If you want the opposite of great work, here's the Tulsa World's whining front-page article from this morning's edition (Thursday, Oct 6, 2005) about how the Muslims in Norman are being treated. I would have expected nothing less from the Tulsa World. Plenty of apology from OU too.
____________________________________________________
Muslims queried about OU blast
By MICK HINTON World Capitol Bureau
10/6/2005
They were handcuffed and questioned after Joel Hinrichs III was killed in an explosion, the leader of an Islamic group says.
Three Muslims living in the same apartment complex as Joel Hinrichs III, who died Saturday night in an apparent suicide explosion on campus, were handcuffed and questioned by law enforcement officers, the president of the Islamic Society of Norman said Wednesday.
Ashraf Hussein, a University of Oklahoma junior, said he learned of the handcuffing incident by talking to the three students.
"This has become a story about the Muslims," said Hussein, who is distressed by the aftermath of the weekend tragedy.
Hinrichs' roommate, Fazil M. Cheema, who is from Pakistan, was questioned by police earlier but apparently was not handcuffed.
Hussein said he chose not to reveal the names of the three Muslims, who were not Pakistanis. Hussein said Cheema was not a regular at the Islamic Center and that he was sure he had never seen Hinrichs there.
Hussein said he received a phone message from one of the three men who were questioned at the apartment building by law enforcement officers late Saturday or early Sunday. He said the officers apparently were FBI agents because the investigation had been turned over to that agency.
The Islamic Society president said he thought officers were probably being overly cautious about a possible Mideast connection, which Hussein said is unsettling to him.
FBI spokesman Gary Johnson declined any comment on the case Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Catherine Bishop, OU vice president of communications, said Wednesday that she has not been able to ascertain that any students had been handcuffed. Bishop said the school has done "everything we could to verify that arrests of students had occurred, but we haven't found anything. This is not something we would keep from the public."
Bishop said OU officials have spent considerable time tracking down rumors about Hinrichs' death.
Several students who live at Parkview Apartments, where Hinrichs lived, were questioned, she said, but, to her knowledge, they were not detained or arrested.
Hussein said he did not know Cheema, who has moved out of Parkview Apartments and has located elsewhere in Norman. Cheema could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
A device attached to Hinrichs' body exploded, killing the 21-year-old as he sat on a park bench about 100 yards from Memorial Stadium, where 80,000 fans were watching the OU-Kansas State football game.
OU President David Boren said Tuesday that authorities continue to believe that Hinrichs did not try to get into the stadium and that he acted alone.
Boren said the people living near Hinrichs in the apartment complex were questioned, along with his acquaintances.
"None of those people have been held by law enforcement," he said.
Boren also said authorities found materials in Hinrichs' apartment that were detonated at a police bomb range.
On Tuesday, Dustin Ellison, whose family owns Ellison Feed and Seed store in Norman, said Hinrichs had tried to purchase ammonium nitrate from the store three days before the explosion on the south oval of the campus.
Ellison said Hinrichs acted "weird" when he was asked why he wanted the fertilizer, which was a key ingredient in the bomb that killed 168 people in 1995 in Oklahoma City.
FBI agents interviewed Ellison on Sunday, showing him pictures of Hinrichs, whom Ellison identified as the young man who had come into his store.
Ellison said the man was driving a blue Lincoln Continental. It has been reported that an off-duty Norman police officer was in the store at the time, took down the license tag number on the vehicle and later reported it to the FBI.
However, Ellison said he was not at liberty to confirm or deny that report.
Lt. Tom Easley, spokesman for the Norman Police Department, said an officer who was not in uniform did file an "intelligence report" with authorities, but Easley would not elaborate.
Thanks for the post.
Hey Hussein, (nice name by the way), if the officers were NOT being "overly" cautious about a possible mideast connection to a suicide bombing just outside a stadium filled with 80K+ people, that would be very unsettling to the rest of us.
WOnder if there were any fingerprints on the "materials" orif they even thought to look for them before detonation?
Check out these comments:
http://www.oudaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/10/05/4344a2c30d701
“You take the actions of a minority of a group and apply them to the group overall,” (Adeel Khan, former Muslim Student Association president and psychology and mathematics junior) said. “Some Malaysian sees on TV reports of Catholic priests (molesting children) a few years ago — what’s he going to think about priests?”
(snip)
“It’s considered very Middle Eastern, the way (Hinrichs) killed himself or tried to kill others,” (Ashraf Hussein, president of Muslim Student Association a petroleum and electrical engineering junior) said. “It’s different from someone taking a machine gun and killing everyone."
(snip)
J.C. Watts said one time if the Tulsa World supported him he would know he was going to lose. I am sure Dr. Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe feel the same way about the Tulsa World. Part of the birdcage papers IMHO!
Speaking of my two Senators -- they were only two of nine Senators that voted against what I call "be nice to terrorist" bill.