Tuesday, August 29, 2006
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Terrorist Attack in SF?
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Posted by:
Hugh Hewitt at
8:10 PM
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When a man named Ohmeed Aziz Popal runs over 14 people over an hour or two, the best thing to do is think terrorism.
So where is the MSM? The attacks began five and half hours ago.
UPDATE: A caller to the program who stated he had lived in the neighborhood where the attacks occured asserted that this is a heavily Jewish neighborhood. I have not found that confirmed in the media accounts yet.
UPDATE: Four callers have confirmed that without doubt this is a Jewish neighborhood, and that one of the victimns was run over in front of the Jewish Community Center in the area.
UPDATE: From an e-mail:
Look on the web! the JCC located at 3200 California St. Site of one of the attacks: 3250 California ST.
Please keep an eye out for the first MSM mention you see that this may very well be another mass casualty attack on Jewish Americans, the second in two months.
UPDATE: Here's the video of Mayor Newsom's press conference. In it he calls the attacks "road rage," and states that "there seems to be no pattern" to the victims in terms of ethnicity or age, and he says "We made no assertions that this was a hate crime, though that is being investigated." The attacker is "relatively young," Newsom stated, and that "it doesn't look in any way shape or form" like an attack related to "international relations."
UPDATE: WayOffBass writes "If what Ohmeed Aziz Popal did isn't a 'hate crime'...then what I'm feeling for the media and for Mayor Newsom right now must be love."
UPDATE: Victim photo with caption: "Bloodied sheets and rags are left on the sidewalk at California Street near Presidio in front of the Jewish Community Center after a hit-and-run incident."
LAST UPDATE OF THE EVENING: From the SFChron:
The SUV hit two people in front of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on California Street, just blocks from where the rampage ended.
Blood covered the sidewalk in front of the center's gift store entrance and 50 feet farther down the sidewalk lay a mangled bicycle. Security cameras in front of the center captured images of the incident, which happened at 1:12 p.m., said to Aaron Rosenthal, spokesman for the community center.
"As far as we can tell, they were simply pedestrians on the street at the time," he said.
Three women and four men ranging in age from 18 to 84 were treated at San Francisco General, said Peter Ragone, spokesman for Mayor Gavin Newsom. Others were taken to St. Francis Hospital, Kaiser Medical Center and California Pacific Medical Center.
One young man with minor injuries already has been treated and released as of 4:30 p.m.
"The car came after me,'' said the victim, who declined to give his name. "I'm lucky to be alive. Life's good.''
As of Tuesday night, San Francisco and Fremont police were saying little publicly about Popal or any possible motive for the SUV rampage. Police were awaiting a search warrant so they could enter Popal's home in Cabrillo Drive in a middle-class section of Fremont.
Popal's house is a beige stucco, single-family home. In a corner of the front yard is a large tree and the home is landscaped with fake flowers. Yellow police tape stretched across the front yard Tuesday as uniformed police officers gathered outside the house.
A cousin of the suspect, Zarghona Ramish, said Popal was a good guy, but had mental problems.
Popal "thought the devil was coming to get him,'' Ramish said.
Another relative said Popal was studying to be a mechanic and had most recently worked at a Newark tire shop. He was married about a month ago in his native Afghanistan and his wife still lives there, relatives said.
It is possible to believe that this killer, like the killer in Seattle, is a lunatic.
But it is simply incredible that the spokesman for the JCC is so quick to dismiss the very idea that anti-Semitic rage drove the attack.
How does a community defend itself when it refuses to recognize a risk?
I'll leave it to YoniTheBlogger to answer at length. But it seems to me at least plausible that anti-Semitic propaganda is working its slow poison on some number of people (UNC, Seattle, LA's El Al counter on 7/4/02, today?) who, when they snap for whatever reason, go out to kill Jews. This looks to me as possibly another such attack, and anyone dismissing the idea at this stage is manifesting a denial of the most dangerous sort.
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Bush's reign. Why does Baby Huey lie so much? |
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I'm going to admit the only information I have is what I see on this column but...
