Another 'Lone Wolf' terrorist.

[SirNitram]

Link

Dearborn - An ex-Army veteran from California who is accused of driving to Metro Detroit's largest mosque with a trunk full of explosives is behind bars after being charged with making a terrorist threat.

Roger Stockham, 63, is charged with one count of a false report or threat of terrorism and one count of explosives-possession of bombs with unlawful intent after Dearborn police arrested him Monday outside the Islamic Center of America, one the largest mosques in North America.

Stockham, a resident of Imperial Beach, Calif., is being held on a $500,000 cash bond. He will be in court on Friday for hearing on the charges before 19th District Court Judge Mark Somers.

FBI special agent Sandra Berchtold confirmed today the FBI is investigating an incident referred to the federal agency by Dearborn police.

Police said Stockham was in possession of class C fireworks, a 15-year felony, when he was arrested Monday outside the center. The terrorism charge is a 20-year felony.

On his MySpace page, Stockham said, "Proud of my kids. Happy with how much I've lived. Ready for it to be over, but have a policy I contend with often: So long as I am alive, I can't play dead."

At a website for a VFW post, Stockham posted a photograph and said he joined the U.S. Army in 1965 and served in Vietnam in 1968. Based in Pleiku, Stockham said he flew with an assault helicopter company. He says he has two children and a grandchild.

Dearborn Mayor John B. O'Reilly Jr. said the suspect, who drove from California to Michigan last week, was in possession of high-end fireworks outside the 70,000-square-foot-mosque which has a 150-foot dome height and 10-stories tall minarets.

"The kind that are illegal here and if used in a building would cause tremendous harm," O'Reilly said today.

Dawud Walid, executive director of CAIR's Michigan chapter, said he learned from police that the suspect had been drinking in a Detroit bar on Monday when he threatened to do harm to a mosque in Dearborn. A bar employee followed the man outside and wrote down his license plate and called Detroit police who in turned contacted authorities in Dearborn, Walid said.

Dearborn police began searching areas around mosques in the city and allegedly found Stockham inside his vehicle outside the Islamic Center of America, Walid said, with a load of M-80s in his trunk and other explosives. Inside more than 500 members had gathered for a funeral service, Walid said. It was not known whether the suspect knew a funeral was underway.

Members of the Islamic Center of America were alerted to the threat during Friday's prayer service, Walid said.

"We thank law enforcement authorities for their quick and professional actions in this troubling incident," Walid said. "The increased number of bias incidents targeting American Muslim institutions must be addressed by local, state and national officials and law enforcement authorities."

Investigators chose to keep the arrest quiet during the week while detectives determined whether Stockham was acting alone or with others, O'Reilly said. Police worked with the mosque's Imam during the investigation, he said.

O'Reilly said it appears Stockham was acting alone.

"People asked why they didn't know about this earlier: why is because it's based on who needs to know. There was no threat to anyone else and no one else was in danger," O'Reilly said.

He was a lone wolf, in no way inspired by demonizing of the faith who he was planning to attack. There is no fault except his. Move along... /Media.

[Zaune]

Something doesn't quite add up here. You can make a perfectly good IED out of stuff you can buy over the counter at Home Depot, so why go to the trouble of buying black-market pyrotechnics that you can do jail time just for possessing?

[Gil Hamilton]

He very well may not have had the skill to make and assemble an explosive from the over the counter supplies at Home Depot. People like telling the tale that you can buy simple household stuff and assemble it into an explosive and that's true, but the other half of the story that most people don't tell is that that's an excellent way to get yourself killed and not harm anyone but yourself and your neighbors. Many bomb makers die by their own product.

Plus, it's become much harder to purchase large quantities of stuff to make a good explosive. For example, you CAN'T purchase ammonium nitrate anymore in a legal, over the counter fashion (you used to be able to buy as much, for use in farming and gardening) without the federal government knowing about it and putting you on a watch list. You can try to buy surplus from farmers, but that can be risky. Alot of those chemicals are just hard to get and even if you can get them, many people just don't know how to assemble them into a working bomb. I remember last there there was that guy who got caught planting a large amount of flammable stuff in Times Square in New York and they found after inspecting the car he left, chances are even if it had been ignited, it may well have not exploded.

