Do any of you recall how everyone insisted that his Pakistani roommate (you know, the one with the one-way ticket to Morrocco?) didn't know anything about the bomb-building activities?
The Paki roomie didn't have any plane tickets.
The only plane ticket mentioned was one that a visiting professor from Algeria had in the apartment where the roomie was found partying that evening. It was his plane ticket home and he was already packed to leave the next morning.
Here's the OU Daily story:
http://www.oudaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/02/28/440535120debd
Details of Hinrichs case revealed
Norman police officer said he thought Hinrichs’ explosion was meant for different time, place
by Grant Slater
February 28, 2006
A presentation by Norman law enforcement officials Tuesday revealed grim and candid details about the investigation into the death of Joel Henry Hinrichs III on Oct. 1, 2005.
Norman Police Sgt. George Mauldin said he felt Hinrichs had intended his explosives for another time and place and also that police initially suspected Hinrichs might be linked to Islamic fundamentalist groups working in America.
The suspicions of an Islamic connection were shown to be false, Mauldin said.
Hinrichs was killed in a blast by an explosive device of his own design and preparation, Mauldin said. The blast occurred 173 yards from 84,000 fans watching the second quarter of the OU-Kansas State football game in Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.
Mauldin presented the report to Norman's mayor and city council, regarding the effectiveness and manner of law enforcement's response to the explosion. The presentation included video and photos from the scene of the explosion, as well as photos from Hinrichs' apartment.
Mauldin said a similar presentation was scheduled to be delivered at FBI headquarters in Quantico, Va.
Previous reports from the FBI had stated that law enforcement officials might never know if Hinrichs tried to enter the stadium or purchase a ticket for the game, even though surveillance tape was taken from the stadium.
Hinrichs Case
The Norman Police Department released candid details about the death of Joel Henry Hinrichs III to Norman officials Tuesday.
• Hinrichs died in an explosion outside of Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on Oct. 1, 2005.
• Police said Hinrichs had no link to Islamic groups.
• The lack of shrapnel in the bomb reduced its destructive power.
Source: Norman Police Department
“My view is that [the explosion] was an accident,” Mauldin said. “He accidentally set it off.”
Mauldin said he was 102 yards away from the explosion when it occurred and police had set up a secure perimeter within five minutes of the explosion. He also received a call from the FBI within five minutes.
Video footage from a police robot showed an officer in a protective suit investigating the area.
Hinrichs' backpack, which was resting on his lap before the explosion, contained two to three pounds of triacetone triperoxide (TATP). This chemical is currently “the explosive of choice in places like Israel and Palestine" and is the most unstable explosive currently known, Mauldin said.
The bomb contained no shrapnel or fragmentation, which would have greatly increased the amount of damage, Mauldin said.
“The body took most of the blast," Mauldin said.
The bench remained mostly intact after the blast, with damage in only two or three places.
Mauldin said Hinrichs' family requested the bench, but could not offer a reason of why they would want to keep it.
In the video, the investigating officer examined what police originally thought was a second backpack. The officer used an X-ray machine to look inside what turned out to be fragments of the original pack, where they found wires, a battery and pieces of a computer circuit board, Mauldin said.
That pack was detonated by police while the game was still in progress in an effort to neutralize any remaining explosives.
Mauldin said he spoke with OU President David L. Boren on the phone before the second explosion and Boren expressed concern that everything should be handled before the game ended to avoid another explosion after the game.
Mauldin said police monitored the area for radiation, fearing the explosive might have been a dirty bomb.
The presentation included a photograph of Hinrichs' driver license, which shows him with a long beard.
Mauldin said he thought of members of the American Taliban when he saw the driver license photograph.
“They all thought the same thing I thought,” Mauldin said. “This looks like an Islamic terrorist.”
But while Mauldin and others did have initial reactions, he said many media misrepresented the facts in the aftermath of the explosion, speculating about whether Hinrichs attempted to enter the stadium and whether he was connected to Muslim organizations in Norman.
Inside Hinrichs' apartment, police encountered a strong odor of peroxide and “quite a lot of TATP." They also found the ingredients to make the explosive, including acetone, Liquid Fire (which contains sulfuric acid) and Softswim, a pool product that contains hydrogen peroxide, Mauldin said.
Hinrichs mixed the explosives in his apartment and kept them in various locations, Mauldin said.
Police found a pill bottle containing TATP with an inch-long fuse stuck in the top. The bottle was behind Hinrichs' computer and contained enough TATP to completely destroy the computer and make a hole in the wall behind it, Mauldin said.
TATP degrades rapidly and the longer it sits, the greater the danger that the substance will explode spontaneously, Mauldin said.
Hinrichs kept notes in ruled notebooks on how well his explosives performed with and without shrapnel in experiments at Red Rock Canyon near Hinton, Mauldin said.
Police also found live and blank belts of military rifle rounds in Hinrichs' apartment, Mauldin said.
Hinrichs left a note on his computer screen before the explosion. The note was written in the middle of a text file with other notes about bombs.
“F--- all this. None of you are worth living with. You can all kiss my a--,” the note stated.