A man fatally shot himself after his rental car, filled with weapons and explosive materials, breached the perimeter of a power facility in Nevada and crashed into a large cable spool, authorities said Friday.
Investigators are treating the incident just outside the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power facility in southern Nevada as terrorism-related, authorities said.
Dawson Noah Maloney, a 23-year-old from Albany, New York, drove to Nevada and stayed at the El Rancho Boulder Motel in Boulder City, where investigators found publications espousing extreme right wing, left-wing, white supremacist, and anti-government ideology, they said.
Authorities discovered thermite, ammonium nitrate and other explosive materials in the rented vehicle, Sheriff Kevin McCahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police said at a news conference Friday.
It also contained multiple firearms, including two shotguns, a clone of an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle but possibly in pistol form, numerous .223 caliber magazines that could feed an AR-15 clone, flame throwers, and a hatchet, he said.
The vehicle approached the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power facility in Boulder City at about 10 a.m. Thursday, breached a perimeter fence, and came to a stop after hitting the cable spool, McCahill said. The facility was not damaged.
First responders, including Boulder City police, found the driver dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, McCahill said.
The sheriff said the exact motive was not clear, and that the driver’s ideology may have spanned extreme sides of the political spectrum. It wasn’t clear if authorities think any other people may have been involved.
The man had been in touch with family, expressed suicidal thoughts, and was reported missing before Thursday’s incident at the Nevada site, McCahill said.
The facility was described as a power substation and “transfer facility” belonging to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and related to a solar-power generation project.
The Los Angeles agency said it was aware of an incident at an L.A. power facility, but that there were no impacts or disruptions to operations.
McCahill said the area is also home to facilities related to nearby Hoover Dam’s hydroelectric power generation.
Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said that in the wake of 2022 attacks on utility locations in North Carolina and Washington state, that power infrastructure has long been a target of extremists who seek to destabilize society.
