Posted on 10/11/2005 6:44:58 AM PDT by JustaCowgirl
en 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 website questioned why Boren was passing it off as a suicide.
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.]
Let’s go back to the beginning.
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.
We may never know for sure what happened. Or why.
Suicide usually occurs in private, but Oklahoma mental health professionals are now wondering if Hinrichs was motivated to bring attention to his death.
I have a theory – well, actually a question in my mind.
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.
Yes, it does say so - just check the phrase at the top of this article from this link. However, I dont see it stated in the actual article.
http://nebraska.statepaper.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/10/07/434694f129a59
That would be good, if you could write the author. I would be interested to hear what reply - if any - you receive from the author.
There is no way to know that. Making such a determination so quickly was based on handling the public perception not the safety of the public. JMO
A real case of CYA.
read later
Wow, I just went and read the piece you linked. I had heard jokes and innuendo for a long time about Boren being gay, but it was mostly from OSU people (fans, not administration), and I thought it was just idle trash talk based on nothing but his appearance. Looks like there's a lot more to it than that.
The kicker in this whole thing is that he has so much power in Oklahoma, and Oklahoma is about as conservative a state socially and politically as there is. So, I would assume that the majority of Oklahomans know nothing of this, or dismiss it as idle chatter putting down an honorable politician. It's a testament to his power that he was able to just take the OU Presidency when he wanted it.
Was Edward Gaylord a particular supporter of Boren? I wouldn't think that (his being offered the OU Presidency) would have happened if Gaylord hadn't wanted it. This whole OU situation just keeps getting stranger and stranger.
I think you're right. This opinion piece doesn't seem to have been very carefully researched or written. If I had seen all these errors, I think I would not have posted the article.
I think you're right. This opinion piece doesn't seem to have been very carefully researched or written. If I had seen all these errors, I think I would not have posted the article.
I missed them when I posted it as well. Live and learn I guess. (o:
I didn't know you had posted it. Sorry, I didn't do a good enough search I guess.
No apologies necessary. Better to have more people keeping their eye out for these stories than not enough! (o:
Here's another little tidbit about Boren... The morning of Sept 11, 2001, he was with his good friend, George Tenet and they were talking about terrorism. Shortly after that the first plane hit the WTC. It was the opening paragraph in "Bush at War".
I have written to Mr. Allen via their website form and checked the box marked inaccuracies. I have supplied him with my personal email address, and I wrote a pretty detailed message. I requested sources for the "OU Statement" and the Cheema/Palestinian comment. I will post here any response I receive from this inquiry.
There are an awful lot of tidbits that at least tangentially involve Boren and terrorism-related activities, aren't there? It seems as though some of the lay lines of terrorism intersect in Norman and run through Boren's office.
"It seems as though some of the lay lines of terrorism intersect in Norman and run through Boren's office."
So, Boren had close ties to Tenet, was in Tenet's office discussing terrorism when the first plane struck on 9/11 in fact. Prior to the bombing of the Murrah Building, he resigned the senate rather suddenly and mid-term, to accept the post at OU, a rather unusual step for a senator to take. He has been something of an apologist for Pakistanis and Muslim students at while at OU, but to be fair, he is not unique in that regard. He has, or is rumored to have, a past that would make him, shall we say, controllable. His behavior during the course of this supposed, lone suicide by Joel Henry Hinrichs, III, has only fanned the flames of suspicion.
Why would the head of a state university have the entanglements that Boren has, or seems to have? It's tempting to say that the timing of his sudden resignation is intriguing.
This story about Iraqi Republican Guard, some 2,000 of them, being relocated to Oklahoma after Gulf War I ... that's a Jayna Davis thing, isn't it? When was it, that this relocation was supposed to have occurred, and has there been any rationale put forth as to just why?
Is this "square one" for all the unusual happenings in OK? Between the ending of Gulf War I and the Murrah Building bombing?
Stephen Emerson really laid out the Oklahoma Connection to terrorism in "American Jihad". I read it right after Sept 11 and it gave me chills. I lived in OKC when the Murrah Building was bombed. They never did find the "owner" of the leg with part of camoflauge pants and a military boot.
From "Importing Terrorism" by William Norman Grigg,
The New American, April 7, 2003:
At the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, the first Bush administration began a program, which the Clinton administration continued, to resettle thousands of Iraqi POWs in the United States at taxpayer expense. “According to the State Department, the former prisoners were conscripted into the Iraqi Army against their will and have now been classified by international agencies [meaning the UN] as refugees who face persecution by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime if they return home,” reported the August 25, 1993 Washington Post.
When news leaked of the $70 million resettlement effort, a bipartisan group of 75 congressmen sent a letter of protest to the White House. “We find it disturbing that American taxpayers must fund the travel of former Iraqi soldiers (who took up arms against our own soldiers) to the U.S.,” declared the letter. “Ironically, we provide the [Iraqi POWs] with welfare services while asking our own veterans and service personnel to bear the burdens of deficit reduction.”
Alluding to propaganda leaflets used to encourage Iraqi soldiers to surrender, Congressman Clifford Stearns (R-Fla.) wryly commented: “When we dropped those leaflets on the Republican Guard, we did not include a plane ticket to Middle America and welfare entitlement benefits. When those guys realized the war was lost, they changed into civilian clothes and surrendered, and now we’re rolling out the red carpet.”
Hitting up taxpayers to subsidize former Iraqi troops is outrageous. Bilking taxpayers to support potential Iraqi terrorist agents is potentially suicidal — and Saddam’s intention to infiltrate terrorists into this country was well known more than a decade ago. The Washington Post reported on January 28, 1991 that, according to “highly classified U.S. intelligence reports,” Saddam Hussein had “dispatched more than 100 terrorists, both experienced and novice, to try to infiltrate the United States.”
All I know about that is what I have read here on FR. Does anyone have independent verification or further information to validate that this actually happened? 2000 people being relocated to the same place don't just disappear, there would be some people who knew some facts about their fate after they got here. I'd like to see some other verification that this actually happened.
I agree with you, the last 10-12 years seems to have been a time period where there were some strange happenings in the state of Oklahoma, and some strange happenings and coincidences surrounding Norman and Boren. Given the rumors about him, and his need to have a very different public persona than the one rumored, it isn't at all hard to imagine that somebody might have Boren in a pretty tight headlock.
I'm still curious as to why Oklahoma, for the resettlement of these Iraqi Republican Guard members. Fort Sill? They were reportedly not just ordinary Republican Guard, but military intelligence. Or, was it something as simple as the climate and topography being somewhat similar to Iraq?
A correction is needed: The reports of aluminum nitrate don't exist.
It's ammonium nitrate.
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