Home > Was There a Terrorist Conspiracy at the University of Oklahoma? Don’t Ask (...)

Was There a Terrorist Conspiracy at the University of Oklahoma? Don’t Ask David Boren

by Open-Publishing - Tuesday 4 October 2005
11 comments

Michael P. Wright —
Norman, Oklahoma, USA
mpwright9@aol.com

On the evening of Saturday, October 1, while a football game was in progress at the nearby stadium, a University of Oklahoma engineering student, packed with explosives, was seated on a bench near a sidewalk in front of the microbiology building. He knew that within a few minutes the sidewalk would be full of people during the halftime break. A few minutes before the half, the bomb exploded and killed him. This photo shows that the bench had been close to the sidewalk. It might be necessary to use the mouse to enlarge it:

http://rch-e.com/temp/oudaily/IMG_0...

Evidence points strongly to the suspicion that this was an accidental early detonation, and that the student, identified as Joel Henry Hinrichs III, had intended to kill some football fans also. I have obtained these facts from the Oklahoma Daily(campus newspaper), The Oklahoman of Oklahoma City, Norman Transcript, individuals who heard the bomb, and from an employee in the building.

1. the bomb was very powerful; it could be heard five miles away; it rattled floors at least four blocks from the campus;

2. it destroyed the bench where the bomber was seated and blew out two windows in the microbiology building;

QUESTION: why would anyone intent only upon committing suicide need a bomb that powerful?

3. searching Hinrichs’ apartment, the police found so many explosive materials that they said it would take up to 24 hours to remove them;

4. an OUPD officer said on Saturday that it was "unclear" if the explosion was an act of terrorism;

5. other investigators have not commented on the question of whether they believe Hinrichs intended to go inside the stadium with the bomb.

I recognize that not all Muslims are jihadists, but the idea of holy war and its violent forms of expression is associated with Islamic extremists. Bearing this in mind, it is interesting that:

6. Hinrichs lived in Parkview Apartments, which are close to the Norman Mosque;

7. he was an engineering student, and there are many Middle Easterners attending the OU engineering school.

Connect the dots.

Hinrichs is dead, so he’s not available to tell us what his intentions were. We may never know for sure, but David Boren’s attempt to rule out a planned terrorist attack with his public statements and influence the police investigation strikes me as obstruction of justice. Boren, the former U.S. Senator widely known as the mentor and patron of George Tenet, is the president of OU.

If Hinrichs had been planning a terrorist attack, and had any help in acquiring the explosives, then there was a terrorist conspiracy. If that conspiracy existed, Boren is frantic to keep it from being discovered. He has repeatedly described the event to reporters as an "individual suicide" by a person with "very serious personal problems." Boren has dismissed the idea that a terrorist attack was being planned, and has used this language: "At no time was anyone in the stadium in danger." Excluding the possibility of conspiracy, he has also said: "There is no evidence given to me that anyone else is under suspicion."

But were people who would be walking on the sidewalk in front of the microbiology building during half-time ever in danger? Investigators need to consider that question.

What is Boren’s problem? Why can’t he stop shooting off his mouth and let the cops do their work? It’s clear that he doesn’t want bad publicity for OU, but there are other issues. In 2002, he orchestrated the football stadium expansion, which expanded the bonded indebtedness of the OU athletic department to $152.7 million.

This means, for 30 years, an annual debt service of about $5 million. Official records confirm that Boren has already been raiding the OU general fund to help out his pals in the athletic department. Boren is desperate for cash. That explains the huge tuition hikes he has been inflicting on OU students. To deal with these debts, he needs to maximize revenue flowing into the athletic department through ticket sales also. That’s why he doesn’t want football fans to think they might be at risk of a terrorist suicide bomb attack by going to his games. Links to scans of official documents confirming my statements about Boren’s financial misconduct are appended.

Mark Tapscott made an interesting blog comment on the OU bomb and points out that the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force are now the lead agencies in the investigation. He also provided a link to the official document confirming this.

http://bellaciao.org/en/IMG/pdf/FBI...

Interestingly, the Norman Transcript, which Boren can influence, forgot to report that the Joint Terrorism Task Force was involved. See the last paragraph:

http://www.normantranscript.com/cnh...

APPENDIX

It might be necessary to use the mouse to enlarge these scans.

Front page of legal offer for stadium bond issue —

http://bellaciao.org/en/IMG/jpg/bon...

Historic normal revenues of athletic department, without funds being taken from the OU general budget:

http://bellaciao.org/en/IMG/jpg/bon...

Annual 30-year obligated debt service and $152.7 million total:

http://bellaciao.org/en/IMG/jpg/bon...

Documents confirming Boren’s $12-million interest-free "loan," of OU funds, to athletic department (2001):

http://bellaciao.org/en/IMG/jpg/ou1.jpg

http://bellaciao.org/en/IMG/jpg/ou2.jpg

http://bellaciao.org/en/IMG/jpg/ou3.jpg

FBI Statement

Forum posts

  • UPDATE FROM MICHAEL WRIGHT

    Quoting an FBI spokesman, The Daily Texan (University of Texas) confirmed that the bomb
    exploded three minutes before halftime. The bomber was seated on a bench, close to a
    sidewalk which he knew would soon be populated with football fans.

    http://www.dailytexanonline.com/med...

    • I’m just curious if anyone else noticed that in the FBI statement, the paragraph about additional threats and a secondary device, doesn’t look like it’s part of the original document? I dunno, maybe it’s just a coincidence.

