Lone Wolf, it has turned out, was part of Fast and Furious, a secret effort to sell illegal weapons to criminals and track them back to drug cartels. However, federal agents ended up losing track of many of the guns some of which were found to have been linked to the murder a of U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona in 2010. The program became a complete fiasco and resulted in several hearings on Capitol Hill in which former Attorney General Eric Holder was called on to testify.
Soofi was not likely a target for Fast and Furious since he was not connected to Mexican drug cartels or traffickers and, like thousands of other weapons in the program, they lost track of his handgun.
The Garland cartoon convention was offering a prize for the best depiction of the prophet Muhammad. Soofi and his roommate and employee, Elton Simpson, arrived armed with three pistols, three rifles and 1,500 rounds of ammunition. Dressed in armor, they opened fire but were killed by local police.
Simpson allegedly told an FBI informant "It’s time to go to Somalia, brother.It’s time. I’m tellin’ you man. We gonna make it to the battlefield…it’s time to roll."
The charges were dropped for insufficient evidence after a bench trial, in which Simpson maintained he had been planning to go not to Somalia but to South Africa where he intended to study Islam, to which he had converted at a young age.
