Suspect killed by FBI during investigation into plot to bomb medical facility

A suspect in a months-long FBI investigation is dead after he was shot by FBI agents during an operation to arrest him.

FBI Special Agent Timothy Langan of the Kansas City field office identified the man killed in Belton, Mo., as 36-year-old Timothy Wilson, according to The Associated Press.

The suspect reportedly planned to use a vehicle-based explosive device in an attack on a hospital in the Kansas City area. Many hospitals around the country have been overwhelmed in recent days by cases of the coronavirus, with tens of thousands of cases reported across the country.

FBI officials told CNN that the case involved the bureau’s efforts against racially motivated extremists, adding that the investigation was part of a probe into violent white supremacist movements and had uncovered credible threats made by Wilson.

“The FBI takes any shooting incident involving our agents seriously,” FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton told the network. “In accordance with FBI policy, the shooting incident will be investigated by the FBI’s Inspection Division. The review process is thorough and objective, and is conducted as expeditiously as possible under the circumstances.”

Law enforcement officials have warned in recent days that white supremacists and other politically motivated terrorist groups could seek to weaponize the novel strain of coronavirus, which has sickened more than 470,000 globally.

“Because coronavirus appears to meet the statutory definition of a ‘biological agent,’ ” Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen wrote of possible intentional efforts to spread the disease in a memo obtained by CNN, “such acts potentially could implicate the Nation’s terrorism-related statutes.”

— This report was updated at 7:38 a.m.