Posted on 12/22/2016 8:22:01 AM PST by digger48
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WKRN) He concocted a plan to build a death ray machine, calling it Hiroshima on a light switch. His target was apparently Muslims and President Barack Obama, according to federal officials.
This week, the New York man and reputed Klansman and Muslim extremist was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
And one of the key witnesses in the trial of Glendon Crawford is from Murfreesboro.
Owner and publisher of The Reader, Pete Doughtie saw a news flash that Crawford had been sentenced.
Theres another guy that had the potential danger to other people that has been taken off the streets, Doughtie said.
The newsman was one of the key witnesses for the federal government in Crawfords trial in August of last year.
It was sort of interesting, and Im surprised that how little a part that I played in this whole thing was part of convicting this guy, Doughtie said.
His testimony for the trial, which was held in Albany, New York, was short yet impactful.
Glendon Crawford (Courtesy: WTEN) Glendon Crawford (Courtesy: WTEN) I just told my story of how he contacted me, drove down from New York, and he and I met on a Sunday afternoon, Doughtie explained.
Crawford met with Doughtie at the Hardees on Memorial Boulevard in Murfreesboro about his death ray machine, which he pitched as capable of killing from a distance.
Doughtie believes he was contacted because of his extensive coverage of the way Rutherford County officials approved construction of the controversial Murfreesboro mosque.
Doughtie said after the meeting was over, Crawford asked if he knew anyone who could back him financially so he could continue constructing the deadly radiation-spewing machine.
Doughtie said Crawford then tried contacting him two more times by phone.
It got serious when he tried to contact me on several other occasions, and that was about the time the FBI stepped in, he said.
Not too long after that, undercover video shows Crawford working on the machine in a garage until the FBI rushed in.
FBI! Get on the ground! agents can be heard saying on the video.
Doughtie said hes happy to do this part in helping to bring down Crawford, who the FBI calls a domestic terrorist.
It was just a small part that God used me to help put this guy away, he said.
Pete Doughtie. (Provided Photo/WKRN) Pete Doughtie. (Provided Photo/WKRN) Crawford is also accused of soliciting the help of Eric Feight, a New York computer software expert, in the plot to design the radiation weapon.
Feight pleaded guilty to domestic terrorism in 2014 and received eight years in prison.
Did he play with snakes?
Hiroshima on a light switch! Wow. If this guy even got close to creating a viable tool such as this, my first impulse is to say, too bad he had to use such intelligence for such dark purposes. This is the level of science that brought us the Manhattan Project and other areas of atomic research.
Somewhere in his life, this man lost his way morally and spiritually. Did he really think he’d get away with that plan? As overly protective as the powers were of their novelty, their first ‘black’ president? That was never going to be allowed to happen. Must have been delusional.
He should have offered the technology to the CIA or the Army.
LOL. I was thinking the exact same thing and just posted the exact same picture before I saw yours.
Because he’s targeting muslims, a protected class in the US.
If it were muslim extremists targeting non-muslims, then they’d have ignored it until some actually died and even then refused to call it was it was, islamic terrorism.
This has gotta be fake news
Or sometimes, I find our local TV news are literally so stupid, they will repeat anything they see.
Maybe it’s one of those things where his ‘intent’ was the problem and not whether or not he was actually committing a crime.
Because is a death ray machine illegal? I don’t think so.
So then his crime is a thought crime.
That’s a comforting thought to know that the FBI is busy going after relatively harmless deluded people but they were too busy doing things like this to bother with the San Bernardino shooters who were, you know, buying actual weapons that can actually kill people.
Nuttier than a fruitcake.
And on top of that he was targeting Muslims. I guess he was targeting whites as well, but that isn’t newsworthy I guess.
He should have just told them it was a clock
Obama would have invited him to the White House....
“Jernullism. It be like dead and sh*t.”
LOL!!! I almost hosed the keyboard.
An X-ray death ray could probably be built but it would be at least the size of a house and require 100+ kV transmission lines. Plus it would probably be a one shot deal.
Can you get sentenced if your intentions are real but the plan insane? Like what if someone tried to summon fairies from their home to assassinate the President.
This plan seems to be on that level.
It is stated in the article the guy is a Muslim extremist—is there any other kind?
My question is, how could they get a conviction if the machine was incapable of doing what it was intended for? I am assuming that it wasn’t a working model at all mainly because I never saw any reference to it being an actual deadly weapon.
Redundant!
Because his idea is not new at all. The only new thing would be remote operation. There was another 'weapon' that was considered by the military that used very low frequency waves to kill people. Problem was that the emitted sound killed everyone, even the operators.
It’s called conspiracy to commit murder, or something that sounds like it. The death ray doesn’t have to work.
From the video, his “death ray” appears to be an old tube TV set he’s tinkering with. This guy is a nut job.
Yeah, he’s a nut job. Why not a mental evaluation, rather than criminal commitment? He may very well need to be locked up, but for a different reason.
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