PHOENIX (AZFamily) — A suspect accused of planning an ISIS-inspired terror attack on the Phoenix Pride parade pleaded guilty Friday.
Marvin Jalo was 17 when he was arrested the day before the parade at his Peoria home in 2024.
Investigators said he was plotting an ISIS-inspired terror attack and communicating with others in online chat rooms.
Jalo had purchased supplies to build explosives and had watched videos showing how to make them.
Marvin Aneer Jalo, 17, of Peoria, was arrested on October 18.(Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office)
Authorities said Jalo planned to create a “bomb drone” using a remote-controlled vehicle.
During a hearing last year, prosecutors said Jalo detailed how he wanted to place TATP and C-4 explosives around buildings to create an explosion, and once crowds fled, he would use a remote-controlled drone.
Jalo’s attorney suggested to the judge there was no indication that the teen was going to go through with any plot, and the chat rooms were all talk and full of messages including “lol.”
He suggested that photos of the alleged TATP explosive — described by a detective as having been constructed in a bowl in his mother’s kitchen — were a “science experiment,” and the amounts were not enough to make a bomb.
Prosecutors said it was no experiment and was proof Jalo was making an explosive to follow a plan he had seen in an ISIS video. They also said there was no evidence Jalo was not intent on “becoming a jihadi,” and at no point did he disavow pursuing jihad.
The 2024 Phoenix Pride Parade rolled through the streets of Central Phoenix without interruption, with Phoenix police providing security in the form of officers and barriers placed along the mile-long route that ended at Steele Indian School Park, where a festival was being held.
He pleaded guilty to two felony counts of terroristic threats and is to be sentenced May 1.
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