How a Tip From a Coworker Stopped an Alleged Neo-Nazi Mass Shooting at a Hindu Temple Near Chicago

On Sunday moring, October 11, 2026, a car registered to Alexandros Paporakis, a 19-year-old resident of the Chicago suburb of Palatine, entered the parking lot of the Sri Venkateswara Swami (Balaji) Temple in Aurora, Illinois — the largest Hindu temple in the Aurora area, located approximately 40 miles west of downtown Chicago. The car left the parking lot less than 15 minutes later, as Illinois authorities confirmed at a press conference on Thursday.

Later that Sunday afternoon, Paporakis called a coworker. He said his gun had jammed. He said he had left “super fast” without being seen, as prosecutors alleged in court documents obtained by the Associated Press.

That phone call saved lives.

The coworker — whose identity has not been publicly disclosed — contacted law enforcement. The Mount Prospect Police Department passed the tip to the Palatine Police Department. Officers from both departments moved to Paporakis’s apartment, where they arrested him as he left his home on Sunday afternoon.

“The seriousness of this alleged threat cannot be overstated,” Palatine Police Chief William Nord said at the Wednesday press conference announcing the arrest.

The Weapons, the Vest, and the Manifesto

When detectives executed a search warrant at Paporakis’s home, what they found was not the possession of a man who had idly typed angry words on the internet. It was an arsenal.

Investigators recovered a rifle, multiple loaded rifle magazines, hundreds of additional rounds of rifle ammunition, and a tactical vest containing body armor — the vest bearing a patch displaying imagery associated with white supremacist extremism, according to Palatine Police Department’s official statement. India TV News additionally reported the recovery of Nazi symbols among the seized items.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi was present at the Sri Venkateswara Swami Temple on the morning of Sunday, October 11.

But the most damning evidence was not the weapons. It was the eight-page document that prosecutors allege Paporakis sent to a coworker. Titled “Why I fought: A.K.A. (Aurora Shooter’s Manifesto),” the document described Indian, Jewish, and African American people as “subhumans” and outlined a plot to kill as many of them as possible, according to a court document obtained by the Associated Press.

In the manifesto, Paporakis allegedly referred to himself as “a sociopathic white supremacist Neo Nazi filled with hatred, fantasizing about mass murder nearly every day,” according to the court filing. He described Indian people and others as “subhumans,” and called Sunday — the day he allegedly drove to the temple — a “special day.”

“I Was Inside the Temple That Day”

One detail in the Associated Press’s Thursday reporting gave the near-miss its most human dimension.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi — the Indian American representative of Illinois’ 8th Congressional District, and one of the most prominent South Asian elected officials in the United States — was present at the Sri Venkateswara Swami Temple on the morning of Sunday, October 11.

“I visited not knowing that there was an attacker lying in wait with a sinister motive to commit a mass shooting, and only because his AR-15 weapon jammed was he not able to commit a massacre that day,” Krishnamoorthi told the Associated Press.

The temple itself confirmed the security threat in an official statement. Leaders of Sri Venkateswara Swami (Balaji) Temple said a security threat had “targeted our Temple” and announced an increased security presence.

The Charges, the Bail, and What Comes Next

Palatine police announced the arrest publicly on Wednesday, October 14. Paporakis has been charged with felony crimes including making a terrorist threat and possessing an unlawful weapon. He was ordered to remain in jail pending trial.

It was not immediately clear from published reports whether he had obtained legal representation. The Associated Press noted that his mother had not been charged with any crime connected to the alleged plot.

Paporakis works as a cashier at a Taco Bell in the Chicago suburb of Palatine according to the police account of his employment.

Anti-Indian Violence

The arrest prompted Al Jazeera to publish a second, broader analytical report on October 15 — headlined “US teen held over Hindu temple attack plot: Is anti-Indian racism rising?” — that situated the Palatine case within the documented surge in anti-Indian, anti-Hindu, and anti-South Asian sentiment that this publication has reported on at length.

That surge — documented by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, Stop AAPI Hate, and multiple academic research institutions across 2025 and 2026 — includes hundreds of millions of views of anti-Indian content on X, documented physical assaults on South Asian Americans, protest rallies outside Hindu temples, and the DHS “Mr. Singh” social media post that this publication reported on in September. The thwarted Aurora attack arrived in that documented context — not as an isolated aberration but as the furthest-downstream expression of a documented wave of anti-Indian and anti-South Asian sentiment.

The Sri Venkateswara Swami (Balaji) Temple in Aurora — the specific target of the alleged plot — is the largest Hindu place of worship in the Aurora area. It is, on any given Sunday morning, filled with families, children, and worshippers who have no reason to believe that the parking lot of their temple has become a site of mortal danger.