If this clown had access to potent black market pyrotechnics, that may well have been a better option than risking making a bomb himself.

[Zaune]

Point taken; I thought ammonium nitrate was still relatively easy to get hold of. Still, it's not like it's hard to find the recipes for explosives made from chemicals that would provoke fewer awkward questions than a bunch of M80s, or even a few sacks of fertiliser for that matter.
And in any case, even the dumbest, most amateurish terrorist imaginable is unlikely to brag about his carefully-planned bomb attack before carrying it out.

[Broomstick]

Keep in mind as well that fireworks and explosive laws vary between different US states. Those "class C" fireworks may be legally available in one state but not legal in Michigan. So... it might have seemed a way to get a dangerous amount of explosive.

[loomer]

Nitram, if he wasn't part of a cell he still meets the definition of a lone wolf. You can commit terror acts in support of a cause or an ideology without having a command structure. The rhetoric is probably the catalyst, no argument there, but lone wolf is a perfectly valid term for what we've been seeing in the last few months - the real problem will be when actual cells start to form.

As far as the fireworks... There's also one thing to be said for using pre-made explosives, even if they're just pyrotechnics. You can get them quickly. It takes time to make gunpowder or fertilizer explosives - not that much, but still a lot more than if you can extract the explosives from a pre-packaged source or even just group enough of them together.

Edit: Actually, to elaborate...

Lone wolf terror tactics and the American Right share quite a lot of history. Lone wolf attacks are the preferred means of inciting chaos and eventual race war for the organized skinhead and neo-nazi movement (the majority of the literature dealing with how to bring it about that I've seen relies primarily on lone wolf attacks or small cells, and only then switches into full-scale organization)

The idea, essentially, is that a few 'patriots' can bring about a state of awareness in the population that will then lead to the formation of active terror cells and full-scale revolt. Part of why a lot of the literature suggests such tactics in the early stages is because, without a command structure, it's a lot harder to find the 'revolutionaries' before they act. They strike targets to benefit the overall movement or ideology, but they select those targets themselves and plan the act without outside help (or with the help of small groups online in this day and age). The upside for everyone else of this leaderless resistance is that when they do strike, they don't normally do so in the most effective ways, and the chances of it actually bringing about a mass right-wing revolt as hoped are pretty damn low.

[Shroom Man 777]

The religion of peace strikes again.

Former military? That gives him something in common with another "patriotic" American terrorist, namely Timothy McVeigh. It's good to hear citizens, like that bar employee who reported this piece of shit, doing their duty in fighting terrorism in all its forms. I wonder if this particular terrorist will be thrown in Gitmo.

Herobama should do the right thing and focus the War of Terror on domestic enemies of the state. Sure, there are terrorizers abroad, but they're foreign and far away. Domestic terrorists are already here in America, and are thus much more dangerous!

[Ritterin Sophia]

Point taken; I thought ammonium nitrate was still relatively easy to get hold of. Still, it's not like it's hard to find the recipes for explosives made from chemicals that would provoke fewer awkward questions than a bunch of M80s, or even a few sacks of fertiliser for that matter.

It is easy to get a hold of, the problem is it's not a very stable compound and you stand a good chance of killing yourself before you kill anyone else. You don't have to be a genius to know that.

[Count Chocula]

I'd say "dumbass" pretty much describes this guy's MO. Fireworks? Really? I played with M-80s growing up (still do), and they're potent but aside from making really big flash bangs, or figuring a way to blow up a whole trunk full of them (not known if that was his plan) to make a kinda-sorta car bomb, this wacko's plan was going nowhere. He could have done some real damage by venting a few propane tanks into the mosque then tossing a flare. I'm just sayin'.

I'd still worry more about foreign or Islamic zealot terrorists in the US, myself. The Times Square bomber's truck was a far more dangerous device that thankfully fizzled. If I were Napolitano, I'd spend a lot more time looking for the guys who can make those types of devices than incompetent solitary nuts.

