Posted on 07/16/2006 9:04:08 AM PDT by MizSterious
OU death not linked to terrorism
By Nolan Clay
The FBI concluded a University of Oklahoma student who blew himself up last year on campus was not a terrorist, the top agent in Oklahoma says.
"We have no evidence he had a social or political agenda that he was trying to bring attention to," said Salvador Hernandez, the FBI's special agent in charge in Oklahoma.
"We don't consider this terrorism the way we define it," he said. "There would have to be a cause."
Joel "Joe" Henry Hinrichs III, an engineering student, died Oct. 1 when his bomb went off at a campus bench a short distance from an OU night football game.
Fans inside the packed stadium heard the blast during the second quarter of OU's game against Kansas State.
Hernandez spoke about the investigation to the media for the first time last week as he prepares to end his two-year stint in Oklahoma. He has been promoted to a new position with the FBI in Washington.
He disclosed the FBI interviewed more than 200 people during the bombing investigation but never found any evidence that Hinrichs had extremist views or ties to extremist groups.
Hernandez would not speculate whether the student intentionally set off the bomb on the bench as a suicide or if he also had intended to harm others and the bomb went off prematurely.
"None of us can know what was going on in his head," Hernandez told The Oklahoman.
Hernandez described Hinrichs, 21, as a loner who had a longtime interest in explosives.
Hinrichs, who was from Colorado Springs, Colo., was very bright, but his grades had slipped at OU, the agent said. Hinrichs belonged to the Triangle Fraternity, an organization of engineers, but just didn't seem to fit in, the agent said.
Hernandez said agents did not find any conclusive evidence Hinrichs tried to enter the stadium. They found no evidence he bought or tried to buy a football ticket, Hernandez said.
The top agent also said two ticket-takers who saw Hinrichs' photo in the media thought they might have seen him outside the stadium but they could not provide descriptive information when interviewed.
Agents viewed hours and hours of tapes from stadium security cameras but never spotted Hinrichs, Hernandez said.
Agents also turned up no evidence Hinrichs ever went to the mosque near his apartment, Hernandez said.
He said fellow students knew Hinrichs was interested in and had experimented with bombs and they should have reported it to law enforcement.
"People should be more vigilant or more responsible and bring this stuff forward," he said.
Officials said earlier that Hinrichs built the bomb from hydrogen peroxide and acetone. The explosive is known as triacetone triperoxide or TATP.
In the interview with The Oklahoman, Hernandez revealed these new details about the bombing:
Using receipts, agents determined Hinrichs bought the bomb ingredients from local retail stores a few days before. One store had a video camera and agents reviewed the tape from it. Hinrichs was alone.
Agents could not reconstruct much of what Hinrichs did the day of the bombing, a Saturday. They believe he was on the Internet in the morning. They believe about 6:15 p.m. he typed, "None of you are worth living with. You can all kiss my ass," on his apartment computer. They believe he then walked to where he died. The bomb went off about 7:30 p.m.
Hinrichs made a final payment on handlebars for his mountain bike a few days before the bombing.
Hinrichs apparently was carrying the TATP around in a plastic container and could have accidentally set the volatile bomb off by simply opening the container.
The bomb did not go off in Hinrichs' backpack.
FBI agents interviewed some witnesses who live in Europe and had dealt with Hinrichs on eBay, the Internet auction site.
Thanks for the ping on this.
"Hernandez must have done a good enough job covering this up because he's being rewarded a position in Washington -- makes you feel all warm and safe doesn't it?"
Unbelievable.
Triangle Fraternity
Meeting Minutes for 04-11-04
(Meeting #12)
Br. Hinrichs
-Contiuing saga of missing ammo, guy on ebay told me he had my dorm address, didn't register that address with ebay, told me it shipped two days after it did
-Computer is recovering
Read more...
chuckle.Nothing to see here ! Move on ! Move on !
Exactly... If they want to throw around numbers let's talk about the 80,000 potential victims at the game...
Caca.
Just a plain ol' vanilla loser that makes a bomb and wanders around outside the stadium, looking for a place to detonate.
Yep. Happens all of the time. /s
A large number of "officials", primarily at Foggy Bottom, can count on Saudi Arabia to buy their memoirs...
By the tractor trailer full.
Nothing to worry about folks. College kids just blow up all the time.
Translation: they deleted/destroyed it all.
