BASF guard shot Freeport, Texas Chemical Plant Complex

The Facts online newspaper ^ | 1-24-2004 | Staff Reports

[buffyt]

FREEPORT — Police were looking for a man Friday night who they said shot a BASF security guard at the perimeter of the plant near FM 1495 and Highway 36.

Freeport Police Chief Henrietta Gonzalez said the guard approached a suspicious truck about 9:20 p.m. and the man inside said he had been taking pictures. He then shot the guard in the shoulder area, Gonzalez said.

“He was shot at point-blank range,” said Detective Sgt. Sue Dietrich. “You could see the powder burns.”

Police did not release the guard’s name, but said he was doing well at Brazosport Memorial Hospital late Friday night.

The guard told police the shooter was a man of Middle-Eastern descent with bushy hair and a mustache, and had been driving a white pickup with tinted windows and a black stripe. The truck did not have a front license plate, according to police radio reports.

BASF spokeswoman Sharon Rogers said there is no indication the shooting is linked to terrorism.

“There is nothing for us to indicate anything other than there is a shooting that happened on our property,” Rogers said. “We’ll just have to see what the investigation will reveal.”

Rogers said the security guard was employeed by Munday Corp., which provides the plant’s security force.

The culprit left the scene just after the shooting and did not get inside the plant gates, police said.

As of 10:30 p.m., Dietrich said the incident was not being investigated as an attempted terrorist attack.

FBI officials in Houston confirmed they had been notified of the incident but would not comment further.

The guard had been patrolling the perimeter of the plant, outside the gate and near a water tower, but in view of the plant’s ammonia tank. There was no access road or gate into the plant from the site of the shooting.

The wounded guard managed to drive down FM 1495 to the nearest plant gate, where an off-duty sheriff’s deputy working security at the plant called police.

The truck was last seen heading west on Highway 36, according to police radio reports.

[Sacajaweau]

With all those little camera sending pictures, we should have a picture of the dude who got away. There should be constant communication. This scenario is ridiculous.

[Sacajaweau]

I'd know all I needed to know:

1. If the man smiled and I knew he couldn't eat corn on the cob.

2. If I sneezed, and heard "God Bless You".

That takes care of two...what's left might scare the hell out of me.

[TexKat]

Why does BASF have all those ads on t.v. that say "We don't make the _____________, we just make it better, brighter or whatever.

BASF Corporation News Room

Johnson Pursoo

“At BASF, we are not only committed to helping make products better, we are also committed to helping make the communities in which we live and work better as well,” said Johnson Pursoo, BASF’s site manager in Huntington.

[ninenot]

Gotta' be extremist Christian Serbs

Well, that will be difficult, UNLESS

These Christian Serbs moved to Kentucky early on, becoming Fundamentalist Christians who happened to live in the South. They are loners, usually equipped with an extensive collection of rifles, shotguns, and ammo, and drive pickup trucks.

[FreeAtlanta]

Yeah, guard accidentally shoots self in shoulder. Nothing to see here.

[stevie_d_64]

Obviously this story was meant to be interpreted by the public as a "See! we told you so!"

Freeport is just far enough away to not make the sphincter muscles of the Bayport and Houston Ship channel industries pucker...

If there is not a follow up to this story regarding the suspects actual features (composite sketch, etc etc) vehicle description, L.P. etc etc

I will be filing this one away as a "sky is falling" catagory...

I am certainly not getting on your case Buffyt (not at all)...I am just not going to jump on all the pre-event and planted panic stories out there...

I'm ready for some football! But I am doing it as prepared for any eventuality as I can...And I had the plan ready for months...

Still it is interesting that the other information you would normally see in a shooting like this is missing...If the guy only got shot point blank in the shoulder...That doesn;t mean he can't talk a little more than he did, or what they chose to release to the media...