  • How in the hell did you make the unlikely link between this bombing and Muslims??? Are you saying that Engineering students who have apartments near a Mosque are ’terrorist"? huh?

    • MICHAEL WRIGHT REPLIES:

      Why don’t you try reading what I said before you go ballistic? Points 6 and 7 on my list are factual statements. I did not draw conclusions from them. You are attempting to discredit me by making false attribution. What are your motives? Are you on David Boren’s payroll?

    • Hmmm, Tim McVeigh was a TERRORIST, with unfortunately effective intent to harm civilians, but he was NOT a Jihadist or Islam-convert. The proximity of the mosque (no reliable claims that Hinrichs attended) and Middle Eastern roommate angle could, indeed, be strictly a coincidence ...even as Hinrichs may have INTENDED a homegrown, McVeigh-style terrorist action. Why am i not seeing this very real possibility stated anywhere??

  • UPDATE: PHOTO OF BENCH LOCATION DISAPPEARS — ANOTHER PHOTO FOUND

    When I posted this article, I inserted a link to a photo illustrating that the bench where Hinrichs was sitting when the bomb exploded was right adjacent to a sidewalk in front of the microbiology building. That photo is no longer online. I located another one here:

    http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/

    I have no verification for the claim that "jihad materials" were removed from the bomber’s apartment.

    — Michael Wright

  • Sounds to me like this guy is just a freak, and was probably failing school. He looks like a troubled guy, probably not a ’terrorist’. Although, his intention was to take others with him. Murder suicide? It depends on his motives...we don’t know what religion he was yet, do we? My guess is that he was either failing school, or couldn’t afford to go anymore, but either way, blamed the athletics department for taking all of the school funding away from other programs. Or, he just wanted to kill as many as possible, and a half time crowd seemed logical enough.
    I wouldn’t make any conclusions yet either way, but the good news is that only one person died.

    • =======
      1. the bomb was very powerful; it could be heard five miles away; it rattled floors at least four blocks from the campus;
      =======
      "Boom" + concussion wave does not automatically mean it’s a destructive device. It’s understandable why some may jump to that conclusion, but it’s by no means enough information to accurately do so.

      =======
      2. it destroyed the bench where the bomber was seated and blew out two windows in the microbiology building;
      =======
      A commecial 3" salute shell used in professional fireworks dispplay could kill someone holding it, destroy a bench, blow out windows, be felt/heard for miles... all while *not killing* someone standing 15 ft away. Sure, they’d suffer hearing loss, a few minor burns, and be knocked on their tail... but they’d be alive.

      =======
      QUESTION: why would anyone intent only upon committing suicide need a bomb that powerful?
      =======
      Again, just becuase it was loud & blew out windows, and was heard for miles does not mean in any way that the device was intended for harming others, or even powerful enough to do so. While understandable you are mistaking loud/confined with destructive/powerful, which is not something you can do with the information available.

      =======
      3. searching Hinrichs’ apartment, the police found so many explosive materials that they said it would take up to 24 hours to remove them;
      =======

      One assumption we can make it that the kid probably wasn’t adhereing to OSHA standards. Many of the items are likely unmarked, questionable, etc. When you’re talking about chemicals, they don’t just walk in with boxes and carry the stuff out immediately. A small tupperware container of unknown substance could have *hours* spent on it before it is touched. Just becuase it take 24 hours, doesn’t mean much... they could easily spend that much time clearing out very little material. I’ve known the bomb sqaud to take 8+ hours on a mixture whose ingedients were known, the amount was known, etc. Just becuase it’s 24 is in now way indicative of just how much stuff was there.

    • This is most interesting. This fellow seems very interested in discrediting me. I received a similar communication by private email recently from someone calling himself "Mr. Anchovy." He also claimed to have expertise about explosives, and used some of the exact phrases. Further, his headers disclosed this IP address: 24.253.211.222.

      BellaCiao deletes part of the address, but discloses 24.***211.***

      I think that it is fair to assume that this post is from Mr. Anchovy, who concluded his email to me with this statement, about Hinrichs’ bomb: "...was it a destuctive device? Over a small, say 10ft, radius, absolutely!"

      OK, without going into all the technical questions he raised, let’s just work with that. Simple geometry tells us that a circle with a radius of 10 feet would have an area of pi times 10 squared, or about 314 square feet. Hinrichs was seated on a bench adjacent to a sidewalk when the bomb exploded. Let’s assume there would only be people in front of the bench, during half-time, when I suspect Hinrichs was planning an intentional detonation. That leaves us with a semi-circle with area of 157 square feet. How many people walking down a crowded sidewalk would fit into an area that size? By Mr. Anchovy’s own reckoning, that’s how many could have been killed by Hinrichs’ bomb.

      Nice try, Mr. Anchovy.

  • Interesting that Joe Castiglione did not personally sign the $12MM note to OU as AD.

    • There’s so much out there that the government, or its pawns: the universities, the well-paid bourgeois professoriate, the endowment-managers that RUN our churches, community centers, hospitals (les ho^pitals, for our transatlantic brethren), and our gurus, squadron leaders, Marxist reading club directors... don’t let us know about the world and the politics (of money!). I am so glad that this site exists, such that I can find real news, real facts from PEOPLE who were THERE, and not from "reporters" that just make their paychecks from editors ALREADY in the pay of big corporations like McDonald’s and Boeing. Thank the Maker that honest (and critical) people are out there to help sustain the Movement—. One day we will all be glad when the walls of ignorance come crashing down. Was it the trumpet at Jericho? No, it was the PEOPLE.