Posted on 10/09/2005 8:56:49 AM PDT by MizSterious
Father apologizes for son's actions
By Nolan Clay and Ty McMahan
The Oklahoman
The father of a University of Oklahoma student who died in a bombing has apologized for the actions of his son.
"I truly hang my head," the father, Joel Hinrichs Jr., said from Colorado Springs, Colo.
Joel "Joe" Henry Hinrichs III, an engineering student, died Oct. 1 when a bomb went off outside the football stadium during the second quarter of OU's night game against Kansas State.
The FBI and OU are treating the bombing as a suicide by a troubled loner, rather than a failed terrorist attack.
"I feel obligated to apologize to everyone whose inconvenience has increased, or had worse things happen to them, due to Joe III," the father told The Oklahoman.
He said he wanted to specifically apologize to the Muslim students who were shackled and questioned during the investigation, apartment residents who had to be evacuated, and "the hundreds of thousands of future OU sporting event attendees who will now endure even more rigorous, restrictive search and carry restrictions."
The dead student, 21, was remembered last week as depressed and so mesmerized with bombs that he bought artillery shells on eBay.
Hinrichs started at OU in the fall of 2002 after being a National Merit Scholar at Wasson High School in Colorado Springs.
He was so depressed his second semester at OU that he had trouble going to class and underwent counseling, his father said.
He dropped out in 2003-2004 and worked doing inventories at night, the father said. He returned but lost a scholarship because of his grades.
"Internally, he suffered from both depression and an utter lack of hope in his own future," said the father.
"He could tell that other people were relating around him and even trying to relate to him. He could not relate back. ... My guess is that ... was very close to the root of his problem."
Early warning signs?
The father said his son had been depressed at times in high school, too.
The younger Hinrichs built a bomb out of match heads in an empty tube at age 13 or 14, his father said.
"He was hiding around the corner. It made a loud noise and he brought the broken, open CO2 cartridge to me and had this look of awe in his eyes," he said.
The younger Hinrichs also regularly bought inert artillery shells over eBay, his father said.
"Like all little boys, he has an interest in things that go bang. ... He just took it a little farther than most. ... He showed them to me, 'Look at this, dad,'" he said.
He got in trouble at the end of the eighth grade in Illinois for bringing a 3-foot metal handle to school, The Oklahoman confirmed.
The younger Hinrichs spent six weeks on house arrest, wearing an ankle bracelet, and then spent ninth grade in an alternative school.
Still, there were few outward signs he was suicidal. His last e-mail to his father, Sept. 14, was about his father's offer of a Subaru to drive.
"Does the Subaru get good mileage? I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," the younger Hinrichs wrote.
OU President David Boren described the student as a loner with emotional difficulties and personal problems. Classmates said he was different and had been struggling again with his grades.
"He was really quiet, didn't really interact with any of the other students," said Garrett Jones, a Tulsa junior who had engineering classes with Hinrichs.
Jones, 21, said Hinrichs was different in his manner and clothing.
"He wore this little green vest all the time. It was really weird. ... You could look around in a classroom and be able to pick this guy out that he was a little unusual," Jones said.
Another classmate, junior Andrew House, told the OU student newspaper: "He seemed like he was a nice kid. He didn't seem troubled at all. Some people might have thought he was weird, because he knew a lot about ammunition and stuff like that."
Members of an OU organization of engineers, architects and scientists said Hinrichs was quiet, reserved and not very involved in the group.
"The guy liked guns and ammo and he said something about trying to buy some ammo. That's just what he liked," said Paul Lawson, executive director of the Triangle Fraternity, who visited the OU chapter last week.
At meetings, Hinrichs talked about his struggles and successes in class, a new job, trouble sleeping and a road trip to Las Vegas, according to minutes.
He also talked about "missing ammo," building a catapult and carving a club with a pocket knife, according to minutes.
He had his own Web site. It read: "This is Joe Hinrichs' website. He currently doesn't have anything to put on it, but it does exist and it is here."
Officials have said investigators do not believe the student was trying to get inside the stadium or had any help. His father said the FBI told him his son made the bomb out of hydrogen peroxide, a common disinfectant.
ROFL
This is just the kind of kid our fine muSlum friends would take advantage of. Except not everyone agrees he was depressed.
Dad said he ran out of solutions... but earlier he said he received emails and he was fine.
Nothing to see here... move along... nothing to look out... simple suicide... move along
sarcasm off?
Wait a minute, he didn't see the changes coming... yet he said several times he was blowing up things since 12 or better? Dad seems a cold fish. What does he do for a living.
This father is clueless. You have a severely depressed son who can't form relationships and has been fooling around with bombs since he was thirteen...and what do you do with him? Sned him a thoudand miles away to a large campus full of unsuspecting people!
Unbelievable how totally airheaded some parents can be.
You're correct. In engineering also, the preferred course of terrorist students in the U.S. (with flying lessons as a minor). I smell CAIR... though amazingly, I haven't heard them... have you?
FYI, from the 7th October:
Jihad or not Jihad?
That is the question. A kafir starts to think that the Religion of Peace is involved when the DOJ requests that the FBI search warrant served for the home of Mr. Hinrichs (and his Pakistani roommate) be sealed (That is the question. A kafir starts to think that the Religion of Peace is involved when the DOJ requests that the FBI search warrant served for the home of Mr. Hinrichs (http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46701).
"He wore this little green vest all the time." A little bit on the tinfoil hat side, but isn't green the color of Jihad?
Check out the contradictory comments here:
http://matthew.journalspace.com/?entryid=2351
I weep for and pray for this father. The pain must be unbearable.
" doesn't it seem improbable that there have been no successful attacks since 9.11?"
I agree. I think a lot of these are truly terrorist attacks, but the media/government has spun them otherwise. Case in point: the government has managed to stop *all* Islamic terrorist attacks, however the FBI has self-admittedly not made a dent in breaking the ELF (Environmental Liberation Front). (You know those mysterious wildfires that keep cropping up? Many of them are started by these guys.)
I can't cite a source, but I do remember hearing that this is not the kind of hydrogen peroxide commonly found on the shelves of the drug store. Industrial, was that the term? I don't recall.
Maybe PhiKapMom? Not sure if she's keeping files, but she was at the stadium that night, and has reported extensively on this incident.
You really have to wonder if they had room for beds and clothes in that apartment, there were so many explosives carted off. His roomie didn't know?
I don't credit him with being clueless. I think he knew of his son's "new friends" and sympathized with them to some degree (not to the degree of having his son blow himself up for them), and is now trying to invent a whole new history.
It would be interesting to see a list of every questionable event that has happened, and the average time it took officials to declare it wasn't terrorism. We are being handled.
This particular sentence is interesting to me. I thought I read that Hinrichs had tried to enter the Stadium three times but wasn't allowed to enter because he refused to allow Security to search his backpack. Perhaps that was not true? If it was true, then how can these "officials" say that they do not believe Hinrichs was trying to get inside the stadium?
It's another case of the media rewriting (recent) history. PKM might be able to cite some sources for him being turned away three times, but I know I've read it more than once. This article is so full of caca del toro that I had to check to see if Dave Boren wrote it.
I don't understand the question... Are you asking what happened?
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