The man accused of driving a pickup truck filled with Molotov cocktails and other deadly weapons to the state’s capital lives in a brick house in the backyard of Alabama.
Lonnie Coffman had no criminal record. No apparent social media accounts. And no city officials or law enforcers in the area ever came in contact with him.
“I do not know him, I have never heard of him and I have never heard of anyone who did know him,” said Ken Winkles, mayor of Falkville, with 1,300 people, where Coffman’s mail is sent , said.
More than 50 people were arrested on federal charges in the days after a crowd of pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6.
Coffman’s face was not one of those that went viral, and it’s not even clear if he violated the building. But he stands out for the large amount of weapons he brought to Washington.
The 70-year-old Alabama man with no criminal history or known extremist ties is the worst nightmare for law enforcement, experts say – a seemingly lone wolf operating completely under the radar.
“These are the people who keep law enforcement awake at night,” said Clint Van Zandt, a former FBI criminal and NBC News analyst. “I went to bed and thought, ‘Did I do everything I could? Did I look for this? Did I look for it? ‘But what are you looking for in a guy like this? ‘
The rise of right-wing groups such as the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters became a focus of federal authorities in the President Donald Trump era. The existence of people like Coffman, singles who gather large collections of weapons and who can become motivated to act to overthrow the government, is an even greater challenge to law enforcement.
“If you do not tell anyone what you are doing and do it yourself completely, the only way we can find you, as this man was found, we are happy and stumble upon you,” said Van Zandt, who was among a team of investigators who worked to identify the “Unabomber,” Ted Kaczynski.
Police officers came across Coffman’s truck after authorities received reports of explosive devices in the vicinity of the National Republican Club and the Democratic National Committee headquarters.
While patrolling the area with police dogs, two Capitol police officers spotted what appeared to be the handle of a gun in the passenger seat to the right of a red GMC Sierra pickup truck, federal prosecutors said.
The vehicle was parked in downtown Washington, just a few blocks from the Capitol.
Officers searched the truck and discovered that it was equipped for war. Among the weapons found inside and the truck bed were: three rifles, including an assault rifle; hundreds of rounds of ammunition; various chopping knives; smoking devices for camouflage; a stun gun; a crossbow with bolts; and 11 Molotov cocktails in the form of canned jars with petrol inside and a hole at the top.
Officers quickly determined through a vehicle registration investigation that the truck was registered with a Lonnie L. Coffman of Falkville, Alabama.
Motion camera footage recovered later in the day showed Coffman parking the vehicle around 9:15 p.m. Prosecutors said he walked out of it five minutes later and was on his way to the Capitol with a crowd of people. A Trump rally would begin nearby at 11 p.m.
When Coffman returned to his vehicle around 6:30 p.m., he was stopped by police, who are manning the safety cordon, according to federal prosecutors, and is in possession of two handguns.
Asked about the contents of the pots, Coffman told officers it contained ‘molten whipped cream and petrol’, according to a note from the Justice Department. The products have created an explosive mixture that has the effect of napalm, in that it stops the flammable liquid from sticking better to objects it hits after explosion, the memo reads.
Jim Cavanaugh, a former special agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the homemade devices were designed to act like miniature hand grenades.
“It’s not really going to take down a building,” said Cavanaugh, a law enforcement analyst with NBC News. ‘It’s more like a weapon that if someone was in a demonstration, they would throw it at the police. And whatever it hits, because of the styrofoam, it keeps on burning. ”
“If he had taken the trouble to make and transport it, he probably intended to use it,” Cavanaugh added.
Cavanaugh, who led the ATF field divisions in Birmingham, Alabama, and Nashville, Tennessee, said it was not at all surprising to him that someone from the hills of Alabama would be found with such an arsenal. He said the region is full of people who do not trust the government and have a love of weapons.
“This man is not unusual for me,” Cavanaugh said. ‘What is unusual is the target: the Capitol. We would see people making bombs all the time, but they wanted to kill their boyfriend or the person they were cheating on, or they wanted to attack a prominent figure from time to time. ”
Coffman lived along a country road in the shadow of the Laconberg. The heavily wooded area is a kind of no-man’s land between Falkville and Cullman, the seat of 16,000 people in Cullman County.
