Chilling details emerge of mass shooting plot targeting US Hindu temple

Illinois authorities believe a 19-year-old man charged with planning a mass shooting at a Hindu temple in suburban Chicago entered the building’s car park on Sunday, hours before police arrested him near his home after receiving a tip about the alleged attack plan.

Authorities announced Wednesday that they had arrested Alexandros Paporakis and provided the additional detail about his suspected movement during a news conference Thursday. The leaders of Sri Venkateswara Swami (Balaji) Temple in a statement said a security threat had “targeted our Temple” and announced an increased security presence.

Palatine Police Chief William Nord said a red Acura RDX registered to Paporakis entered a temple car park on Sunday around 12.25pm and left less than 15 minutes later. He was seen alone inside the car around 2pm near his home in another suburb.

Paporakis faces felony charges of making a terrorist threat and unlawfully possessing a rifle. Prosecutors have said his co-workers at a Taco Bell location called 911 after Paporakis told them he “couldn’t wait to kill Indian people” and said Sunday would be the “special day”.

Sri Venkateswara Swami (Balaji) Temple in Aurora, around 65km west of downtown Chicago, said leaders were in contact with police.

“Please know that the safety of our devotees, employees and volunteers is our highest priority, and we have implemented additional security measures effective immediately, including increased armed security presence at the Temple,” a statement said.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, who represents Illinois’ 8th congressional district, said he was at the Hindu temple on Sunday.

“I visited not knowing that there was an attacker lying in wait with a sinister motive to commit a mass shooting, and only because his AR-15 weapon jammed was he not able to commit a massacre that day,” Krishnamoorthi told Associated Press on Thursday.

Krishnamoorthi said he had increased his security in response to the alleged planned attack. He called on the FBI to “investigate and prosecute this particular matter as a hate crime”, and the Trump administration to release federal non-profit security grants to bolster security at religious institutions.

“People are really shaken up,” he added.

Aurora Mayor John Laesch said at a Thursday news conference at the Council on American Islamic Relations’ Chicago office that police were “made aware” of other scheduled celebrations and are reaching out to other temples in the area “to make sure that they know they have a number to call”.

Paporakis told a co-worker on Sunday afternoon that his gun jammed and he left quickly, but promised to “retry”, according to prosecutors. He sent the coworker a video showing an AR-style rifle and a photo of himself wearing a tactical vest, they added.

Paporakis also sent the coworker an eight-page document in which he used racial slurs to describe non-white people and outlined a plot to kill as many of them as possible, according to prosecutors. He also described himself as a white supremacist and a neo-Nazi who fantasised about mass murder.

Police arrested Paporakis later that day near his home in Palatine, which is located about 65km northeast of the temple. Detectives who searched his home found an AR-style rifle without a serial number, loaded magazines and “hundreds of rounds” of ammunition, a gas canister labelled with a slur referring to South Asians, a tactical vest and a patch depicting Nazi symbolism, authorities say.

Paporakis’ mother was questioned, but she is not cooperating with the investigation, police said on Thursday.

At a Wednesday court appearance, a judge ordered Paporakis to remain in detention. His next court hearing is scheduled for October 30.

“This case is in the earliest stage of what will likely be a lengthy process,” the office of the Cook County Public Defender, which is representing Paporakis, said in a statement emailed to AP. “We would remind the public that statements made by police and prosecutors are only allegations and that cases can change significantly as they continue to be investigated.”

The targeting of the Hindu temple is another example of heightened threats in the last few years against South Asians in the US, according to Stop AAPI Hate, the national reporting centre for anti-Asian hate incidents. Online slurs and threats have risen significantly, co-founder Manjusha Kulkarni said in a statement.

“We are grateful this violent plot was thwarted and that no one was hurt – but it doesn’t erase the fear Hindu, Indian, and South Asian people feel after years of escalating hate,” Kulkarni said. “Violence against South Asian people is not inevitable. It is fuelled when leaders stoke fear of immigrants and people of colour for political gain.”

She attributed some of the anti-South Asian sentiment to the Trump administration’s rhetoric around Indian immigrants who hold work visas. She also pointed to a Texas Republican last month posting a social media video of South Asian students cheering at a University of Texas football game and referring to them as “foreigners”.

The temple, like other Hindu temples and households around the country, has been celebrating Navratri, a Hindu festival that lasts nine days. It “should be a time for celebration and unity, not terror and hate,” Kulkarni said.