First, the mayor said "from the information we have right now" (or something like it). First news accounts are sometimes misleading and sometimes wrong. He's admitting a lack of information, not denying hate crime, from what I see.
The driver has mental problems (so his relatives assert). So does paranoia or veiled dislike of a group become 'terrorism' when it boils into the open? I'm guessing here that this guy is probably not an international mujahid but merely a crazy paranoid nut behind the wheel. Is he a terrorist? In the sense that he has sown terror, yes. International mujahid? I doubt it. It's not their M.O. If he crashed a plane into a Jewish neighborhood I'd be more inclined to agree, simply because getting a pilot's license is much more difficult than a driver's license, and it fits the MO.
If we start calling drivers who crash into crowds terrorists, then that would be a dangerous thing. Crazy, yes. Terrorists, no, at least not at this time.
I've only been here a few days and I keep running into "MSM". Mainstream media? |
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"Malvo testified that Muhammad, driven by hatred of America because of its "slavery, hypocrisy and foreign policy" and his belief that "the white man is the devil", planned to kill six whites a day for 30 days."
OK, so it wasn't a Muslim going after Jews because of their race. It was a Muslim going after whites because of their race.
"Malvo also said Muhammad devised a two-phase plan to shoot as many as six random people each day for 30 days in the Washington area and then target children and police officers with explosives. They planned to place explosives on school buses in Baltimore, kill a Baltimore police officer, and then set off explosives packed with ball bearings at the officer's funeral.
'When Malvo asked Muhammad why, he said, "For the sheer terror of it - the worst thing you can do to people is aim at their children."'
When someone says they're doing it for the terror, can we call them a terrorist?
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A woman claims she heard the man who drove into 14 people, killing one, in a violent hit-and-run rampage in San Francisco yesterday refer to himself as a terrorist.
KTVU-TV San Francisco reporter Rob Roth told WND the witness at the scene of Omeed Aziz Popal's arrest heard the 29-year-old man say, to no one in particular: "I'm a terrorist, I don't care."
Popal, of nearby Fremont, Calif., recently returned from Afghanistan where he married an Afghan woman in an arrangement by his family.
Roth said the witness would not give her name and didn't want to go on camera. He pointed out a woman next to the witness nodded in affirmation as Popal's words were recalled.
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It is clear why it that there is no controversy with this official reaction:
-Isn't this the government elected by the people of San Francisco?
-hasn't the people of San Francisco consistenly elect whack-jobs to represent them?
That is how they like it.As far as they are concerned there is no war abroad and there is no war at home. Oh with the exception of the Rumsfled-Bush unbridled agression against the religion of peace. |
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My only quibble with Hugh's post is the insinuation that the SF attacker, the Seattle attacker, the UNC attacker, etc., "snapped." I think they knew what they were doing and made conscious, deliberate decisions to kill Jews, or at least to target persons around Jewish-oriented facilities. Short-term, I'm as worried about what I call the "Individual Jihad" than I am about another 9/11-style attack. |
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Don't think this'll be your Horst Wessel, Hugh but keep scanning those headlines--something useful will turn up eventually.
Think you're being a bit too hard on the MSM and the rest of the country. Most don't see reality through the lense of a schoolgirl crush on George Bush as you do--to demand that others be as easily frightened and panicky as yourself is unreasonable. Have faith though: one day the scales will fall from their eyes and they'll see. |
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I wonder what the national press was reporting in the years 1938 to 1942 regarding Hitler and Tojo? Were they fair or biased?
gordo |
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I notice that many are trying to find a connection between the Jewish Community Center and this man's murderous SUV rampage. The JCC sits on the busiest intersection in this area. It would be difficult to drive around in this neighborhood without going through the Presidio/California intersection. I think it is wrong to make the assumption that, because he drove by the JCC and tried to hit someone there, he was targeting Jews. He drove through the neighborhood for 30 minutes trying to hit ANYONE of any color and age. The neighborhood itself near the JCC is NOT "Jewish". Most of his action was between Fillmore and Divisadero in the "Western Addition" which is most certainly not Jewish.
