FBI says Timothy Wilson, 36, had planned for several months to carry out a bombing and decided to target a Kansas City-area hospital

This article is more than 5 months old

This article is more than 5 months old

A man fatally injured by the FBI was planning a bomb attack on a medical facility in the Kansas City area, the agency said in a news release on Wednesday.

Timothy Wilson, 36, was injured on Tuesday when FBI agents served a probable cause arrest warrant in Belton, Missouri, after a long-running domestic terrorism investigation, according to a statement on Wednesday from Timothy Langan, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Kansas City office.

The statement did not detail what happened when agents served the warrant, but said Wilson was armed when he was injured and died later at a hospital.

A months-long investigation determined that Wilson was a potentially violent extremist, motivated by religious, racial and anti-government beliefs, according to the statement. He had planned for several months to carry out a bombing and decided to target a Kansas City-area hospital using a “vehicle-borne” improvised explosive.

Wilson chose a hospital that was providing critical care during the current coronavirus pandemic and had taken steps to acquire materials to build the bomb in an attempt to cause “severe harm and mass casualties”, according to the statement.

The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force kept close watch on Wilson and was prepared to arrest him when he tried to pick up what he thought was a bomb, although there was no bomb, the statement said. The FBI worked with federal prosecutors in the US attorneys office in Kansas City during the investigation.

No further details were released.