Friday, July 29, 2011

Guns and Kiddie Porn Figure in Recent Gun-Related Arrest

Thank goodness the staff of the store where the purchases were made wised up, after the last Fort Hood shooter (alleged) did his shopping there too.  I usually find that the local media tends to provide the best coverage of these stories.

from the Austin Texas Statesman:



By Jeremy Schwartz, Tony Plohetski and Miguel Liscano Updated: 6:33 a.m. Friday, July 29, 2011
Published: 10:08 p.m. Thursday, July 28, 2011


— An AWOL soldier fleeing child pornography charges was planning a potentially deadly attack on Fort Hood soldiers before he was arrested, investigators and officials said Thursday.
Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo, who was most recently posted at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, was expected to face federal explosives charges after Killeen police found explosive materials and other weapons inside his room at a budget motel just blocks from Fort Hood, according to federal and local authorities.
Abdo planned to detonate bombs at a popular downtown Killeen restaurant and then shoot survivors, according to law enforcement documents first reported by ABC News and confirmed by a military official with knowledge of the investigation.
Abdo was arrested Wednesday on the pornography charge and for being AWOL after a tip from a suspicious clerk at the Guns Galore firearms shop. The clerk alerted police after Abdo on Tuesday bought six one-pound containers of smokeless gunpowder, three boxes of 12-gauge shotgun shells and a spare magazine for a semi-automatic handgun.
"His questions suggested he really didn't know what he was buying," said clerk Greg Ebert, a former police officer.
Guns Galore is the same store where Maj. Nidal Hasan purchased the gun, ammunition and laser sights that witnesses testified he used during the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting massacre at Fort Hood that left 13 dead.
After Abdo paid in cash and left in a taxi, Ebert said he called Killeen police and gave them a description of Abdo, who did not need to provide identification for the items he bought.
Officials said Abdo planned to use the items to kill military personnel. An article on "how to make a bomb in your kitchen" from the English-language al Qaeda magazine Inspire was among the items found in Abdo's motel room, a law enforcement official told The New York Times.
"I would classify it as a terror plot," Killeen Police Chief Dennis Baldwin said. "We would probably be here today giving you a different briefing if he had not been stopped."

Local and federal authorities said Abdo was acting alone. "The threat that he posed is now resolved," FBI spokesman Eric Vasys said. "We don't have any indication that there is any continued threat to the community."

Abdo, whose hometown is Garland in North Texas, joined the Army in 2009 and soon began a high profile fight with Army officials at Fort Campbell for conscientious objector status based on his Muslim faith. Abdo, an infantryman in the 101st Airborne Division, gave numerous interviews and set up a website to publicize his battle. In August 2010, Abdo told ABC News that "no Muslim should serve in the U.S. military" and refused to deploy to Afghanistan, saying, "A Muslim is not allowed to participate in an Islamicly unjust war." He told CNN that his faith prevented him from taking up arms. "I don't believe that Islam allows me to operate in any kind of warfare at all," he said.
According to a biography on a "Free Nasser Abdo" Facebook page, Abdo's father is Muslim and his mother Christian, and he wasn't particularly religious during his childhood.
"In his late teens, PFC Abdo reclaimed his Muslim faith and began to practice his faith as a Muslim," the biography reads. "As someone who was fairly new to practicing the Islamic faith, he struggled to navigate the moral issues of living in a largely non-Muslim society."
In his application for conscientious objector status, Abdo wrote that he worried "military orders given to me may cause me to lead a life that my god would be unhappy with."
The Army initially rejected his petition, but a subsequent panel granted his request in May. But shortly before he was scheduled to be discharged, Army officials brought child pornography charges against him, saying that 34 illegal images had been found on his government computer. At the time, Abdo told The Associated Press that he believed he was being targeted because of his conscientious objector status and said he used the computer to learn Pashto, a language spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan. His attorney, James Branum, told the AP that other people had access to the computer after Abdo turned it in to the military.
Abdo underwent an Article 32 pre-trial hearing, after which an investigating officer recommended a general court-martial. But before the trial began, Abdo left Fort Campbell without permission and was listed July 4 as AWOL.
Elected officials were quick Thursday to praise the work of local law enforcement and Guns Galore in helping avoid another episode of bloodshed in an area still healing from the 2009 shooting massacre at a medical processing center that left 13 people dead. Hasan's court-martial, in which he will face the death penalty, is scheduled to begin in March.
U.S. Rep. John Carter said quick action by Guns Galore employees this time "may well have averted a repeat of the tragic 2009 radical Islamic terror attack on our nation's largest military installation."
It wasn't the first time the gun shop had helped stymie crime since Hasan purchased his weaponry there. In December, information from Guns Galore employees helped federal agents bust a gunrunning ring in which straw purchasers sold assault-style firearms to Mexican drug cartels.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, also lauded the arrest. "Yesterday's incident is yet another reminder that we must stay vigilant against those who wish to attack innocent Americans," Cornyn said in a statement.
Baldwin, the Killeen police chief, said the arrest probably averted another traumatic moment for Killeen, which also suffered through a mass shooting at a Luby's restaurant in 1991 that left more than 20 dead.
Abdo "is a very dangerous individual, and he is where he needs to be," Baldwin said.
jschwartz@statesman.com;

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

11 comments:

  1. This is an odd story. I've been reading snippets of it since it broke the other day. The soldier applied as a continuous objector? I thought that was something for the days of the draft. Why would you need that in an all volunteer military?

