Mark Tapscott notes that the Oklahoma would-have-been homicide bomber, Joel Hinrichs, was known to the Norman Police Department.
Norman, Oklahoma, feed store owner Dustin Ellison's Sept. 28 encounter with University of Oklahoma suicide bomber Joel Henry Hinrichs was witnessed by a plain-clothes police officer who happened to be in the store at the time, Tapscott's Copy Desk has learned.Mainstream media in OK confirm this. Read this one and the rest of Mark’s posts on the bombing “accident.”Ellison declined to sell any of the fertilizer [ammonium nitrate, which Ellison says that Hinrichs attempted to buy on the date in above; the bomb that blew Hinrichs up used hydrogen peroxide] , which was a main ingredient used in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Hinrichs could not explain why he wanted to buy a large amount of the fertilizer. Ellison recorded the license plate number of Hinrichs' car as he drove away.
Additionally, Hinrichs had tried to enter the stadium during the OU-KSU football, but ran away when authorities requested to search his backpack.
If it walks like a duck…
What can we speculate from this incident? If all the previously reported information is true, then some Islamist elements are inculcating non-traditional (read: white/Hispanic American-born) converts into their ideology. Hinrichs was known to be a book-smart loner with emotional problems (according to his own father); a ripe pick for any creed that might give a semblance of direction and structure to a world that such a person—especially a young one—might find frustrating; the old “order out of chaos” phenomenon.
Did Hinrichs detonate on purpose? That’s something that we’ll never know, obviously, but something to consider. He was depressed already and when he failed to reach his target, he might have felt like even more of a failure. And since he just happened to have a bomb in his backpack, why not?
(I shudder at the depths of despair that people like Hinrichs experience; Hell on Earth. The Evil One whispers all manner of lies into the ears of the depressed. I know.)
And, what of more nationally-known elements of the press? The reluctance to report on this story could stem from the fact that no one but the bomber was hurt. If this is the reason that little information is forthcoming from, say, the New York Times regarding Hinrichs, then it is a short-sighted decision. As I said earlier, this is the second suicide-bomber incident on American soil in four years and that is no minor incident to relelgated “National Briefings” section of the so-called Paper of Record. We all need to be mindful of what can happen every time a large crowd gathers and authorities--public and private--need to be thinking about, re-thinking and implementing security measures.
If the mainstream media thinks that it has responsibilities toward the public, one of them, IMO, is to get information out that helps keep the public safe. Perhaps these entities are hesitant after the Katrina reporting fiasco—believing authority figures, who, by virtue of their office, should know what’s going on. If, that’s the case, however, they are swinging too far in the other direction: they’re not reporting at all!
Sorry, NYT, but we need to know about incidents like the one that occurred in Norman, OK this past weekend. Report on it; but don’t be lazy like you were during Katrina. It shouldn’t be too difficult to verify information, put out a disclaimer or, at the very least, issue a correction. You folks are doing that last all the time anyway.
(Thanks to Michelle Malkin)
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UPDATE AND RELATED: NYC is under terror alert for a threatened subway bombing.
NEW YORK - Authorities stepped up mass transit security Thursday after receiving a credible threat that the city's subway system could be the target of a terrorist attack in coming days.Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said at a news conference the threat originated overseas. Bloomberg said it was the most specific threat New York officials had received to date. He said no one in New York has been arrested.
A law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the threat is "specific to place, time and method" and involves a bombing.