Echhh, whata I know...hehehe

Later,
Steve

[Cindy]

CORRECTION TO POST NO. 126...

o: JohnathanRGalt; piasa; All

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/today/8204algeria.html

PETROCHEMICALS

"EXPLOSION ROCKS ALGERIAN LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS PLANT
Refinery complex explodes in eastern Algeria, killing 23, injuring dozens"



ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Sonatrach, for example, is a joint-venture partner with BASF in BASF Sonatrach PropanChem, which supplies propane to BASF's propane dehydrogenation plant in Tarragona, Spain. The Spanish plant in turn provides propylene feedstock for polypropylene operations there."



126 posted on 01/24/2004 1:03:34 PM PST by Cindy

[gdc314]

Perhaps I'm just being too cynical..but the story sounds alittle too much like the wooley-haired stranger stories people tell to cover-up something. People have injured themselves to get a certain type of attention. Also, I doubt that a real terrorist would let an unarmed guard get away...the story may be 100% accurate but for now I'm cynical.

[Indie]

Nasty Stuff Indeed

[Sacajaweau]

Why didn't anyone else hear the shot?

[StolarStorm]

Kind of hard to fake a fresh gunshot wound.

[COBOL2Java]

The Estrogen-Deprived Women's Corps

Reminded me of an email that circulated shortly after 9/11 :-)...

Take all American women who are within five years of menopause - train us for a few weeks, outfit us with automatic weapons, grenades, gas masks, moisturizer with SPF15, Prozac, hormones, chocolate, and canned tuna, drop us (parachuted, preferably) across the landscape of Afghanistan, and let us do what comes naturally.

Think about it. Our anger quotient alone, even when doing standard stuff like grocery shopping and paying bills, is formidable enough to make even armed men in turbans tremble.

We've had our children, we would gladly suffer or die to protect them and their future. We'd like to get away from our husbands, if they haven't left already. And for those of us who are single, the prospect of finding a good man with whom to share life is about as likely as being struck by lightning. We have nothing to lose.

We've survived the water diet, the protein diet, the carbohydrate diet, and the grapefruit diet in gyms and saunas across America and never lost a pound. We can easily survive months in the hostile terrain of Afghanistan with no food at all!

We've spent years tracking down our husbands or lovers in bars, hardware stores, or sporting events...finding bin Laden in some cave will be no problem.

Uniting all the warring tribes of Afghanistan in a new government? Oh, please ... we've planned the seating arrangements for in-laws and extended families at Thanksgiving dinners for years ... we understand tribal warfare.

Between us, we've divorced enough husbands to know every trick there is for how they hide, launder, or cover up bank accounts and money sources. We know how to find that money and we know how to seize it ... with or without the government's help!

Let us go and fight. The Taliban hates women. Imagine their terror as we crawl like ants with hot-flashes over their godforsaken terrain.

[Senator Pardek]

Do you mean to tell me that this happened at a BASF cacility and it was not caught on TAPE?!

[SauronOfMordor]

Would you be able to distinguish between a "man of middle eastern decent" and an hispanic

A dark-complexioned man with a Semitic nose is more like to be Middle-Eastern than Mexican. Someone working in Texas, who sees Hispanics all day, is unlikely to mistakenly call a mexican a Middle-Easterner

[Indie]

Perhaps the perp got nervous and wasn't necessarily thinking clearly. ....unarmed guard get away...

A stranger in a strange land perhaps, when alone, does not think clearly, especially when something goes wrong in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.

[TheMom]

Security guards in Texas are not allowed to carry guns. Really kinda defeates the purpose of having them.

[mewzilla]

Note to BASF: Buy your guards some body armor.

[SauronOfMordor]

'FBI agent Bob Dogium said. "Right now there's no indication that it was terrorism," he said. '
In the face of what happened, it is unbelievable that an FBI agent would make this statement.

In FBI-speak "no indication" means "we have no hard evidence", rather than "we do not suspect

[pax_et_bonum]

I volunteer.