Lloyd R. Woodson

Lloyd R. Woodson, born in New York, was arrested in central New Jersey by officers responding to a report from a female convenience store clerk about a suspicious person at 3:55 AM on January 25, 2010. Officers found in his possession and in his motel room a large weapons cache that included illegal weapons and ammunition, a detailed map of Fort Hood, and a traditional red-and-white Middle Eastern headdress. He has been charged on multiple state and federal weapons charges.
Arrest
The officers encountered an "extremely nervous" Woodson at the Quick Chek store at 1296 Route 28 in Branchburg, New Jersey, about an hour west of New York City. As the officers began to question him, Woodson ran out of the back of the store, towards the nearby Regency Trailer Park. The officers found him hiding in the bushes, and when he tried to run away again they tackled him and—as he fought them—subdued him with pepper spray.
Woodson was wearing a military-style bulletproof vest; a ballistic vest with a reinforced front steel plate. He was also carrying a loaded .223 caliber (5.56 mm) semiautomatic Bushmaster assault rifle, which had a defaced serial number and which had been altered to fire .50-caliber ammunition (typically used in heavy weapons mounted on military vehicles), concealed under his green, military-style jacket, and had four more loaded magazines with illegal large-ammunition ball type and hollow point ammunition.
;Weapons and maps
Detectives subsequently searched his room at the Red Mill Inn motel on Route 22 in Branchburg, at which he had been staying for a week. They found a cache of weapons including another Bushmaster .308-caliber semiautomatic rifle with a defaced serial number and a flash suppresor, a 37 mm Cobray flare launcher, a second bulletproof vest, a Russian-made rifle-mountable Nightsight Illuminator NP75 night vision scope, a police scanner, and hundreds of rounds of armor-piercing .50-caliber and .308-caliber ammunition (some of them hollow-point bullets), as well as military pouches, a military-style backpack, and garrison equipment. Woodson said he bought the guns on the streets of New York.
Also there were a detailed map of the Fort Drum U.S. military facility in upstate New York near the Canadian border, about a 5-hour drive from Branchburg (where active duty and reserve soldiers are trained and deployed), and a map of a town in a state other than New Jersey. Fort Drum's Garrison Commander Col. Kenneth Riddle issued a statement January 27, 2010, saying the garrison had been been notified immediately when the map was discovered in Woodson's possession, and that he feels the post is secured, "based on various visible and many more not-so-visible security measures."
Detectives also found a traditional red-and-white Middle Eastern headdress with the weapons and maps. Bail was set by a New Jersey state judge at $75,000.
He was charged in state court.
Background
Woodson, 43 years old at the time of his arrest, is from Generation Drive, Reston, Virginia. He had lived in Reston for less than a year, and previously lived in District Heights, Maryland, Queens, New York, and Brooklyn, New York.
Woodson joined the U.S. Navy in February 1988, serving aboard the , a submarine tender, for under a year before deserting in April 1989. Eight years after he went AWOL he was returned to the Navy's custody. He was ultimately given a dishonorable discharge a month later, in August 1997.
In 1997 he was convicted of a criminal possession of a weapon in Kings County, New York, Superior Court in Brooklyn, New York.
FBI statement and investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued the following statement:
Presently, there does not appear to be a link to terrorism; Woodson does not appear to have a link to any known terrorist groups, nor a specific terrorist plot. However, the matter is still under investigation, and these should only be considered preliminary findings. It is possible that Mr. Woodson could face federal gun charges, but that has yet to be determined. At this time, the matter is being worked as a state case out of the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office.

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