Attack on U.S. Military installation averted by arrest?

By Doug Hagmann —— Bio and Archives January 26, 2010

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Lloyd R. WOODSON, 43, having a last known address in Reston, Fairfax County, Virginia was arrested early Monday after police responded to a “suspicious person” call to a Quick Chek convenience store located on Route 28 in Somerset County, New Jersey. The caller to the police stated that a Black male, dressed in military fatigues, was acting suspicious at approximately 3:55 a.m. When police arrived and began to interview WOODSON, he ran from the officers, who found him hiding in the brush in a nearby trailer park. During a search of WOODSON, police found him wearing a bullet proof vest and carrying a weapon modified to shoot .50 caliber ammunition under his coat.

What police investigators found next caused significant alarm among law enforcement and Joint Terrorism Task Force personnel, suggesting perhaps an attack on a U.S. military installation was being planned. According to an interview conducted late Monday by this investigator with a central New Jersey law enforcement source familiar with this investigation, WOODSON checked in to the Red Mill Inn, 3400 State Route 22, Branchburg, New Jersey last week. A search of his hotel room found a large cache of weapons, ammunition and maps, along with other items that could indicate his ties to radical Islam and an Islamic group based in the U.S. A search of WOODSON’s room found a second bullet proof vest, a 37-mm Cobray grenade launcher, a Bushmaster .308-caliber semi-automatic rifle with a defaced serial number, hundreds of.50-caliber and .308-caliber ammunition including hollow points, a rifle mountable night vision scope, a police scanner, a military-style backpack, and various military pouches and garrison equipment. Additionally, two maps, one of a U.S. military installation and a second map of an out-of-state “civilian” community were found. Among his personal belongings was a red and white traditional Middle-Eastern headdress. Authorities officially declined to identify the military installation or the “civilian community. According to the New Jersey law enforcement source interviewed by this investigator Monday, “the map of the non-military community and other personal effects” not only associate him with “radical Islam, but also with a “militant Islamic group.” More...