Florida trucker arrested, charged with plotting church shooting: prosecutors

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(Reuters) – Federal authorities said they have arrested a Florida truck driver who “was thinking about shooting up a church” in Memphis this week, making him at least the fourth person this month charged with plotting a mass shooting.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Thomas McVicker, 38, in Indianapolis on Monday after a friend in Alabama alerted agents to text messages he sent in which he described his plans for a mass shooting and suicide, according to court papers.

McVicker, who is from Punta Gorda but lives in his truck, is under treatment and is on medication for schizophrenia, according to his mother, FBI Special Agent Ketrick Kelley said in an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Alabama.

It was not immediately clear if McVicker had an attorney.

The alleged mass shooting, which Kelley said McVicker appeared to be planning to carry out on Thursday, comes after law enforcement authorities in Ohio, Florida and Connecticut said they arrested three men who planned mass shootings.

Since July 28, shooting sprees in Gilroy, California, El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, killed 34 people.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)

FBI director says four arrested in last month for ISIS plots

FBI Director Comey testifies before House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in Washington

ASHINGTON (Reuters) – The FBI has arrested four people within the last month in order to disrupt Islamic State-inspired plots, FBI Director James Comey told a panel of U.S. lawmakers on Thursday.

At the same hearing, U.S. National Counterterrorism Director Nicholas J. Rasmussen said Islamic State’s ability to carry out attacks in Iraq, Syria has not significantly diminished even as the militant group has lost ground militarily.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards; Editing by James Dalgleish)