It's clear that he was trying to cause terror and mayhem, but I think the idea that he was targeting Jews because a JCC happened to be on his route is not so clear. |
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This from the San Jose Mercury -
"Anyone was a potential victim," said David Shinn, San Francisco's deputy police chief.
"In some cases he drove on sidewalks; in some cases he drove in the street," San Francisco police spokesman Neville Gittens said. "It runs the gamut in terms of how he targeted people that he hit."
The first victim, a 54-year-old Fremont pedestrian, was pronounced dead at the scene after the suspect purposefully drove his SUV into the man as he walked in a bicycle lane, Fremont Sgt. Jeff Swadener said. The victim was not immediately identified.
Witnesses told police that around noon a black SUV was driving north on Decoto Road in the second lane from the left at a high speed when he pulled into the bicycle lane and hit the man. The man flipped up onto the windshield and was thrown several feet into a nearby field, Swadener said. Popal lives about a mile from the scene.
END OF QUOTE
The Laurel Heights District in San Francisco is a 35 to 45 minute mid-day drive from where the first incident/murder happened in Fremont. To think that this neighborhood, and the people who carry on with their lives there, was not a specific target of Ohmeed Aziz Popal is a "Whitewash" and an illogical and damaging leap into political correctness.
ecj-maxine blog at maxine-log.blogspot.com
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The Scareorists push the panic button when the facts aren't even half assembled yet. Nice partisan shot at Gavin Newsome during a time of crisis. Mayor Newsome did a great job by keeping things calm and visiting victims in the hospital. Hugh must see the writing on the wall, Senator Newsome in 2012 or Gov Newsome in 2010.
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Hugh, you are right that this attack fits the pattern of repeated terror attacks, and "that anti-Semitic propaganda is working its slow poison on some number of people (UNC, Seattle, LA's El Al counter on 7/4/02, today?)" To which list I'd also add Mel Gibson's comments, although he was apparently exposed to non-Islamic anti-Semitic propaganda from childhood.
What is no longer amazing, is that CNN characterizes the killer as an "SUV driver."
That's the real enemy for the MSM, SUVs.
That this Afghan Muslim, recently returned from Afghanistan, drove 41 miles in Fremont in order to create mayhem in a neighborhood decorated with Jewish institutions is surely not aleatory. |
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Let me add some details to what Mark & DJPR have to say . . .
I used to work in the Laurel Heights neighborhood (at UCSF Medical Center office building at 3333 California). The poster that said that the neighborhood is heavely Jewish is not quite correct: at one time it was - still a large Jewish population but now more mixed (quite a number of Russian emigrees in that area). However, the new JCC (was built in 2002~2003 to replace the old JCC on the same site) is at the corner of California and Presideo, diaginally acroos the street from UCSF. The SF Firefighters Credit Union is directly across the street from the JCC and next door to UCSF. The other two "hits" where 2 blocks and 4 blocks west of there. The area between Walnut & Spruce Street on the south side of California Street is a shopping area with markets, a Starbucks, some nice eateries and a neighborhood "greasy spoon" (actually a pretty good place to eat). I've gone into that Walgreens where they caught the perp (which is the west end of that shopping area) so many times it isn't funny (BTW, if you are ever in the City, there is a good Italian eatery next to the Walgreens).
The north side of California in that area is all residential, as are the areas down the side streets south of California and the area behind the shopping area. It is a typical middle to upper middle class city residential area. A little sidebar: that hill area up there is one of the highest areas in SF and used to be a cemetary many many years ago.
Considering the amount of foot traffic on the south side of California Street at that time of the day I'm actually suprised that more people didn't get injured. The south side sidewalk is actually wide enough to drive up onto.
I hope all those folks survive (unfortunately the cyclist he ran over in Fremont is dead).
Oh yes: to put it into perspective, Fremont (where the perp lived) is turning into the Bay Area's version of Dearborn. |
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Mark is correct.
