Updated May 4, 2015 11:44 p.m. ET
One was a former high school basketball star who converted to Islam and was arrested for lying about his plans to join militants in Africa, the other was a one-time pre-med student and pizzeria owner who lived for a time in Pakistan and denounced Israel on social media.
Together, law-enforcement officials say, they teamed up to attack an event in suburban Dallas on Sunday that featured a contest involving cartoon drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.
Armed with assault rifles and wearing protective body gear, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi were quickly gunned down by a police officer after they opened fire on their way into a community center in Garland, Texas, where about 200 people were attending the event.
Now authorities are piecing together the movements of Mr. Simpson and Mr. Soofi, who shared a Phoenix residence and attended the same mosque.
A law-enforcement official on Monday, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Phoenix executed search warrants at the suspects’ apartment building.
Members of the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix, where the men attended services, said Mr. Soofi, 34 years old, was a less regular presence than Mr. Simpson, but recalled seeing them together.
“I am totally shocked. I am sure the entire community is shocked,” said Ihsan Saadeddin, who knew the 31-year-old Mr. Simpson from the mosque. “He was always soft-spoken, very shy, very quiet. Nobody would think he would carry a gun.”
Police had been monitoring social media for threats months before the event, but hadn’t gotten any indication of Sunday’s attack, said Joe Harn, a spokesman for the Garland Police Department.
Investigators are looking into tweets sent before the shooting from an account titled Shariah is Light with a hashtag #texasattack, Mr. Harn said, adding that they are uncertain whether they were sent by the suspects.
Mr. Simpson was the subject of a prior federal law-enforcement investigation in Phoenix, the law-enforcement official confirmed.
In March 2011, Mr. Simpson was convicted of making a false statement to the FBI after prosecutors said he had planned to join Islamic militant groups in Africa, and then lied about those plans to federal agents, court records show.
An FBI informant recorded conversations that Mr. Simpson had with several associates in 2009 expressing his desire to join Islamic militant groups, according to court documents.
“It’s time to go to Somalia, brother,” he said in one taped conversation with associates, in May 2009, according to the filings. “We gonna make it to the battlefield,” he added. “Its time to roll.”
Prosecutors said Mr. Simpson had bought a plane ticket to South Africa so he could attend an Islamic school, but told friends that he would be preparing to travel elsewhere to fight as soon as the opportunity arose.
“School is a front and if I am given the opportunity to bounce…,” he told a friend about his plans to join jihad in one recorded conversation.
In January of 2010, Mr. Simpson was visited by the FBI at his Arizona home and denied discussing traveling to Somalia, according to prosecutors.
Mr. Simpson’s federal public defenders said he had moved to Phoenix from Illinois at a young age and converted to Islam. And they said, though his taped conversations frequently addressed Islam, he never made specific plans to fight with jihadists.
The federal judge in Mr. Simpson’s earlier case, Mary H. Murguia, ruled that prosecutors hadn’t established that Mr. Simpson’s potential travel plans were “sufficiently ‘related’ to international terrorism.” He was sentenced to three years of probation.
Kristina Sitton, a former federal public defender who represented Mr. Simpson in his criminal case, said he was a devout Muslim who converted from Christianity to Islam after graduating from high school. He said, she recalled, that his new religion gave him a sense of community and helped steer him off a bad track.
“He had been drinking and smoking marijuana,” Ms. Sitton said. “He told everyone that Islam was his saving grace.”
His parents, she said, were concerned about his conversion, but were generally very supportive of Mr. Simpson. They couldn’t be reached for comment Monday.
During his conversation with FBI agents, Mr. Simpson asked about Hassan Abu Jihad, who was convicted in March 2008 in federal district court in Connecticut of providing material support to terrorists. Mr. Abu Jihad was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the case.
The FBI said in court documents that Mr. Simpson knew Mr. Abu Jihad from his time in Phoenix, where he had been arrested in 2007 on the federal charges that led to his conviction.
Mr. Soofi also has faced legal troubles. In 2012, he was sued for showing a closed-circuit boxing match without a commercial license at Cleopatra Bistro Pizza, a Phoenix restaurant he owned at the time. He was ordered to pay about $10,000 in damages.
In 2013, Mr. Soofi was told to pay $4,800 in past child support to the mother of his son, Tabbatha Banayat, according to court documents filed with the Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County. At that time, he was a taxi driver, earning $2,500 a month, documents show.
