Chattanooga shooting suspect worked 10 days at Ohio nuclear plant
By Kim Palmer
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - The suspected gunman in the Chattanooga, Tennessee, shooting that killed four Marines was hired as an engineer at an Ohio nuclear plant and spent 10 days there before he was let go, a spokesman for the company that owns the plant said on Friday.
Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, a Kuwaiti-born naturalized U.S. citizen died on Thursday in a firefight with police.
He worked in the Perry Nuclear Power Plant's administrative offices in 2013, said Todd Schneider, a spokesman for FirstEnergy Corp , which owns the facility.
Abdulazeez was a conditional employee dismissed after he received general training on company procedures because, "he did not meet the minimum requirements for ongoing employment," Schneider said.
Schneider did not say why exactly Abdulazeez was dismissed, and would not confirm media reports that he had failed a background check. The plant requires a background check for all employees.
Schneider said Abdulazeez was never granted access to the secure area of the plant. Plant employees alerted management after the Federal Bureau of Investigation identified Abdulazeez as the man who had fired on military centers in Tennessee.
The plant, which is about 35 miles (56 km) northeast of Cleveland on Lake Erie, began commercial operations in 1987.
(Reporting by Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
