FRC Shooter Pleasds Guilty, Intended To “Smother” Victims’ Faces With Chick-fil-A

Floyd Lee Corkins II, the man who shot an unarmed guard at the Family Research Council’s headquarters back in August, pleaded guilty to three felony charges on Wednesday in federal court, where new details about his plan emerged.

Corkins was charged with a federal charge of transporting a firearm and ammunition across state lines as well as D.C. charges of assault with intent to kill and committing an act of terrorism while armed.

Days before the FRC shooting, Corkins had obtained a gun and had it modified to be “more effective” with the intention of targeting organizations he viewed as anti-gay. According to newly released court documents, Corkins wanted to kill “as many people as possible.”

The Washington Post reports:

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Corkins, who told the judge Wednesday that he is taking medication and being treated for “severe depression,” was so angry at the anti-gay-marriage positions of the Family Research Council and the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A that he devised a scheme involving both.

Corkins, who had volunteered at a gay community center in Northwest, told FBI agents that his goal was to target people opposed to same-sex marriage and “smother Chick-fil-A sandwiches in their faces,” according to a plea agreement he signed in December. He had bought 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches the day before, an apparent symbol of his antipathy for the head of the fast-food chain, who had recently spoken out against same-sex marriage.

According to court documents, Corkins had been thinking about “perpetrating similar violence” for years and had “initially wanted to make a bomb, but did not have the patience to do it.”

Corkins told FBI agents that he identified the FRC using the Southern Poverty Law Center, which labels the organization as a hate group. The day after the shooting, FRC president Tony Perkins suggested that the SPLC had given Corkins a “license to perpetrate this act of violence.” On Wednesday, Perkins claimed his comments were validated by Corkins’ admission.

An SPLC spokeswoman, however, argued that they never listed the FRC’s address on its website and that Perkins’ group deserves the label as it claims, among other things, that pedophilia is a “homosexual problem.”

Corkins could face up to 30 years in prison on each of the two local charges and up to 10 years on the federal charge. He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 29.