13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |Police find chemicals, al-Qaida literature in north side apartment

Police find chemicals, al-Qaida literature in north side apartment

Indianapolis - The FBI says it does not suspect a terror plot on the city's northside, but police want to know why a man stored and mixed chemicals in his apartment and had al-Qaida literature. 

At the suspect's apartment near 96th and College, crews pack the stores of cleaning and other chemicals found inside.

Police are holding Joseph Bagley for 72 hours, that could give police more time to check the computer the took from his apartment.

Captain Phil Burton of the Marion County Sheriff's Deptartment says police also found, "A lot of hazardous chemicals, a gas mask, some literature about al-Qaida, about Saddam Hussein and how to make bombs. He admitted to mixing several chemicals and in so doing used his gas mask and exhaust fan."

At the jail, a released prisoner who talked to Bagley told Eyewitness News, "He said he wasn't making bombs, he said there was carpet cleaner out. He said that whosever was cleaning his apartment was just terrified of everything laying out. (It) Didn't really look dangerous at all."

"This doesn't sound like any kind of international criminal conspiracy, it sounds like a lone operation involving one person," said Professor Douglad Woodwell of the University of Indianapolis. "There is definitely an inspiration al-Qaida offers to a lot of people around the world these days. They can perhaps play their own role in an epic battle."

Professor Woodwell says he could very well be a guy who just likes mixing chemicals.
 
The suspect's charged with criminal recklessness for having the chemicals in the apartment. He's a former electronics student with no criminal past.