Winkles, the mayor of Falkville, said people in his city were not surprised to hear that someone from the area with a large arms store in Washington had been arrested.
“There are a lot of problems on these mountains south of us,” Winkles said. ‘There are drugs. There are all sorts of things out there. Those people just do what they want, or at least they think. “
Coffman and his then-wife bought the 1,000-square-foot, 3-acre home for $ 20,150 in April 2010. The house sits at the top of a long driveway with a “no offense” sign next to it and a few stumps laid out on the other side to prevent vehicles from driving toward the house.
A federal agent was photographed Thursday when he spoke to a woman outside the home.
During his time there, records show that Coffman qualifies for three tax exemptions: an exemption from a homestead, exemption for the disabled and one for senior citizens.
Public records provide a close look at Coffman’s life.
He married his wife in March 1971 and joined Nicholson File Co. eight years later. started work, a manufacturer of machine-made files, circular saw blades, power tool accessories and hand saws.
He filed a claim for compensation from a worker in 2002 stating that he had carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands that required surgery. He also had a fracture after straining himself on the back-to-back days in July 2002.
According to court documents, the injury occurred when he tried to “remove a dice that got stuck in a match” and worsened the next day, lifting a heel files of about 60 pounds. ‘
At the time of the crash, Coffman was earning an average weekly wage of $ 629.05. Eventually, he was awarded a lump sum of $ 20,000 – which, after attorney fees for the rest of his life, broke up to a weekly benefit of $ 14.01.
The only other court case over Coffman that NBC News could find in the Morgan or Cullman counties is his divorce, which was settled in September 2019.
Mike Swafford, the Morgan County Sheriff’s Public Information Officer, said his department had no records of any contact with Coffman.
“Last year we answered 80,000 calls in a country with about 100,000 people,” he said. “It’s unusual for someone to have no interaction with us – not a dispute with a neighbor or a stop.”
Chad Whaley, the director of communications for the sheriff of Cullman County, said he also had nothing to do with Coffman.
“Here it is very common that people have a lot of guns, and that they have weapons,” he said. ‘And most people we will not think of unless you associate it with strange behavior. It may be that this man has never been heard of or seen by him, but he was just another member of the community and put together. ‘
The only proof available in life that Coffman was wrong in life was a document of evidence showing that he had given power of attorney to his ex-wife and sister in June 2020.
It is not clear what motivated the decision, but a court hearing last week provided a possible clue.
According to Coffman’s lawyer, he is taking various drugs for mental illness, according to Reuters.
Neither his ex-wife nor his sister responded to the messages that appeared on their number. His lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.
Coffman’s statements to police after his arrest and some letters found in his truck indicate he was struggling financially and focused on right-wing views.
After being stopped by police, Coffman, according to the arrest note, told officers he had been staying out of his truck in the Washington DC area for the past week.
In addition to the weapons, officers found a handwritten note with a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln. “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the constitution,” it reads.
The letter identifies Indiana Democratic Representative Andre Carson as “one of two Muslims in the House of Representatives” and to declare the website sgtreport.com, which recently posted an interview with someone saying that the military on the verge of standing around the a ‘communist purge’, as ‘good guys’.
Another set of handwritten messages was found on the back of a magazine. Across an ad for Motel 6 were scribbles of alleged phone numbers for ‘Conservative talk show host Mark Levin’, ‘Shaun Hannity’ and ‘Senator Ted Cruz’.
Coffman was charged on 17 separate gun charges. The Alabama man pleaded not guilty and was ordered to remain unrelated.
Van Zandt, the retired FBI profile, said it is vital for law enforcement to understand what Coffman intended to do with all of his weapons and what motivates him to identify others like him.
He pointed out that the purification of people with radical views from popular social platforms, which has increased in recent weeks, deprives researchers of an important tool for locating people who can move along the continuum of ideas into action.
“We know there will be guys out there who will not be happy with the Biden administration for the next four years,” Van Zandt said. “The authorities have really picked out their work to identify Ted Kaczynski-type people who are out there and intend to make a difference in the world.”