Who Is Rondell Henry? Maryland Man Planned ISIS-Inspired Attack At National Harbor

A Maryland man, identified as Rondell Henry, planned to ram a truck into pedestrians on the National Harbor waterfront, a popular tourist site along the Potomac River near Washington. Federal prosecutors said Monday they had filed a criminal charge against the 28-year-old man.

The Germantown man was inspired by the Islamic State group when he stole a U-Haul van from a parking garage in Alexandria, Virginia, on March 26. He wanted to attack "disbelievers" with the vehicle and keep "driving and driving and driving."

"Today, the government filed a motion arguing for Henry to be detained pending trial as a flight risk and a danger to the community. Specifically, the government’s detention memo alleges that Henry, who claimed to be inspired by the ISIS terrorist organization, stole a U-Haul van with the intention of using it as a weapon against pedestrians on sidewalks within the National Harbor complex along the Potomac River," the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland said in a statement.

Officials said Henry, a computer engineer, has had "hatred" toward people who don't practice Islam and he was allegedly inspired from videos of foreign terrorists. He allegedly planned to conduct an attack similar to the one in Nice, France, in 2016, which killed 86 people. Authorities said Henry admitted he wanted to create "panic and chaos"

"After stealing the van, Henry drove around, arriving at Dulles International Airport in Virginia at approximately 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday, March 27, 2019," officials said. "The government’s motion for detention alleges that Henry exited his U-Haul and entered the terminal, trying to find a way through security, allegedly to harm 'disbelievers' in a way designed for maximum publicity. After more than two hours of failing to breach Dulles’s security perimeter, Henry allegedly returned to the U-Haul."

The motion for detention claimed he "parked the U-Haul and walked around a popular part of National Harbor. According to the motion for detention, Henry finally broke into a boat to hide overnight. By the following morning, Thursday, March 28, police officers had discovered the location of the stolen U-Haul. When Henry leapt over the security fence from the boat dock, observant Prince George’s County Police officers arrested him."

Brian Jenkins, director of the Mineta Transportation Institute’s National Transportation Safety and Security Center, said: "Because there's not a real conspiracy. If the individual is not boasting on the internet that they're going to do something, in other words, not attracting attention to themselves, then there's no indicator. There's no alarm bell to warn authorities that something was up."

Henry was scheduled for a detention hearing on Thursday. He and his wife were divorced in January, according to court records. Henry faces a sentence of 10 years in prison regarding the stolen vehicle.

In the detention motion, the government alleged: “What matters for purposes of the upcoming detention hearing is the reason why the defendant stole the vehicle: to use it to commit mass murder, in the pattern established by ISIS.”