The pro-Trump gunman who was shot lifeless by Ohio police Thursday after he attacked the FBI’s Cincinnati area office with a nail gun was a Navy veteran with top-secret clearance who served on submarines and apparently had a necessity for velocity, information and sources revealed Friday.
“I have a lead foot,” Ricky Walter Shiffer advised a Minnesota police officer after he was caught going 50 mph in a 30 mph zone in his purple Ford Mustang, in accordance to a rushing ticket obtained by NBC News in collaboration with The Fargo Forum newspaper.
That was in February 2004 and Shiffer was dwelling in St. Cloud, Minnesota, in accordance to the ticket — one among a number of he accrued earlier than and after he was discharged from the Navy in 2003.
In latest months, Shiffer had been dwelling in Omaha, Nebraska, and was on the FBI’s radar after they discovered he had been on the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
“The FBI previously received information about Ricky Shiffer, the individual who attempted to breach the Visitor Screening Facility at the FBI Cincinnati Field Office on August 11, 2022,” the FBI said in a statement released Friday. “The information did not contain a specific and credible threat. However, multiple field offices made attempts to locate and interview Shiffer which were unsuccessful.”
Shiffer, who was 42 when he died Thursday after a standoff with pursuing cops, enlisted within the Navy in June 1998 and underwent 10 months of coaching earlier than being assigned to the USS Columbia. His project was overseeing digital gear related to weapons akin to missiles and torpedoes.
“Shiffer had to be eligible for top-secret clearance in his job as an E-5,” a Navy spokesperson advised NBC News.
Upon leaving the Navy after 5 years of service, Shiffer moved from state to state, information present.
Along the best way, Shiffer managed to rack up rushing tickets in Ohio, Hawaii and Florida in addition to different visitors offenses in Virginia, information present.
But Shiffer’s most critical run-in with the legislation prior to Thursday got here in July 2003, when he was arrested by the Moorhead, Minnesota police and charged with “obstructing legal process,” a misdemeanor to which he pleaded responsible a month later, information present.
It was not instantly clear what occurred in that case as a result of that police report has been purged and the Moorhead Police chief didn’t reply to an e-mail from NBC News searching for entry to the arrest information.
From 2017 to 2020, information present that Shiffer lived in an condo constructing close to downtown Columbus, Ohio. A former neighbor described him as pleasant but additionally “a bit off.”
“He had a little bit of an anger issue about his car, but who doesn’t,” Ian McConnell advised The Cincinnati Enquirer.
A Pennsylvania native, Shiffer registered as a Republican wherever he lived, information present. He didn’t seem to be married or have kids. But he was a devoted follower of former President Donald Trump.
NBC News reported on Thursday that Shiffer was on the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, though it was not clear whether or not he was a part of the mob that breached the constructing. He did, nevertheless, put up typically on social media about how he was in Washington, D.C. that day.
And on Thursday, after he tried and failed to get contained in the FBI constructing in Cincinnati, Shiffer apparently confessed to the crime on Truth Social, the social media platform based by Trump’s media firm.
“Well, I thought I had a way through bullet proof glass, and I didn’t,” the account @RickyWShifferJr wrote at 9:29 a.m. ET, shortly after police allege the taking pictures occurred. “If you don’t hear from me, it is true I tried attacking the F.B.I., and it’ll mean either I was taken off the internet, the F.B.I. got me, or they sent the regular cops while.”
Shiffer was apparently incensed after the FBI confiscated greater than a dozen bins of categorised paperwork from Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, Florida, earlier this week.
“We must not tolerate this one,” he wrote.