A Facebook page that appeared to belong to Mr. Soofi showed that he lived in Islamabad for a time, where he studied at the International School of Islamabad. He later moved to Salt Lake City.
The Facebook page is filled with images denouncing alleged police abuse in the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Palestinians, as well as prayers to Allah.
It is unclear when Mr. Soofi moved to the Phoenix area, where those who knew him said he also had owned a carpet-cleaning business.
He was a pre-med student at University of Utah from the fall of 1998 through the summer of 2003, but didn’t earn a degree, according to a school spokeswoman.
Mr. Simpson, once the star of the Washington High School basketball team in Phoenix, had changed his name to Ibrahim after converting to Islam, said a friend.
He also had become upset because he hadn’t found a woman to marry and expressed frustration that he had been put on the federal government’s no-fly list, the friend said.
Mr. Harn, the Garland Police Department spokesman, couldn’t provide any information about when the suspects had arrived in Texas or how, but said that suitcases were found in their car.
The suspects were carrying more rounds of ammunition in their vehicle and investigators believe they intended to enter the Curtis Culwell Center, where the American Freedom Defense Initiative was hosting the event.
The group planned the gathering after a January attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo by Islamic extremists who killed 12 people, including some of the publication’s most famous cartoonists.
The Initiative’s first annual contest to award $10,000 for the top cartoon rendering of Muhammad was sponsored by the organization as a way to promote free speech, said Pamela Geller, the group’s president.
The keynote speaker was Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician known for his incendiary rhetoric opposing Islam.
She said she chose the Garland site because a pro-Islamic event, called “Stand with The Prophet in Love and Peace Against Hate and Terror,” had been held at the venue in January.
“The Charlie Hebdo slaughter was the opening salvo in an ongoing battle,” Ms. Geller said an interview on Monday.
Heidi Beirich, who tracks extremism for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said Ms. Geller “is not a free-speech crusader, she is an anti-Muslim propagandist.”
Mr. Saadeddin, a former board member at the Islamic Community Center, said he condemned Mr. Simpson’s actions. But he also was upset about the cartoons, which he said were deliberately provocative and deeply hurtful to Muslims.
“Apparently, Elton was vulnerable inside,” he said. “I am very sad for how his life ended.”
—Devlin Barrett and Nathan Koppel contributed to this article.
One was a former high school basketball star who converted to Islam and was arrested for lying about his plans to join militants in Africa, the other was a one-time pre-med student and pizzeria owner who lived for a time in Pakistan and denounced Israel on social media.
Together, law-enforcement officials say, they teamed up to attack an event in suburban Dallas on Sunday that featured a contest involving cartoon drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.
Armed with assault rifles and wearing protective body gear, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi were quickly gunned down by a police officer after they opened fire on their way into a community center in Garland, Texas, where about 200 people were attending the event.
Now authorities are piecing together the movements of Mr. Simpson and Mr. Soofi, who shared a Phoenix residence and attended the same mosque.
A law-enforcement official on Monday, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Phoenix executed search warrants at the suspects’ apartment building.
Members of the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix, where the men attended services, said Mr. Soofi, 34 years old, was a less regular presence than Mr. Simpson, but recalled seeing them together.
“I am totally shocked. I am sure the entire community is shocked,” said Ihsan Saadeddin, who knew the 31-year-old Mr. Simpson from the mosque. “He was always soft-spoken, very shy, very quiet. Nobody would think he would carry a gun.”
Police had been monitoring social media for threats months before the event, but hadn’t gotten any indication of Sunday’s attack, said Joe Harn, a spokesman for the Garland Police Department.
Investigators are looking into tweets sent before the shooting from an account titled Shariah is Light with a hashtag #texasattack, Mr. Harn said, adding that they are uncertain whether they were sent by the suspects.
Mr. Simpson was the subject of a prior federal law-enforcement investigation in Phoenix, the law-enforcement official confirmed.
In March 2011, Mr. Simpson was convicted of making a false statement to the FBI after prosecutors said he had planned to join Islamic militant groups in Africa, and then lied about those plans to federal agents, court records show.
An FBI informant recorded conversations that Mr. Simpson had with several associates in 2009 expressing his desire to join Islamic militant groups, according to court documents.
“It’s time to go to Somalia, brother,” he said in one taped conversation with associates, in May 2009, according to the filings. “We gonna make it to the battlefield,” he added. “Its time to roll.”
