[Buddha-l] First US Buddhist terrorist?

[Dan Lusthaus]

> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/16/washington-navy-yard-mass-shooting
>
> "He had converted to Buddhism and wanted to become an ordained monk,
> friends said."

Additional info:

In recent years, Mr. Alexis dated a Thai woman and began showing up 
regularly at Wat Busayadhammavanara, a Buddhist Temple in White Settlement, 
Tex., a Fort Worth suburb. He had Thai friends, adored Thai food and said he 
always felt drawn to the culture, said Pat Pundisto, a member of the temple 
answering the phone there on Monday. He was a regular at Sunday services, 
intoning Buddhist chants and staying to meditate afterward. On celebrations 
like the Thai New Year in April, he helped out, serving guests dressed in 
ceremonial Thai garb the temple provided.

At the temple, he met Nutpisit Suthamtewakul, who went on to open the Happy 
Bowl Thai restaurant in White Settlement in 2011, said the restaurant owner's 
cousin, Naree Wilton, 51, in a phone interview. Mr. Alexis helped out at the 
restaurant in exchange for food and a room in Mr. Suthamtewakul's house.

There, he played computer games "at the nighttime and all day," Ms. Wilton 
said, on one of three computers he kept in his room, driving up the house's 
electricity bills. After he got a job fixing computers, the family asked him 
to help out with utility bills. He rarely paid and borrowed money often, Ms. 
Wilton said, complaining that his computer company was withholding pay.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/us/suspect-in-shooting-had-interest-in-thai-culture-and-problems-with-the-law.html?hp

Dan