[Simon_Jester]

That depends on how many more solitary nuts we get in the next few years. Solitary nuttery seems to be getting more popular. That could just be me reacting to this coming on the heels of the Giffords assassination attempt, but it's something to bear in mind.

[Broomstick]

I'd say "dumbass" pretty much describes this guy's MO. Fireworks? Really? I played with M-80s growing up (still do), and they're potent but aside from making really big flash bangs, or figuring a way to blow up a whole trunk full of them (not known if that was his plan) to make a kinda-sorta car bomb, this wacko's plan was going nowhere.

I've been trying to find out more information about the exact fireworks sold. I do know that some states permit the purchase of fireworks that could, potentially, be used for mass killings. The term "class C" fireworks does not really tell you much.

As an example, Illinois allows only things like sparklers to be sold to the public. My state, Indiana, allows fountains, rockets, and "mortars" to be sold to the public - and the latter could potentially do serious damage. Not sure what the Michigan rules are anymore, as I haven't lived there for almost 30 years now, but I think they allow fountains but maybe not rockets and mortars.

As for ammonium nitrate - it's still easily purchased but purchases are tracked If you buy a bunch of it you'll likely get a visit from authorities. Fireworks are not tracked in that manner, which is probably why they were attractive to this guy.

[Ziggy Stardust]

I'm very glad the bartender took action in this case. In many parts of the U.S., a bartender might not take action against someone rambling about Muslims, either because they think the guy is right, or because they think he is just blabbing and not really going to do anything.

[Gil Hamilton]

I'd say "dumbass" pretty much describes this guy's MO. Fireworks? Really? I played with M-80s growing up (still do), and they're potent but aside from making really big flash bangs, or figuring a way to blow up a whole trunk full of them (not known if that was his plan) to make a kinda-sorta car bomb, this wacko's plan was going nowhere. He could have done some real damage by venting a few propane tanks into the mosque then tossing a flare. I'm just sayin'.

Depends on what he's trying to do. I'd agree this dumbass probably was mostly a danger to himself, rather than others, but some grades of firework can be pretty potent. Were I a bad guy, though, I'd mostly want them for their fuses, though I'd like to believe if I was committed enough to blowing something up, I would be willing to make my own fuses.

I'd still worry more about foreign or Islamic zealot terrorists in the US, myself. The Times Square bomber's truck was a far more dangerous device that thankfully fizzled. If I were Napolitano, I'd spend a lot more time looking for the guys who can make those types of devices than incompetent solitary nuts.

Actually, my understanding was that the Time Square Bomber's truck bomb was actually really poorly constructed, that they dude just threw a bunch of propane tanks and cans of gasoline in with a bag of fertilizer and a whole lot of fireworks (specifcally M-80s, the kind you say you played with growing up). It would have been pretty surprising if that set up managed to actually explode.

You have to explore all avenues. After all, if you made a list of the most fatal bombings within America, the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing was BY FAR the most deadly use of explosives. Had it not been for 9/11, it would have been the undisputed champion of terrorist attacks in the US. You'll note that Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols were both homegrown Americans and even both served in the US Army. The government would be extremely negligent in their duties if they weren't keeping a DAMN close eye on domestic terrorists.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Nitram, if he wasn't part of a cell he still meets the definition of a lone wolf. You can commit terror acts in support of a cause or an ideology without having a command structure. The rhetoric is probably the catalyst, no argument there, but lone wolf is a perfectly valid term for what we've been seeing in the last few months - the real problem will be when actual cells start to form.

It's my understanding though that some fringe groups have a policy of telling people to go cause havoc in a few months time, and then making a point of officially cutting ties with him so that they can clam he's a "lone wolf". There is speculation that's what happened with Timothy McVeigh and the Christian Identity movement. Extremists understand plausible deniability too.

So, it would be interesting to know if he had a past relationship with a radical group, even if he's a supposed "lone wolf" right now.

[SirNitram]

Nitram, if he wasn't part of a cell he still meets the definition of a lone wolf. You can commit terror acts in support of a cause or an ideology without having a command structure. The rhetoric is probably the catalyst, no argument there, but lone wolf is a perfectly valid term for what we've been seeing in the last few months - the real problem will be when actual cells start to form.

