Watch CBS News

Edmonds Describes Plan To Attack Joliet Armory In FBI Undercover Video

(CBS) -- The chilling video of an Aurora man plotting to shoot up the Joliet Armory eventually landed Hasan Edmonds a 30-year sentence in prison.

CBS 2's Marissa Bailey talked with a terrorism expert about the video.

It's real-time undercover video of an American soldier plotting to commit a terrorist attack on American soil.

"A lot of the soldiers don't come with the armory on the infantry though. They like to walk around in it," Edmonds says on the video. He is seen on recordings to an FBI agent posing as an ISIS supporter describing in detail the inner-workings of drill formations and planning to kill his fellow soldiers.

"You're seeing a whole sequence here of very methodical planning from not just the idea of the operation but every step along the way," Terrorism Expert Robert Pape said after watching the videos.

He says Edmonds' calm demeanor as he describes the mass murder, is not unusual. "What you're seeing here is not someone who is just kind of  throwing it out there, he's thinking hard about how he's going to kill lots of people."

At one point in the recordings, Edmonds talks about how many shots a soldier's bullet-proof vest can take.

"He's thinking about the details he's thinking through how he's going to kill them to ensure he increases the body count," Pape said. "This isn't a movie. This is the real thing. But at the same time, the reason we can see this is because the FBI was on top of this."

The FBI calls the capture a success story.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.