The media is remarkably incurious about terrorism coincidences
By Jack Kelly
On Oct. 1st, Joel Henry Hinrichs, 21, an engineering student at the University of Oklahoma, died when an explosive device he was wearing detonated while he was sitting on a park bench 100 yards away from the stadium where 84,000 fans were watching Oklahoma's football team play Kansas State.
Because the death is considered a suicide, it has attracted little attention beyond Oklahoma. A Nexis search for "Joel Hinrichs" the day of this writing produced just 41 mentions.
Hinrichs' father said his son was a troubled loner, but he had no idea he was suicidal. No suicide note has been found.
About 30,000 people in the United States commit suicide each year. Oklahoma native Mark Tapscott notes Hinrichs is apparently the first ever to commit suicide by blowing himself/herself up.
Hinrichs used considerably more explosive than was required to kill just himself:
"The explosion that killed Hinrichs also burned a large area around the bench," reported Mick Hinton of the Tulsa World.
"A tree near the detonation site exhibits numerous small round holes that look like those that would be made by a ball bearing or a nailhead, both of which are routinely used by Middle Eastern terrorist bombers," said Tapscott, who works for the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. The holes were only on the side of the tree facing the bench where Hinrichs was seated.
The FBI found more explosives in the apartment Hinrichs shared with a Pakistani student, Fazil Cheema. The apartment is a couple of blocks from the mosque where "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui worshipped when he was attending flight school in Norman.
The FBI also reportedly found Islamist literature and a ticket to Algeria in the apartment, but journalists can't confirm this, because the FBI has had the search warrant sealed, something not typically done in cases of suspected suicide.
The FBI found 13 plastic bottles in Hinrichs' car.
The FBI did confirm that "dangerous materials" were removed from the apartment, and subsequently destroyed at the police range in Norman.
Whatever those "dangerous materials" were, they apparently weren't enough for Hinrichs, because he tried to buy ammonium nitrate fertilizer — the key ingredient in the bomb that leveled the Murrah building in Oklahoma City in 1995 — at the Ellison Feed and Seed two days before his death.
The principal component of the bomb Hinrichs was wearing was TATP (triacetone hyperoxide). It can be made by combining drain cleaner and bleach.
TATP rarely is found in explosives in the United States, but is popular with Muslim extremists, who call it "Mother of Satan." The compound is highly volatile, and can explode spontaneously.
OU senior Adam Smith told reporters a ticket taker at Gate 6 told him a young man had tried to gain entrance to the stadium, but sprinted away when the ticket taker went to search his backpack. The ticket taker refused comment when reporter Jayna Davis asked him about the alleged incident.
Oklahoma University President David Boren said there is no evidence Hinrichs had bought a ticket to the Kansas State game, nor can he be identified on surveillance cameras at the stadium.
But Hinrichs could easily have purchased a ticket from a scalper outside the stadium. And, Tapscott notes, since Hinrich's upper body was destroyed by the blast, we don't know what he looked like on the day of his death.
OU Professor Stephen Sloan, a terrorism expert, told the Tulsa World's Hinton the size and timing of the explosion that killed Hinrichs "make it logical to think he was trying to get into the stadium."
If Hinrichs were trying to take a lot of his fellow students with him, he was acting as a lone wolf, the FBI says. No connection has been found between Hinrichs and extremist groups, the agency said.
Three bombs contained in plastic bottles were found in a courtyard on the campus of Georgia Tech Oct. 10th. One of them exploded, injuring the custodian who found them.
The Friday before, a bomb was found on the campus of UCLA. That night, a Muslim student shot himself after police surrounded his apartment near the San Diego campus of the University of California. A chemical lab was found in the bathroom.
These may be just remarkable coincidences. But the news media are remarkably incurious about them. |