Did you read the whole sentence there? It's a mockery of the 'self contained looney' claim that comes out each time there's one of these(Except when it's a foreigner, apparently. The Underpants Bomber was never considered a lone wolf). It's not it's use as a technical term, it's how the majority of the media handles this stuff. Also, Lord of the Abyss makes a solid point.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

I'd say "dumbass" pretty much describes this guy's MO. Fireworks? Really? I played with M-80s growing up (still do), and they're potent but aside from making really big flash bangs, or figuring a way to blow up a whole trunk full of them (not known if that was his plan) to make a kinda-sorta car bomb, this wacko's plan was going nowhere. He could have done some real damage by venting a few propane tanks into the mosque then tossing a flare. I'm just sayin'.

I'd still worry more about foreign or Islamic zealot terrorists in the US, myself. The Times Square bomber's truck was a far more dangerous device that thankfully fizzled. If I were Napolitano, I'd spend a lot more time looking for the guys who can make those types of devices than incompetent solitary nuts.

The article does mention that he had a trunk-load of them, a Chevy Cobalt has fourteen cubic feet of trunk space, if that volume worth of M-80s went off at once I think you could leave the "kinda-sorta" off of "kinda-sorta car bomb." I know I wouldn't want to be on the same block as something like that.

[weemadando]

Wonderful. It rates a few lines (I won't call it a paragraph) in the Australian media.

As always, let us compare and contrast to what happens when people set their dicks on fire.

[Gil Hamilton]

The article does mention that he had a trunk-load of them, a Chevy Cobalt has fourteen cubic feet of trunk space, if that volume worth of M-80s went off at once I think you could leave the "kinda-sorta" off of "kinda-sorta car bomb." I know I wouldn't want to be on the same block as something like that.

Maybe, maybe not. The M80s themselves aren't going make a huge BOOM in and off themselves. I suspect that what might happen there is that you'll blow open the trunk without getting too much shrapnel. M80s are filled with flash powder, so they make a loud crack and produce a flash of light, but they aren't going to shatter much because they don't evolve alot of gas (I.E. produce an explosion), but instead tend to produce solid residue. You still don't want to hold one in your closed first and I'm sure the inside of the boot would be fucked up, but the cataclysm caused by a trunk full of M80s would be pretty limited by itself.

[Lord of the Abyss]

As always, let us compare and contrast to what happens when people set their dicks on fire.

Set their dicks on fire for Islam. For all the public posturing about terrorism, the amount of actual interest or outrage depends on who you are and who your targets are. A black Islamic guy frying his penis for Allah is a major danger to Western Civilization; a Californian trying to blow up some Islamic people is no big deal.

[ArmorPierce]

The religion of peace strikes again.

You realize it was a christian attempting to blow up a bunch of muslims, not the other way around, right?

[Chaotic Neutral]

The religion of peace strikes again.

You realize it was a christian attempting to blow up a bunch of muslims, not the other way around, right?

1. Shroom Man 777

2. Yes

[Phantasee]

Jesus Christ was the Prince of Peace, was he not?

[Samuel]

Jesus Christ was the Prince of Peace, was he not?

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of course you could argue that a prophecy for a different messiah, but that is where the reference comes from.

Out of curiousity, where can you compare the number of home grown terrorist attacks in the US versus the number of ones from Islam terrorists?

[Lord of the Abyss]

Out of curiousity, where can you compare the number of home grown terrorist attacks in the US versus the number of ones from Islam terrorists?

You'd have to definite "home grown terrorist attack"; a lot of attacks designed to spread terror get labeled "hate crimes" or just as ordinary crimes rather than as terrorist attacks. Look at all the violence and threats and vandalism by right wingers after the passage of health care reform; if that had been by a bunch of Muslims I'm sure it would have been referred to as a "wave of terrorism across the US".

[gizmojumpjet]

You realize it was a christian attempting to blow up a bunch of muslims, not the other way around, right?

Do me a kindness and explain why you claim he's a Christian who was trying to blow up Muslims when the fact is that he is a Muslim who was trying to kill other Muslims? Is it ignorance or dishonesty?