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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Texas officer saved lives in shooting outside Muhammad cartoon contest,
police say
A Texas traffic cop saved untold lives Sunday night when he took down two
heavily armed men bent on storming a building where a 'Draw the Prophet'
Muhammad contest was taking place, killing both before they could make their
way inside.
The police officer, who has not been identified by Garland Police Department
officials, "probably saved lives," said police spokesman Joe Harn, who
added that "his reaction, and his shooting with a pistol, he did a good job.
"
Harn said the two suspects, believed to have driven some 1,100 miles from
Phoenix to invade the contest at a suburban Dallas venue, shot assault
rifles outside, wounding a security guard and hitting at least one police
car. Local police, a SWAT team, FBI and ATF agents were on hand for the
event, attended by 75 people, which authorities anticipated could anger
Muslim hardliners. Authorities in Garland said the men -- wearing body armor
-- drove up to the Curtis Culwell Center on Sunday night and began shooting
at a security officer with assault rifles.
Two tweets apparently sent out prior to the shooting from two social media
accounts linked to radical Islam seemed to foreshadow the attack. One, sent
at 6:35 p.m., some 15 minutes before the attack, used the hashtag #
texasattack. “May Allah accept us as mujahideen,” it said.
"We think [the suspects'] strategy was to get to the event center [and] into
the event center," Harn said. "We were able to stop those men before they
were able to... shoot anyone else."
But it was the unidentified Garland police officer, who spends most of his
shift assigned to traffic duty, who killed both suspects, who were each dead
at the scene.
More on this...
2 gunmen dead after shooting at Muhammad art show
"[The officer] did what he was trained to do," Harn said.
Police were searching a Phoenix apartment complex Monday as part of the
investigation into the attack.
Police did not say whether the shooting was related to the event, a contest
hosted by the New York-based American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) that
would award $10,000 for the best cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
The suspects were identified as Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, a senior
federal law enforcement official told Fox News. The men were roommates.
Although the suspects' ties to a specific terrorist organization could not
be immediately confirmed, Simpson was known to U.S. intelligence and had
been part of a recent terror investigation for allegedly trying to travel to
Africa, home of the Al Qaeda-linked militant group al-Shabaab, sources told
Fox News.
Court documents show that a man named Elton Simpson was convicted in Phoenix
of lying to the FBI in January 2010, about whether he'd discussed traveling
to Somalia. According to trial testimony, Simpson is an American Muslim who
became the subject of a criminal investigation in 2006 because of his
association "with an individual whom the FBI believed was attempting to set
up a terrorist cell in Arizona."
Simpson was convicted, but a judge ruled that prosecutors hadn't proven the
false statement involved terrorism. Simpson was later sentenced to three
years of probation.
FBI agents have been at the Phoenix apartment complex -- some 1,100 miles
from the Garland, Texas, crime scene -- since late Sunday night and are
reviewing computer records from materials found at the residence. Police
tape continues to surround the area, KSAZ reports.
Agents had broken into a white minivan and spent hours looking at it, taking
pictures and removing items. They're also are examining and photographing
pages of a notebook or papers in the trunk of a second vehicle, a silver
sedan. The sedan is parked in a covered spot near the building where the
apartment is located.
Meanwhile, other FBI agents are knocking on the doors of other apartments to
interview residents as Phoenix Police Department bomb squad members wearing
protective armor and helmets continue to go in and out of the apartment
being searched.
Authorities also are investigating Twitter messages from overseas posted
prior to the event calling for violence. The tweets were posted by a 25-year
-old American jihadi with al-Shabaab, investigators told Fox News.
Authorities also said Monday they were worried that the suspects' car in
Garland could contain an incendiary device, but searches conducted on the
vehicle turned up nothing but luggage, Harn said.
The Garland Independent School District, which owns and operates the Culwell
Center, identified the wounded security officer as Bruce Joiner. The
district said in a statement that Joiner -- who was shot in the ankle -- was
treated and released from a local hospital.
The event featured speeches by Pamela Geller, president of the AFDI, and
Geert Wilders, a Dutch lawmaker known for his outspoken criticism of Islam.
Wilders received several standing ovations as he quoted former President
Ronald Reagan and Texas founding father Sam Houston.
"Muhammad fought and terrorized people with the swords. Today, here in
Garland, we fight Muhammad and his followers with the pen. And the pen, the
drawings, will prove mightier than the sword," Wilders said during his
speech.
Geller said during the event that her group had spent thousands of dollars
on private security guards, several of whom could be seen standing on stage.
Wilders left immediately after his speech, and Geller was not seen by an
Associated Press reporter inside the hall after the shooting.
After the shooting, the attendees were escorted by authorities to another
room in the conference center. A woman held up an American flag, and the
crowd sang "God Bless America."
They were then taken to a separate location, where they were held for about
two hours until they were questioned by FBI agents who took brief written
statements from most people. Police officers drove some attendees to their
homes and hotels, and arranged hotel rooms for others whose cars remained
under lockdown.
The FBI is providing investigative assistance and bomb technician assistance
, Dallas FBI spokeswoman Katherine Chaumont said.
Geller told the AP before Sunday's event that she planned the contest to
make a stand for free speech in response to outcries and violence over
drawings of Muhammad. Though it remained unclear several hours after the
shooting whether it was related to event, she said Sunday night that the
shooting showed how "needed our event really was."
In January, 12 people were killed by gunmen in an attack against the Paris
office of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which had lampooned Islam
and other religions and used depictions of Muhammad. Another deadly shooting
occurred the following month at a free speech event in Copenhagen featuring
an artist who had caricatured the prophet.
Geller's group is known for mounting a campaign against the building of an
Islamic center blocks from the World Trade Center site and for buying
advertising space in cities across the U.S. criticizing Islam.
When a Chicago-based nonprofit held a January fundraiser in Garland designed
to help Muslims combat negative depictions of their faith, Geller
spearheaded about 1,000 picketers at the event. One chanted: "Go back to
your own countries! We don't want you here!" Others held signs with messages
such as, "Insult those who behead others," an apparent reference to recent
beheadings by the militant group Islamic State. |
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