The areas of the incident - Laurel Heights, Fillmore and Pacific Heights - were formerly Jewish neighborhoods way way long time ago though a significant minority remains.
Today, there are still several Jewish centers around the area like the JCC, Jewish Family Center (sp), a temple (along with its school) and some others. Back in the old days, there used to be a a yeshiva on upper Fillmore and there was a temple next door to the Fillmore Auditorium (now a post office). But that was a long time past.
I've voluntered in the JCC before so its shocking for me to see this happen. Whatever the motivation of this man.
For those of you who know your San Francisco history, Laurel Heights is as Jewish as the Bush Street was once the French Corridor/Mini-French Quater. |
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I'm a San Francisco resident and thought that I'd help provide some details. Coincidentally, I'm a physician at the county hospital where most of the victims were taken. It was quite a scene at the hospital today. The man did apparently hit at least one black man in the Western Addition neighborhood, which traditionally is a black neighborhood. He then proceeded to Pacific Heights and onto Laurel Heights. There is a fairly large Jewish population in that area, though it's certainly not majority Jewish. However, he did pass near prominent Temple Shearith Israel, drove down California St., drove up onto the sidewalk in front of the Jewish Community Center and hit two people, continued down California Street and would have soon come to the also prominent Temple Emanuel, if he hadn't been stopped. It is somewhat unlikely that somebody would happen upon this neighborhood coming into San Francisco coming from one of the three likely entry points. It just seems too much of a coincidence that he would pass the Jewish Community Center (the synagogues probably just happen to be in that general area) of all places by accident. Not impossible, of course, but highly unlikely. |
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The best thing to do is think terrorism? That is like Newt Gingrich claiming we are in the midst of World War III. This is serious stuff and requires perspective and analysis rather than knee jerk reaction and hyperbole. |
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We need to get a grip on this problem. We had the same type of hate crime against jews in Washington, I think I have the state right. Were the muslim man when after 6 jewish women. If this country doesn't wake up, we are in big trouble. This is going to start happening everywhere. |
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Having lived in San Francisco for several years during the dotcom boom, it seems to me that the attacks occurred right around my old church, the grand Dominican Church St. Dominics, located at the intersection of Bush and Steiner. Although I am very suspicious of the driver and think he is likely a terrorist, the location of the attacks makes me think he targeted Catholics/Christians as well as Jews. |
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I couldn't get into the homepage. I am also still waiting for the networks to cover this. |
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Notice that many of the attacks were at Bush street. |
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Gavin Newsome the mayor says its not a "hate crime", guess if it was 14 homosexuals run over instead of Jews he would call it a "hate crime".
He ought to heed the warning, "first they came for the Jews, then they came for me "
BTW, this just showed up on CNN's web page (7;00 PM)..how many hours did it take them to break it ?
C
http://highmindedlunacy.townhall.com/ |
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The first hit-and-run happened along the route that a person would take if trying to go from the Ibrahim Islamic Center to Highway 84 (which crosses the bay). |
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.....and states that "there seems to be no pattern" to the victims in terms of ethnicity or age, and he says "We made no assertions that this was a hate crime, though that is being investigated." The attacker is "relatively young," Newsom stated, and that "it doesn't look in any way shape or form" like an attack related to "international relations."
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Mayor Newsome's head-in-the-sand remarks were foreshadowed by an Englishman by the name of Shakespeare a few hundred years ago.
Queen Gertrude uttered the following words to her son (Prince Hamlet) about a character in a play they were watching, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
--From Hamlet (III, ii, 239)
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My father fought against the Japanese in WWII. My mother was in college prior to Pearl Harbor and has told me that the professors were anti-semitic, anti WWII just as these leftist monsters are today. Do these haters of America want another 30 million killed? Of course they'll deny it like they deny the murders by Stalin and Hitler et al. To all the Jewish folks from my family to yours -- You all matter to us. You are God's chosen people. You matter more to the Creator of the universe than all the rest of us! |
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