In Bombing At OU Stadium There Are More Questions Than Answers

Ten days have passed since a 21-year-old University of Oklahoma engineering student was killed when a bomb he was carrying exploded 100 yards from the stadium where Oklahoma and Kansas State were playing football before a crowd of 84,000 – and there are still more questions than answers to exactly What? and Why?

As The Oklahoman said in its October 9 edition, the explosion “left Oklahomans wondering whether it was an individual suicide or if it was intended to be an act of terrorism targeting football fans October 1.”

There is evidence the student, Joel Hinrichs III of Colorado, was a loner with a history of depression. However, it is still a mystery why officials were so quick to call it a suicide -- before a thorough investigation could be initiated.

The explosion occurred about 7:30 p.m., during the second quarter of the KSU-OU game. During the fourth quarter OU President David Boren informed the media that a student had apparently committed suicide by blowing himself up near the stadium. He asked fans at the stadium to remain calm and said no one was in danger.

How could he have been so sure? The FBI was just then starting interviews with some of Hinrichs’ neighbors and acquaintances. And the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is said to be in charge, would not have had time to arrive in Norman.

It’s also a mystery why the mainstream media outside Oklahoma has pretty much ignored the incident.

Days later the news media was obsessed with the story of a possible terror threat in New York City; and cable news outlets spent far too much time on a bomb threat that briefly closed the Washington Monument. But there was almost nothing about an actual bombing – just 100 yards outside a college stadium full of people – that could have been a terrorism incident gone awry. Did newspaper editors and TV news producers – usually inquiring minds – buy into Boren’s quick dismissal of the event as just a troubled youth’s suicide and ensuing FBI statements that investigators had found no evidence to prove it was something other than a suicide?

My inquiring mind wonders if Boren, a former U. S. Senator with great political skills, sought to cool media interest and keep reporters and cameras out of Norman. Remember: His announcement came barely 90 minutes after the incident.

I first heard about the incident late Saturday, October 1, when it was a “breaking news” item on FOX News.

The report said a bomb exploded near OU’s stadium during a football game. There was a brief video showing police cars with lights flashing and an area cordoned off by yellow police tape.

I later checked the Omaha World-Herald’s online edition and found no mention of the incident. If over the next few days it was listed in the index for online OWH stories I missed it; it was not listed as a “headline” story.

FOX never mentioned it again. I forgot about it until October 4, when a Washington D.C. website reported the FBI was investigating the bombing.

The next day a second Washington website reported the bombing after being e-mailed reports from Oklahoma media. It felt a lot of information was contradictory and wondered why the eastern media wasn’t on to the story. That was when I started to prepare the story that ran October 7 here in StatePaper.com [To access that column, click here.]

A longtime, good friend of mine and his wife, who reside in Oklahoma, were at the OU-KSU game. Their seats are in the northwest corner of the stadium, just ten rows up from the field. During the second quarter there was what my friend, Jim, called a “loud boom”. He said it “seemed like everyone in the stadium turned and looked in the direction of that noise. He said people seated near them all assumed it was thunder since early evening showers had been forecast.

Jim said police officers were moving toward the exits, but that fans didn’t pay any attention since officers often move around as they deal with unruly fans or medical emergencies.

As the second half began and people returned from concession stands and restrooms, word spread that police had sealed off exits on the stadium’s west side, although they opened at the end of the game.

There was apparently no public address announcement. Jim said he learned about the explosion during the fourth quarter while listening to play-by-play on his radio headsets, and Boren’s statement was reported.

It’s assumed word spread through the stadium as fans with radios informed people sitting around them. Jim said an area on the west side of the stadium was still cordoned off when they walked to their car after the game. There was little news about the explosion that night.

There have been conflicting reports about the explosion. One, which I repeated in my October 7 article, said the bomb was made of TATP, supposedly the same material used in the London subway bombings. I don’t know what TATP is, but The Oklahoman has since quoted the youth’s father, Joel Hinrichs Jr., of Colorado Springs, as saying the FBI told him the bomb was made of hydrogen peroxide. Some reports, upon which I based my story, quoted witnesses as saying Hinrichs was carrying a large backpack. Still another report said the explosives were strapped to his body. We won’t know for sure until the FBI or local coroner releases more information.

A bus driver told authorities, according to media reports, that shortly before the explosion he saw a young man fitting Hiurichs’ description stretched out on a bus stop bench staring into space.

