Former classmates of Jack “the Dripper” Teixeira reveal their “shock” at Pentagon leaks and “red flags” they saw
FORMER classmates of the Pentagon leak suspect said many people were “cautious” about the 21-year-old before his arrest earlier this week.
Jack Teixeira, a US airman who dubbed himself Jack the Dripper, was arrested Thursday after a trove of classified documents containing bombastic US intelligence agencies were shared on social media.
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His high school classmates were shocked to learn that their former colleague has been accused of being behind the leak, but some were quick to describe him as “strange” and interested in guns and war.
“I never could have predicted that he would do that,” said Teixeira’s former high school classmate, John Powell.
Teixeira grew up in Providence, Rhode Island and graduated from Dighton-Rehoboth High School in Massachusetts in 2020.
According to his classmates, Teixeira carried a “dictionary-sized” book on weapons and another on “tanks, planes, and submarines.”
Some of them told CNN that he made them feel uncomfortable because of comments they perceived as “racist.”
One recounted the time he showed up to class wearing a shirt with an AR-15 on it after the Las Vegas mass shooting of 2017.
“A lot of people were suspicious of him,” said Brooke Cleathero, who attended both middle school and high school with Teixeira.
Another classmate said Teixeira’s behavior didn’t go to the point of reporting him, but “he made me nervous”.
LEAKY PROBE
US Attorney General Merrick Garland said Teixeira faces charges of unauthorized removal of classified national defense information.
Teixeira allegedly ran an online group called Thug Shaker Central, in which about 30 people – mostly young men and teenagers – shared a love of guns, racist memes and games.
He’s drafted into the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.
Teixeira’s mother, Dawn, confirmed to the New York Times that her son was a member of the Air National Guard and said he recently worked night shifts at a Cape Cod base.
During a US defense news briefing about the leak, Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder said it was “inappropriate for him to comment on the criminal investigation.”
The super leak saw pages and pages of documents published online – including information about the Ukraine war and China.
The report states that the alleged leaker, who went by the nickname “OG”, regularly published documents in the group for months.
Other members of Thug Shaker Central described him as older than most group members, who are in their teens.
It appears that the secret documents were shared on various social media sites – including video game chat platform Discord, online messaging board 4Chan, encrypted global messaging app Telegram and Twitter.
The leak was originally spotted on a now-defunct Discord server, and three former users said a large number of documents were shared there, according to Bellingcat.
According to a member of the chat, someone shared documents claiming they were classified, first typed them out with his own mind, and then uploaded images of folded papers.
“After a brief argument with another person on the server about Minecraft Maps and the war in Ukraine, one of the Discord users replied: ‘Here, I have some leaked documents’ – and attached 10 documents about Ukraine, some of which were marked ‘top secret’. markings,” Bellingcat wrote in a new report.
The report added, “Posts and channel listings show that users of the server were interested in video games, music, orthodox Christianity and fandom for popular YouTuber ‘Oxide’.”
The classified documents contained details of US and NATO plans to help Ukraine prepare for a spring offensive against Russia.
They reportedly contained confidential information, including diagrams and details of arms shipments and battalion strengths.
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