Chattanooga Shooter Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez’s DUI Arrest Video Released

Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez had downloaded audio recordings of Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-Yemeni cleric who was a recruiter for al Qaeda, according to law enforcement officials.
Mohammad Youssuf Adbulazeer after being detained for a driving offense in April. Hamilton County Sheriffs Office via AP

But relatives in Jordan believe last week’s gun attacks were not motivated by ideology or religion. The rampage ended when the 24-year-old was killed in a shootout with Tennessee police.

“What happened shocked the family,” lawyer Abdul-Qader al-Khateeb told NBC News. “Mohammad wasn’t a political person, or religious. It wasn’t a planned act and not an act of terrorism.”

“Maybe it was a mental breakdown,” he added. Family members in Tennessee said earlier that Abdulazeez had been battling depression and drug abuse for many years.

Al-Khateeb is representing the shooter’s 40-year-old uncle, Asa’ad Ibrahim Asaad Abdulazeez, who U.S. law enforcement officials believe is “radical.” The gunman’s uncle is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Kuwait, and is a business owner who moved to Jordan in 2010 to help take care of his parents.

During his arrest, one of the police officers notes the smell of marijuana. Abdulazeez responds by saying that while he has smoked weed, he hadn’t that night. He adds, however, that he had been around others who did.

He also told the officer he would decline to take a blood test to check his sobriety.

“I don’t feel that I should be taken in right now,” he tells the officer. “I mean was my driving that…”

“It was,” the cop answers. “It was. It was that bad.”

Here is an undated boxing photo provided to the Times Free Press by a former coach:

Here’s an older, undated photo of Abdulazeez, provided by a former coach. Photo likely 5 years old or so pic.twitter.com/cCaFBRel85

— Shelly Bradbury (@ShellyBradbury) July 16, 2015