Oklahoma media quoted witnesses who claimed they saw Hinrichs attempt to enter the stadium and run from the area when security guards tried to check his backpack, a report I included in my October 7 story.

OU now says the FBI reviewed security camera tapes from the stadium gates and “found nothing to indicate Hinrichs tried to enter”. Although no one said it did, the university has also said it did not sell an OU-KSU game ticket to Hinrichs.

The university also said it “had heard nothing to indicate” Hinrichs attempted to buy a ticket from scalpers outside the stadium. None of that, of course, means Hinrichs did not have a ticket to the game.

According to The Oklahoman, Norman Police confirmed that on September 26 Hinrichs attempted to buy aluminum nitrate from a Norman feed store. Aluminum nitrate was used in the bombs at the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995 and the World Trade Center in 1993. Hinrichs’ comments to the store’s manager raised the suspicions of an off-duty police officer who was in the store and overheard the conversation. He wrote down the license plate number on Hinrichs’ car. Hinrichs died before a formal investigation could be made.

So far, the FBI has not identified the type of explosives found in Hinrichs’ apartment.

FBI agents questioned Hinrichs’ neighbors shortly after the October 1 explosion and searched his apartment on October 2, removing the cache of explosives and what The Oklahoman called “other material”. Hinrichs’ building and three neighboring buildings in the university-owned apartment complex were cordoned off by police until the explosives were removed.

An Internet news magazine is reporting that the search warrant used to search Hinrichs’ apartment has been sealed by a federal court at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice. If true, that raises serious questions.

The magazine quotes a Bob Troester, identified as an assistant U.S. attorney in Oklahoma City, as saying to a reporter: “You can draw whatever you like. We don’t comment on any sealed indictment.” The magazine wonders what he meant. Did he simply misspeak, meaning to say “warrant”? If he did mean there’s a “sealed indictment” that would mean that living people are about to be charged with a crime.

Speculation is running wild in Oklahoma (and at some Internet websites) that Hinrichs was involved with Muslim students from foreign countries, that he probably did intend to blow himself up inside the stadium but was deterred by the presence of security guards, that after leaving the stadium he either detonated the bomb to kill himself or it went off accidentally.

Hinrichs’ roommate, first reported to be a Pakistani, which I included in my October 7 story, has also been identified as a Palestinian. He and three other Muslim students were taken into custody shortly after the explosion. They were questioned and released.

I also wrote October 7 that an Oklahoma City television station reported that Hinrichs had been attending the same Norman mosque attended by convicted 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. However, a number of Muslim students and an Arab professor have since denied ever seeing Hinrichs at the mosque.

The day after the explosion, the FBI said it “has no information that suggests that there is any additional threat posed by others related to this incident.”

The FBI said on October 4 that it “had found no known link between Hinrichs and any terrorist or extremist organization or activities.” On October 6 OU President Boren said authorities “have so far found no evidence of a conspiracy” and cautioned the university community against “any rush to judgment based on race, religion, gender or ethnicity.”

Joel Hinrichs Jr. said his son had been treated previously for severe depression and dropped out of OU in 2003-2004. Classmates said the young man was a loner, dressed strangely and seemed concerned recently about his grades.

The dead student’s father added that his son had a fascination with explosives; that at the age of 13 or 14 made a bomb out of match heads and a tube. He also used to buy artillery shells on ebay.

However, Hinrichs Jr. also told The Oklahoman he had not observed any suicidal tendencies in his son. In fact, he added, in the last e-mail he received from his son on September 14, the young man anticipated getting a Subaru the elder Hinrichs was offering to him.

Suicide usually occurs in private, but Oklahoma mental health professionals are now wondering if Hinrichs was motivated to bring attention to his death.

If Hinrichs was a convert to Islam and associated with militant Muslim extremists in a terrorist attack at a Midwest university, it would not take the FBI very long to put the pieces together. Because of his roommate, Hinrichs was likely acquainted with Muslim students, some of whom could have had ties to a terrorist group. I wonder if they knew about his interest – and apparent expertise -- in explosives; and if they learned he was depressed and suicidal, whether they might have befriended the troubled youth, who had trouble making friends, and manipulated him into committing suicide in a big way – inside a crowded football stadium. I wonder if, as he approached the stadium, his conscience caused him to have second thoughts, he turned away, stretched out on the bus bench to think it over, and either killed himself or died when the bomb detonated accidentally.

The FBI left itself a lot of wiggle room by simply saying it has “not found anything” or “has no evidence” that it might have been more than a suicide.