And,don't forget the airliner that fell out of the sky over Rockaway, NY during Christmas holiday 2001.
They meet with foreign leaders, and find they have more in common with them than they do their own countrymen. Maintaining power, diplomatic issues, opposition parties, making decisions that affect millions of people, and the frequent feeling of isolation that comes with being the leader, and having no equal with which to discuss things. In Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, and a few other countries, these men see themselves as parents of rather unruly children who need to be controlled because they don't see the big picture.
They fear the concept of their people becoming uncontrollable more than they fear foreign invasion. They desperately want the world to be divided up into trade regions, and they see the biggest problem as being the racism of the uneducated masses. So, they downplay ethnic violence.
Islam, OTOH, watches us far more closely than we watch them. Their battle ability is practically nonexistent; their military tactics suck, and they can't manufacture anything more complex than a rug.
A friend of mine used to negotiate oil contracts. He said that they were the worst people in the world to negotiate with. He said they'd spend months negotiating, everything was set up, and right before the signing ceremony they would declare some insult to their honor, stomp out of the negotiations, and demand more concessions. The oil companies would make concessions, provide more patronage jobs, and the negotiations would begin again.
He said the important things to remember about negotiating with Islamists is that they're always lying, and that there will always be at least three "insults to their honor" during the negotiations.
They use almost perfect tactics in dealing with the post modernist, because the post modernist enters the situation walking on eggshells. They fear offending people (note, they only fear offending the "right" people, which are people who are either liberal or ethnically different from themselves) so much that they will concede everything prior to beginning negotiations in order to achieve a dialog and mutual understanding. Post modernist thinking actually goes all the way back to Paul Gauguin and his concept of the "noble savage" and, of course, to Nietzsche and his moral relativism (with roots further back). Current post modernists make the mistake of assuming that all other people are largely like them and think as they do, or, at least would, if they were only educated enough. They cannot accept the fact that the Islamist means it when he says he has no desire to live in peace as long as people who believe differently from him are alive. They cannot accept it because they cannot face the awful choices this puts in front of them. Noam Chomsky, for example, who has apparently never faced any danger more imminent than choking on an after dinner mint, feels qualified to critique the US as a totalitarian regime and defend Islamists, about 90% of whom would kill him on sight, simply because he is a Jew (secular Jew, not to be confused with religious). From the confines of his ivory tower, he insults the people who keep him safe, and defends the people who want to kill him, because it's all theoretical to him. In all actuality, to many of the Chomskies of the world, the selection of a side carries no more importance than the selection of who you root for in a football game, because they don't actually believe that people they have no desire to kill want to kill them. As a side note, I notice that Chomsky while deploring the US, has no fear that George Bush or the US government will take any actual action against him. He would not be so bold as to criticize Castro while living in Cuba, or openly proclaim there is no God while living in Iran.
The higher up the ladder they get, the more insulated they become. If MIT received the same level of bombing that Israeli cities receive, the ideology would change quickly. As it is, to the leaders and the academics, it's all theoretical. Except for the leaders of Israel and the leaders of much of Islam.
Looks like the Clintoon holdovers in the FBI still control investigations in Norman and the OK City area.
I agree. And the fact that this guy is now going to be in Washington, doesn't sit too well with me either. Let's ignore Hinrichs for a second. There is so much evidence out there (even without an OU connection) that points to an extremist group existing in this part of the country that it's really worrisome that our FBI and such has not done anything about it... I can only hope that it is because they have infiltrated and are watching them, and making larger busts as a result. I'm not going to hold my breath in regards to ever hearing about it though.
Maybe it's all just coincidence, but I seem to recall promotions for many law enforcement officials who presided over fiascos, from Ruby Ridge to Waco to the Murrah bombing to...well, it's a lot.
Thanks for the ping...been out for a few days and just trying to get somewhat caught up....I'll read more later, but for now this doesn't surprise me, it disappoints to put it mildly but does not surprise me.
...be a white male conservative Christian.
I should have added that as the other option.
Post #90 hits the nail square on the head. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
What a bunch of BS. Little attention was paid to the fact that this kid wore a green vest (a-la palestine) everywhere he went. This was a sorry attempt at terrorism by a nerdy, brain-washed, American loser.
Thanks for the response. I often wonder if anyone reads my ramblings, especially the longer ones that tie philosophy and art to geopolitics.
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