Posted on 03/19/2002 10:57:20 AM PST by mykdsmom
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:55:42 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
RALEIGH, N.C. -- A suspicious package and a car fire in the parking deck of a north Raleigh office complex has prompted the evacuation of nearby businesses.
Raleigh police and other agencies are at The Forum office complex, located at 5800 Six Forks Road near Strickland Road.
(Excerpt) Read more at wral.com ...
I was in my wife's Volvo doing AT LEAST 75 in a 60.
The Trooper (on one o'them fancy Harleys, no less) gave me a break and wrote it for 67.
I got pulled over the weekend, but actually WASN'T speeding, and was adamant about it.
I didn't get a ticket, either... not even a warning ticket.
That having been said, I have a notoriously heavy foot, and not just because it's size 13.
Someone here on FR made the comment that the NCSHP have become "road agents" for the insurance companies, and I can vouch for that from experience.
I have always paid up... heard they don't like non-payment.
Kind of funny that they always take their sweet-a$$ time sending your tax refund, isn't it?
By OREN DORELL, Staff Writer
RALEIGH -- The Raleigh Police Department bomb squad evacuated a North Raleigh office complex this afternoon after a car exploded in a parking deck.
An unidentified man was injured and taken to the hospital, Capt. Don Weingarten said. Fifty officers responded to the scene at the Forum Office Complex on Six Forks Road, which was cordoned off after several hundred workers were evacuated.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has also responded to the scene.
Bruce Hall of Raleigh, an employee at the advertising agency Howard Merrell and Partners, said he was walkng out of the office complex's cafeteria after lunch when he saw a commotion. There was smoke coming out of the second level of the parking deck and, "I saw somone lying on the ground with what looked like four firefighters standing around him."
Police did not have any immediate explanation for the incident, which was called in at 12:46 p.m. Several employees of the office complex told The News & Observer that the injured man was a boyfriend of a woman who works at the complex and that the car that was on fire was the woman's car. Weingarten could not confirm that account.
The injured man and a bag that police called suspicious were found on ground floor. The car was on the second floor.
Looks like the perp could be a potential Darwin award nominee. Disgruntled suicide bomber perhaps?
MKM
I know this is late notice but is anyone up for meeting at WPTF's listener appreciation lunch at Red Hot and Blue on Falls of Neuse today? Get the details at their web site here.
We could hang out with Jerry Agar, eat barbecue, win free stuff and best of all meet other Freepers. Let me know if you can make it.
I'm free but will have to tow my 4 year old along with me.
MKM
I forgot to add the ; ) after the suicide bomber comment. It will be interesting to hear the real story when it finally comes out.
I wonder if he really had bags full of bombs, or if they will ever tell us if he did.
MKM
Can't do it... Raleigh is a little far for lunch.
Maybe next time.
Thanks,
CD
Anyway it just wouldn't be the same if we couldn't toss back a few right? Wouldn't be prudent to go back to work looped even if you could make it.
MKM
Sorry
Thanks for thinking of me, anyway.
Of course, I must note that Red Hot & Blue doesn't have *real* NC barbecue, but that's a discussion for another time.
Trust me, if I went out and "tossed back a few" over lunch, I wouldn't be going back to work - even if I lived in Raleigh! 8^)
Take some pictures if you can.
CD
Arson blamed in car fire
By OREN DORELL, Staff Writer
RALEIGH - Police blamed arson for a car explosion Tuesday that forced the evacuation of several hundred workers from a North Raleigh office complex.
Mark D. Fisher, 46, of Stedman was in fair condition at WakeMed's Intensive Care Unit. He apparently jumped from the second level of the parking deck to the ground outside, said Lt. Chris Morgan of the Raleigh police department.
Morgan said police are investigating whether a domestic dispute played a role in the incident at The Forum office complex on the 8500 block of Six Forks Road. Fisher had been romantically involved with a female employee at the complex who owned the car, which exploded in a blaze of fire at about 12:46 p.m.
"It appears there were some problems" with the relationship, Morgan said. No charges had been filed as of late Tuesday.
About 50 officers responded to the explosion, cordoning off the office complex and evacuating several hundred workers from all four buildings, police said.
Investigators with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and members of the Six Forks Fire Department also responded to the scene.
Bruce Hall of Raleigh, an employee at the advertising company Howard Merrell & Partners Inc., said he was walking out of the office cafeteria after lunch when he saw a commotion. There was smoke coming out of the second level of the parking deck, he said, and "I saw someone lying on the ground with what looked like four firefighters standing around him."
Late in the day, police and firefighters swarmed around the charred car, a late model burgundy Dodge Intrepid with temporary tags. Its doors were shut but bent out at the window frames, and glass littered the concrete deck around it. It appeared that the damage was caused by a tremendous force that emanated from inside the car. Cars parked two spaces away on both sides were damaged by the heat. The sharp smell of burnt plastic hung in the air.
Morgan said the fire was set, although he didn't explain how.
"We know there was an explosion from witness accounts," he said. "The car subsequently erupted with fire."
Fisher was running from the car and vaulted over a short wall, encountering a two-story drop into a deep ditch that was part of the parking deck, Morgan said.
The car's owner works for Misys Inc., a developer of medical software and one of the major tenants of the office complex, Morgan said.
Several Misys employees told The News & Observer that the injured man was a former boyfriend of the woman.
A young man who answered the phone at Fisher's Cumberland County home and said he was Fisher's son said he was "not really sure what's going on" or why his father was in Raleigh. Fisher does not work at The Forum.
The Raleigh police bomb squad also investigated two bags found on the grass near where Fisher landed but found them to be innocuous, said Raleigh Police Capt. Don Weingarten. An officer with a bomb-sniffing dog searched between 500 and 1000 cars, finding no devices, before workers were allowed to re-enter the parking deck and retrieve their cars.
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