Even Boren has backed off from his initial insistence that it was an “individual suicide” and, because Oklahoma law allows only a coroner to make that determination, later clarified his statement to “individual death”. And, as noted above, Boren has urged the university community to remain calm and not rush to judgment, as he recognizes the investigation has not been completed.

Meanwhile, the university announced that security will be increased at its football stadium.

In another part of my October 7 column, on another subject, I wrote: “…there is nothing Bush has done as president that I approve of”. A friend who helps me with research says that in the draft he proof read I had said, “…there is almost nothing…” I apparently, perhaps sub-consciously, deleted “almost” when re-typing the text for submission to the editor.

Going to plug my blog again... If you haven't been keeping up-to-date with what's been reported in this case you may wish to visit it as I have published an updated summary. Here is the link, it will open in a new window:

War in the Heartland? - Terrorism and the OU Bombing
Comprehensive Summary of the reporting so far - last updated 10/09 @ 5:00 am

There are several other entries of interest... just look for the links in the right hand column at the blog.

so there is a new bomb going off at another campus (Georgia Tech). One can only wonder if there is a middle east or Islamic connection to this one as well.

Click here for article on bomb going off at another campus today

I am sure it is just college kids playing with explosive and being college kids.....(/sarcasm)

This is starting to look like a pattern.

Ammonium Nitrate.

Don't they have editors in Nebraska?

Aluminum Nitrate might make a pretty cool bomb, I don't know. But I do know it was Ammonium Nitrate that he tried to buy.

Mark Tapscott, Director of The Heritage Foundation's Center for Media and Public Policy, has reported on his blog that there are indeed holes the approximately the size of a 16-penny nail head on the tree located just next to the bench. You can see his report here: 13 Plastic Bottles Found in Hinrichs' Car; Lots of Small, Round Holes Seen in Tree Near Bomb Site

Look...we had a few agents in that beehive. Thats why they are laying low...they cant come out and say theyve penetrated it and didnt do anything....this wacko in the cell slipped through the net.

Yes, you're right. Pretty bad mistake on the writer's part. Add that he is the only one reporting that Cheema was a "Palestinian" and it starts making him look pretty unreliable as a source in this case.

I know, a few of us "die-hards" left at this point, but that's alright. I'll do what I can to put out there what I've gathered, but I'm pretty sure in the long run it'll just become another chapter in the "conspiracy theory" files...

However, it is still a mystery why officials were so quick to call it a suicide -- before a thorough investigation could be initiated.

Maybe because it was pretty obviously a suicide. (Is anyone suggesting this WASN'T a suicide?)

I suspect Hinrichs is just the first of many suicide bombers to come. With any luck, all of them will be as inept as he was. (And, just so there's no misunderstanding, any of you "homicide bomber" ideologues can just keep it to yourselves, okay? It's nothing short of stupid. Tim McVeigh was a "homicide bomber.")

At any rate, I fail to see how calling it a suicide is some sort of a "mystery." Perhaps I'm missing something.

Thanks for putting the link up on this thread. I read about that whole situation before posting these articles today. Said there were 3 devices found and they are treating it as a "terrorist act". Interesting is that they mention "2-liter bottles" - the same type of plastic bottles confiscated from Hinrichs' car.

Short of putting on my "tin-foil" hat the only sane basis I can come up with as to the ongoing cover-up is a desire not to scare away college football fans and thus cause major economic havoc for the universities that brings in millions each week?

He tried unsuccessfully to enter the stadium at least 2 times. Which makes him at the very least an "attempted" homicide bomber. This is reported by student Adam Smith, and apparently 9 news has also interviewed the security guard and he has confirmed, although I've yet to personally see that interview.

As far as the "so quick" call... the "lone suicide" report was released by OU within 1-2 hours of the event. Add with that the report of a second backpack found in the parking garage containing explosive materials and it makes it pretty clear that this wasn't a clear-cut suicide.

To see all of what's been reported so far, you may wish to read my summary which is linked in a post up the thread a little.

Either that, or they don't want to scare off future foreign students. I wouldn't want to go to OU if I was a peace-loving Muslim in light of all the connections that are has had to terrorists in the past... Who knows at this point - perhaps they have undercover ops that would be exposed if they reported all that they knew as well.

Why keep saying the bomb went off accidentally. Just maybe someone(s) did not like the idea the bomber was not in the football game as planned. I believe these bombs are still Ignited by cell phone dial up as the case may be.

Hey, Sandy Berger will figure this one out!!

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