The 21-year-old Massachusetts man arrested by the FBI on Thursday in connection with the leaking of a trove of classified US government documents had a fascination with the military, guns and war, several former high school classmates told CNN.
Jack Teixeira was arrested in Massachusetts without incident, Attorney General Merrick Garland said. He made his initial appearance in US District Court in Boston on Friday morning and was charged with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal of classified information and defense materials.
Teixeira has a detention hearing scheduled for Wednesday and will remain detained until then. He did not enter a formal plea on Friday.
Teixeira would sometimes wear camouflage to school, carried a “dictionary-sized book on guns” and behaved in a way that made some students uneasy, former classmates said.
“A lot of people were wary of him,” said Brooke Cleathero, who attended middle school and high school with Teixeira. “He was more of a loner, and having a fascination with war and guns made him off-putting to a lot of people.”
John Powell, who also attended middle school and high school with Teixeira, said he recalled him as a pleasant and quiet kid who was sometimes picked on. “He didn’t have many friends,” Powell said.
Teixeira grew up in the suburbs of Providence, Rhode Island, according to public records. He attended Dighton-Rehoboth High School in Massachusetts where he graduated in 2020, according to the superintendent of the regional school district.
Powell recalled Teixeira occasionally toting around a textbook on military vehicles – tanks, planes and submarines – and having a fascination with anything…
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