Perpetrator in Texas shooting ID’ed
No surprise that it is a terrorist known to the police, who most likely made a threat a very short while before the shooting:
One of the suspects in the shooting in Garland, Texas, late Sunday has been identified as Elton Simpson, an Arizona man who was previously the subject of a terror investigation, according to a senior FBI official…
Officials believe Simpson is the person who sent out several Twitter messages prior to the attack on Sunday, in the last one using the hashtag #TexasAttack about half an hour before the shooting.
Followers of ISIS had been talking about the event online for weeks, calling for an attack. Simpson and his as-yet-unknown accomplice seem to have only too happy to oblige.
And this is food for thought:
Five years ago he was convicted for lying to federal agents about his plans to travel to Africa, but a judge ruled the government did not adequately prove he was going to join a terror group there.
I’d like to know who convicted him, a judge or a jury, and on what grounds the conviction was overturned. Was there really not enough evidence, or was this an action by a liberal judge determined to bend over backwards to help Simpson? However, even had he served his time, my guess is that he would have been out of prison by now and eager to help the cause.
Note the article doesn’t mention his religion, although we can be fairly certain of what it is. Was he another prison conversion (from a previous offense), as well? That is very very common.
The contest attracted more than 100 entries for the best cartoon depiction of the Prophet, Moohamed.
THE WINNER?
A former muslim won the grand prize and took home $12,500. for having done so.
A friend of mine asked me, If he’s NOT muslim, what is he now?
I replied: “A bit wealthier, and a whole lot smarter.”
(It gives pause to wonder whether the muslims are getting a bit too much attention here)
Kudos to Pamela Gellar and her crew. And to Robert Spencer for his appearance.
Charlie Hebdo devraient déplacer leurs bureaux vers le Texas.
It was an action by a liberal judge determined to bend over backwards to help Simpson.
“The indictment chronicles recorded conversations from 2005-2010 with an FBI informant named Dabla Deng, who introduced himself to Simpson as someone looking to learn more about Islam. Simpson was not shy about his beliefs, praising those who “fight” for Islam and encouraging Deng to renounce the West.”
“They trying to bring democracy over there man, they’re trying to make them live by man-made laws, not by Allah’s laws. That’s why they get fought. You try to make us become slaves to man? No we slave to Allah [sic], we going to fight you to the death,” Simpson told Deng on one of the tapes.
“Simpson spoke often of Somalia, and a desire to go there. He told Deng in recorded audio that he was considering traveling to a madrassa in South Africa and making his way up to Somalia to join the terrorist group Al Shabaab.”
Yet despite the recorded audio…
“The Court writes that,
“the Government did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant’s discussions about traveling to Somalia were related to the political situation Agent Hebert described.” “Agent Herbert explained previously in the document how Al Shabaab had developed into a militarized terrorist force in the chaotic Somalian political landscape.”
The Court also argues that Simpson’s statements were ambiguous:
“It is true that the Defendant had expressed sympathy and admiration for individuals who “fight” non-Muslims as well as his belief in the establishment of Shariah law, all over the world including in Somalia. What precisely was meant by “fighting” whenever he discussed it, however, was not clear. Neither was what the Defendant meant when he stated he wanted to get to the “battlefield” in Somalia.”
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/05/04/fbi-tried-and-failed-to-put-texas-shooter-on-no-fly-list-in-2010/
So far it appears that these terrorists really were lone wolves acting impulsively. Had it been a more organized and professional attack it might have ended differently. IMO it is highly probable that terrorist cells have already infiltrated across our southern border. Of far more concern is what they may be planning. ISIS has thousands of MANPADS, if they bring some in through commercial shipping containers, they can bring down passenger jets at takeoff and landing. Future ‘Mumbai style’ shopping mall attacks seem likely. But as horrific as these types of attacks would be, they pale in comparison to the vulnerability of our electrical grid.
“In an April 2013 probing action, unknown terrorists attacked the Pacific Gas & Electrics transmission substation in Metcalf, California. One terrorist crawled into an underground vault to cut the telephone lines for help. Then a squad of gunmen fired more than 100 shots and knocked out 17 transformers. The shooters took their time, blasting away for almost a whole hour, before police finally showed up and the terrorists melted away. The attack caused millions of dollars in damage and required 27 days before the small transformers were replaced and back online.”
Just a year ago, a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission “study concluded that coordinated attacks on only nine electrical transmission substations in the United States could bring down the entire trinity of grids (called interconnections) that supply electricity to America. Terrorists would have to physically destroy only four in the East, three the West and two in Texas, plus one large transformer production plant, and the entire United States grid would be down for at least 18 months, probably longer, said the memo.
Imagine what that would mean for a nation entirely dependent upon electricity for its very survival. Almost all large transformers are constructed overseas, including China, and the typical lag time from order to delivery and installation is two years. Forget no iPhones. Try no working sewer systems, no heating, no cars (because no gasoline pumps), no transportation, no garbage collection, no hospitals, no medicine kept in cold storage, no working government, and no civilization.” http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/christopher-s-carson/a-mad-max-nation-with-no-electrical-grid/
To accomplish this, all a terrorist group like ISIS needs is enough terrorist cells in the US, a modest amount of money, sufficient explosives and some discipline.
“I’d like to know who convicted him, a judge or a jury, and on what grounds the conviction was overturned.”
Your wish is my command, Neo. Here’s the decision:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/264047312/USA-v-Elton-Simpson-Court-Order#scribd
I read it quickly. It appears that it was a bench trial — no jury — and that the conviction was not overturned. Instead, the judge convicted him in this decision of making a false statement to government officials about his plans to travel to Somalia, but declined to impose a sentence enhancement available under 18 USC 1001 for offenses that involve international terrorism. The judge found that the government proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he made the false statement about his travel plans, but did not meet its burden to prove that his travel plans involved terrorism. Her name is Mary Marguia and she was appointed by Obama
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_H._Murguia
so it’s certainly not impossible that politics did play a role. However, by my quick reading, the government’s evidence was in fact pretty vague as to the purposes of Simpson’s trip — because Simpson was too cagey to say so directly to the government informer — and I’m not sure that under criminal law standards, the judge really had another choice.
Simpson was not actually sentenced by this decision, but other sources say he got three years of probation for the conviction for making a false statement without the terrorism enhancement.
I see that Geoffrey Britain disagrees with me about whether Simpson’s statements were really all that ambiguous. As I said, I read the decision quickly and didn’t scrutinize every detail, so it may well be that my take was wrong. But the standard is “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and that’s a high standard.
Domestic jihad terrorists, thugs using alleged racism to pillage and burn, and the left fanning the flames is going to make for a dangerous year. The boomer summer of love legions have grown up to be enablers of a summer of hate. Glad I am in flyover country far from an urban area.
parker Says:
May 4th, 2015 at 3:07 pm
Glad I am in flyover country far from an urban area…
Exactly. The enemy is within, the enemy is the Obama voters.
Time for some clarity.
The enemy is All Around.
meh; I should be able to lie about vacation plans. 🙂 If the gov thinks I’m going to join a terror cell; they ought to prove that. The whole ‘its a crime’ to lie to federal law enforcement is a crock IMO.