17-year-old accused of planning to bomb Phoenix Pride Festival was turned in by his mother, officials say
A teenager has been indicted on terrorism charges, accused of planning to bomb the Phoenix Pride Festival this past weekend, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.
According to the announcement, 17-year-old Marvin Jalo had been involved in multiple online chat forums “discussing the supplies necessary to make an improvised explosive device and then had those supplies shipped to him” over the last year.
The teen reportedly expressed his plans to attack the recent Oct. 19-20 festival.
He was indicted Oct. 16 on one count of terrorism and one count of conspiracy to commit terrorism and will be tried as an adult.
In the indictment, Jalo was accused of furthering the goals of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a terrorist organization also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
“It certainly goes beyond that of being just a casual interest or dabbling or fad. I mean, this is somebody who spent some time immersed in this. And thankfully, somebody did what we’ve asked people to do, which is see something or know something, in this case, say something so that once the investigators were told of what was going on, they could look into it and quickly act to get him off the streets so that nobody was hurt,” County Attorney Rachel Mitchell told 12News.
Read more: NBC New 12 (AZ)