The FBI responded to another incident of gunfire at a North Carolina substation Tuesday morning — just one month after an act of criminal vandalism occurred at an electrical power grid in Moore County, North Carolina.
Tuesday's attack took place in Randolph County, but did not lead to any electrical outages — unlike the early December incident in Moore County, which resulted in more than 45,000 customers losing power, amid brutally cold temperatures.
Regarding the Randolph County attack, EnergyUnited said law enforcement officials responded to an alarm notifying personnel at the Pleasant Hill Substation.
Early reports suggested it was an equipment issue. However, when crews assessed the situation up close, they reportedly discovered "damage to the substation transformer from an apparent gunshot."
That's when federal authorities were called to further investigate the matter.
"The damage was quickly assessed and contained to mitigate the impact to members in the Pleasant Hill area and law enforcement officials were notified," according to an EnergyUnited statement.
"EnergyUnited members who are served by this substation did not experience an outage as a result of the cooperative's swift response," the statement added.
The Randolph County Sheriff's Office released the following statement: "Criminal Investigations and Crime Scene Investigators responded to the scene to investigate and collect evidence at the site. The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) were also notified. The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force responded to conduct a parallel investigation."
Investigators believe the incident occurred around 3 a.m., according to Fox News.
No suspects have been apprehended in the Dec. 3 or Tuesday's attack, which could be a concerning trend.
"The difference between [al-Qaida terrorists] and U.S. citizens who are white supremacists or who belong to domestic violent groups is that with an individual who is part of al-Qaida there is a foreign connection," a former senior law enforcement official told Newsweek last month. "That means we can bring a different approach.
"Meanwhile, a U.S. citizen, regardless of the racism or ideology they espouse, is afforded all the rights under the Constitution," the official added, via Newsmax.
Mubin Shaikh, a counterextremism and counterterrorism specialist, recently acknowledged that substation attacks throughout the country have become a tangible blind spot for U.S. law enforcement.
"Without a domestic terrorism statute to treat these hostile actors in the way the government has dealt with al-Qaida or ISIS," Shaikh told Newsweek, "the full weight of U.S. law cannot be brought to bear in this setting."
Last month, the Department of Homeland Security warned the U.S power grid could be vulnerable to domestic terrorism, noting online calls to sabotage critical infrastructure.
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