    Then why would a c.o. who didn't want to kill the enemy now suddenly want to kill Americans?

    Now he is wanted for kiddie porn.

    This whole story has just been bizarre.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kiddie porn and guns? Sounds like David Wu's house.


    Oh. I forgot. Wu is anti-gun.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Red Az, David Wu isn't accused of kiddie porn, or so far as I am aware, of any activity involving porn at all.

    Unless you are referring to him looking silly fully clothed in a tiger costume? Hardly porn, not even remotely sexually explicit.

    I disapprove of Wu's conduct making unwelcomed sexual advances to an 18 year old, but an 18 year old is not a child.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That is a wild story. But one part of it caught my attention. Whenever we hear AWOL we think very negative things, but I like to remind myself it's sometimes heroic. Joining the military at a very young age can often turn out to have been a mistake. Waking up to the fact and "quitting" is a good thing especially when the country is involved in immoral wars.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I don't know about shocked, but you are certainly ignorant.

    Mohammed was NOT a pedophile; that is more rightwing revisionist history promoted by the bigots and racists who need to demonize another religion to make themselves feel good.

    Perhaps, as I did for Mr. G over on Pengima, I should outline for you the instances of institutionalized pedophilia in Christianity and Judaism for you?

    You clearly do not know your western history, or your middle eastern history, distant OR fairly recent. I'd be happy to cite the historic examples, the canon law, the civil law that made it legal, if you like. Or the news items about the history of it in Judaism, and the problems in places like Israel with eradicating it NOW.

    Part of the fun of writing here is the chance to educate people like you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sorry Dog Gone, but I removed that vile and stupid comment that you responded to. I just had a moment of anger at that idiot. Sorry it makes your comment look a little funny, but still you make good points.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I wouldn't have posted it at all if I didn't have the information at my finger tips to prove the commenter was wrong in his claims.

    It really irritates me how many of these right wing myths get traction with them.

    ReplyDelete
  8. It's all in the Koran.....

    You slack jaws are all a bunch of cowards.....

    ReplyDelete
  9. I can tell from your comments, 'keep apologizing', that you have no first hand knowledge of the Koran, or of Islam, or of Christianity and Judaism texts. I also rather doubt you've met many individuals personally who are Moslem, either in this country or in the countries which are traditionally Muslim.

    In other words, you betray yourself to be an ignorant bigot, one who spews second hand, predigested opinions instead of fact checking such vile crap before you espouse it.

    As to cowards.......based on what?

    I have no doubt from your comments that I am a more adventurous and gutsy person than you would ever consider being.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Meanwhile, women defend themselvesAugust 3, 2011 at 9:56 PM

    Even a 127 IQ can grasp self defense....

    A 63-year-old widow shot and killed an intruder who was wearing only boxer shorts when he accosted her in her 16th Street home early Monday, police said.

    Maloney was in her kitchen when the intruder came in through her unlocked back door. Maloney repeatedly told the man to get out of her house, but he continued to walk toward her. As the intruder followed her through the house, she grabbed the gun out of a kitchen drawer.

    Phyllis Maloney has been undergoing treatment for cancer. The chemotherapy left her weak and frail....


    But hey what the hell she should have let him do what he wanted because, it's ok since there were no witnesses he could never have been intending rape.....

    http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20110801/NEWS010703/110801006/Newport-woman-shoots-intruder

    ReplyDelete
  11. Even a 127 IQ can grasp self defense....

    ROFL! You're very funny, just not for any of the reasons you would like.

    For openers, you have a problem with understanding the greater than (>) symbol, and you're terribly hung up on that incorrect number 127, relating back to my mentioning that my IQ is higher than MORE than 95% of the population. Which means there is a statistical > probability that I am smarter than you are, not the other way round. Clearly, I reason better, and read for comprehension better, than you do.

    Let me clarify it for you; I have a 153 IQ, which puts me well into the top 1% of the population, worldwide . There are a LOT of other people in that top 1%, just not most people, and apparently also not YOU.

    http://hem.bredband.net/b153434/Index.htm

    There is no indication the man was intending rape, or was in any condition to even attempt rape. (Did you READ the content of the link YOU included?)

    "Risheberger did not say anything to Maloney, and it was unclear what his intentions may have been, Collins said."
    and
    "Risheberger had been attending a party near Maloney’s home, Collins said, and authorities were investigating whether Risheberger may have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol. It will take several weeks before blood-test results will be ready."

    It is not clear this guy even knew where he was, much less what he was doing at the time.

    Beyond that, I have no problem with this woman shooting the intruder. She appears to have grasped very well the duty to retreat, among other facets of this. I have to wonder about the security of keepng a loaded handgun in a kitchen drawer however. While helpful in this case, it seems like poor security; the argument comes to mind..... wouldn't it have been better simply to lock her doors instead, and kept this guy on the outside of it?

    Nor does this fit into the current "guns and kiddie porn" discussion, or anything else I have said/written anywhere.

    ReplyDelete