Student recounts talk with worker (Norman Terrorist bombing; MUST READ)

NORMAN -- An incident related by a ticket taker at Saturday's OU-Kansas State game raises questions about whether a student who died in a suicide explosion tried to gain entrance to Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

But University of Oklahoma officials continue to deny that Joel Henry Hinrichs III tried to enter the stadium before dying about 100 yards away.

OU student Adam Smith said Thursday that he was approached as he was leaving the stadium Saturday by a ticket taker from Gate 6 who wanted to know what had happened.

Smith said he told the gate worker that there had apparently been an explosion outside the stadium and someone had been blown up.

"He gave me a wide-eyed look, and said: 'Oh, that's really strange,' " Smith said. The ticket taker recounted that a young man who looked strange and was wearing a backpack that looked full tried to get into the stadium.

However, when he was asked to open his backpack, "the guy didn't say a word and sprinted away," Smith said he was told.

Vice President of Communications Catherine Bishop said OU officials have "been assured that there is no validity to the Gate 6 rumor." Bishop said the story has been checked out by the university's athletic department.

Hinrichs, a 21-year-old, third-year engineering student described by his father as a loner and a depressed and troubled son, died Saturday in what officials have called a suicide explosion that occurred during the second quarter of the OU-Kansas State football game. The explosion was sizeable enough to leave a large burned-out area surrounding a park bench in front of a campus building, prompting concern from the public about what would have happened if the blast had occurred inside the stadium amid a crowd of 84,000 fans.

Hinrichs' roommate was Fazil Cheema, a student from Pakistan. Law enforcement officials late Saturday came to the Parkview Apartments complex where the pair lived, located Cheema at a neighboring apartment, then interviewed him and about a half-dozen others, who are Muslims. However, spokesmen for the local Muslim community say Cheema himself is not a practicing Muslim.

An OU instructor in Arab languages whose native country is Egypt said Thursday that he was among the small group of Muslims handcuffed by Norman police and led to FBI agents, who questioned him for about two hours early Sunday morning.

Instructor Hossam Barakat said Norman police were "really aggressive," but FBI agents were polite and apologized for having to interview Barakat and the others gathered at one of the units of Parkview Apartments.

Hinrichs and Cheema lived in a nearby unit, and Cheema was at the neighboring apartment when police arrived. Cheema has moved from the Parkview Apartments to another apartment in Norman, acquaintances say, but Cheema cannot be reached.

Barakat and others are concerned that the OU explosion could be unfairly connected to the Muslim community. Barakat said he does not know Cheema very well. Members of the Islamic Society of Norman say that Cheema is not a Muslim and does not attend the mosque.

"Cheema was an atheist who was angry with God because he had lost much of his hearing," said Tariq Alzoubi, who noted many international students especially from the Mideast region are reluctant to talk about the case.

The Muslims who practice at the Islamic Society of Norman emphasize that they have never seen Hinrichs at the mosque.

In a letter being sent to students and parents, OU President David Boren said he has been "assured that law enforcement officials including federal officers have found no evidence of a conspiracy involving others which creates an ongoing threat to our community."

"We believe that we should not judge others or jump to conclusions about others on the basis of color, race, gender, economic status or freely exercised religious beliefs," Boren said in the letter made public Thursday.

Given:

1. Student explodes near stadium.

2. May have tried to access stadium.

3. Apartment contains additional ordinance.

4. Student attempted to purchase ammonium nitrate.

5. Roommate from Pakistan, who probably knew of the bomber's activities.

Decide, irrevocably, whether this is two or three jihadists one of whom is now dead, or whether these were Al Qaeda players, part of a larger plot.

You cannot. There is not enough evidence here to prove or disprove a conspiracy. Which means your mathematically mandated next move is.....?

Investigation.

Agreed?

Good, I don't want to have to demonstrate the ignorance of any other reply.

Now....policy during the mandated investigation regarding disclosure:

1. Full disclosure prior to conclusions based on fact cannot be made because facts not in possession yet. Stop, we are debating the question of a larger conspiracy, nothing more or less here.

2. Full disclosure will impair the investigation, and will lessen the chances of capturing any additional members of the conspiracy, if they exist.

3. Full disclosure will allow civilians to decide for themselves the true threat level before attending any more football games.

4. Full disclosure will significantly impact gate receipts from college and professional football games for an extended period. If later investigative conclusions show that no larger conspiracy existed, the damage is still irrevocable. The terrorists "win", even in the process of losing.

5. You have roughly one week to investigate before a decision is required. Few games are scheduled during this period. Delaying a decision during this period puts few civilians at risk, and preserves the option of sparing the football industry financial damage until more information can be gathered.

6. For a coverup to exist, the investigative teams have to:

A: Believe that a larger conspiracy did exist, and
B: Place the football industry's well being higher in priority than the people's reasonable right to know of existing threats.

This cannot, mathematically, have happened yet, because the majority of subsequent games, (all college, most professional) have not been played yet.

The only yardstick we currently possess to INDICATE a potential cover-up is past occurrence, which includes the New York subway threat, the threats to Financial Institutions in New York, threats from gasoline tankers, and to gasoline stations, threats to tourists at various locations worldwide, threats from a "dirty" bomb, etc. etc. etc., all of which were DISCLOSED TO THE PUBLIC PRIOR TO ANY CIVILIAN CASUALTIES.

If you want to understand Flight 800, read the flipping book. If you've read the book and still want to disclose the capabilities (and limitations) of the Aegis upgrade,then follow your own conscience, but regardless of your choice, you will not return the passengers of flight 800 to life.

If you want to claim that Timothy McVeigh was a closet Muslim, you will have to debate that with the rest of the tinfoil crowd, because I choose not to waste my time on you.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and bet that few, if any of the people claiming coverup here have much experience dealing with people who continue working with FEMA, the FBI, the NSA, the Secret Service, the DIA, or the CIA. These people don't talk, not to the media, not to anyone. It is part of the vetting process that decides their entry to the community. Do you prefer otherwise?

These people gather information, they do not distribute it, except up the food chain. Their bosses decide when to release information, they do so with a big picture view, and they do not, ever, wantonly destroy an entire American industry without careful consideration beforehand.

They also do not, as matter of record, hesitate to destroy an entire industry as large as the American commercial airline fleet, if they perceive a credible threat.

Think on that.

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Undercover infiltration