Prosecutors said Mr. Simpson had bought a plane ticket to South Africa so he could attend an Islamic school, but told friends that he would be preparing to travel elsewhere to fight as soon as the opportunity arose.
“School is a front and if I am given the opportunity to bounce…,” he told a friend about his plans to join jihad in one recorded conversation.
In January of 2010, Mr. Simpson was visited by the FBI at his Arizona home and denied discussing traveling to Somalia, according to prosecutors.
Mr. Simpson’s federal public defenders said he had moved to Phoenix from Illinois at a young age and converted to Islam. And they said, though his taped conversations frequently addressed Islam, he never made specific plans to fight with jihadists.
The federal judge in Mr. Simpson’s earlier case, Mary H. Murguia, ruled that prosecutors hadn’t established that Mr. Simpson’s potential travel plans were “sufficiently ‘related’ to international terrorism.” He was sentenced to three years of probation.
Kristina Sitton, a former federal public defender who represented Mr. Simpson in his criminal case, said he was a devout Muslim who converted from Christianity to Islam after graduating from high school. He said, she recalled, that his new religion gave him a sense of community and helped steer him off a bad track.
“He had been drinking and smoking marijuana,” Ms. Sitton said. “He told everyone that Islam was his saving grace.”
His parents, she said, were concerned about his conversion, but were generally very supportive of Mr. Simpson. They couldn’t be reached for comment Monday.
During his conversation with FBI agents, Mr. Simpson asked about Hassan Abu Jihad, who was convicted in March 2008 in federal district court in Connecticut of providing material support to terrorists. Mr. Abu Jihad was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the case.
The FBI said in court documents that Mr. Simpson knew Mr. Abu Jihad from his time in Phoenix, where he had been arrested in 2007 on the federal charges that led to his conviction.
Mr. Soofi also has faced legal troubles. In 2012, he was sued for showing a closed-circuit boxing match without a commercial license at Cleopatra Bistro Pizza, a Phoenix restaurant he owned at the time. He was ordered to pay about $10,000 in damages.
In 2013, Mr. Soofi was told to pay $4,800 in past child support to the mother of his son, Tabbatha Banayat, according to court documents filed with the Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County. At that time, he was a taxi driver, earning $2,500 a month, documents show.
A Facebook page that appeared to belong to Mr. Soofi showed that he lived in Islamabad for a time, where he studied at the International School of Islamabad. He later moved to Salt Lake City.
The Facebook page is filled with images denouncing alleged police abuse in the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Palestinians, as well as prayers to Allah.
It is unclear when Mr. Soofi moved to the Phoenix area, where those who knew him said he also had owned a carpet-cleaning business.
He was a pre-med student at University of Utah from the fall of 1998 through the summer of 2003, but didn’t earn a degree, according to a school spokeswoman.
Mr. Simpson, once the star of the Washington High School basketball team in Phoenix, had changed his name to Ibrahim after converting to Islam, said a friend.
He also had become upset because he hadn’t found a woman to marry and expressed frustration that he had been put on the federal government’s no-fly list, the friend said.
Mr. Harn, the Garland Police Department spokesman, couldn’t provide any information about when the suspects had arrived in Texas or how, but said that suitcases were found in their car.
The suspects were carrying more rounds of ammunition in their vehicle and investigators believe they intended to enter the Curtis Culwell Center, where the American Freedom Defense Initiative was hosting the event.
The group planned the gathering after a January attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo by Islamic extremists who killed 12 people, including some of the publication’s most famous cartoonists.
The Initiative’s first annual contest to award $10,000 for the top cartoon rendering of Muhammad was sponsored by the organization as a way to promote free speech, said Pamela Geller, the group’s president.
The keynote speaker was Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician known for his incendiary rhetoric opposing Islam.
She said she chose the Garland site because a pro-Islamic event, called “Stand with The Prophet in Love and Peace Against Hate and Terror,” had been held at the venue in January.
“The Charlie Hebdo slaughter was the opening salvo in an ongoing battle,” Ms. Geller said an interview on Monday.
Heidi Beirich, who tracks extremism for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said Ms. Geller “is not a free-speech crusader, she is an anti-Muslim propagandist.”
Mr. Saadeddin, a former board member at the Islamic Community Center, said he condemned Mr. Simpson’s actions. But he also was upset about the cartoons, which he said were deliberately provocative and deeply hurtful to Muslims.
“Apparently, Elton was vulnerable inside,” he said. “I am very sad for how his life ended.”
—Devlin Barrett and Nathan Koppel contributed to this article.
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