point Pleasant Beach.In that case, Brown is accused of approaching the victim outside Green Planet Coffee, showing him a gun in his waistband and demanding that the man come with him, authorities said….Brown was indicted on July 23 in that case on robbery, aggravated assault, carjacking and related offenses.About two weeks after Tevlin’s killing, Brown is accused of robbing a man on July 10, 2014 in the parking lot of an apartment building at 200 Mount Pleasant Avenue in West Orange. Authorities have said Brown approached the victim, robbed him of his wallet and fled the scene.Brown was arrested on July 18, 2014 when police found him living in a makeshift campsite in West Orange.
Brown’s troubles with the law were not limited to calculated acts of violence. The FBI was investigating Brown as far back as 2004 in connection with activities at a terrorist training camp in Oregon.
Two former FBI agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force, or JTTF, told Fox News that Brown also may have traveled to one of the first terrorist training camps on U.S. soil when he was a teenager known as “Dog Cry Ranch.”When former FBI Agents David Rubincam and David Gomez were interviewed by Fox in Seattle, Gomez said, “I believe Ali Mohammad Brown at some point traveled to Bly, Ore., prior to his arrest for financial institution fraud.”The JTTF executed 19 search and arrest warrants in November 2004 after a 30-month investigation, which became known as the “Ranier Valley Roundup.” No one, including Brown, was charged with terrorism at the time.
Cracking Brown could help federal officials shed light on multiple investigations into US-based terror activity—some of which go back decades. We’ll keep you updated on the case as it moves through the courts.
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