Friday, July 28, 2006

One Dead, At Least 5 Shot At Seattle Jewish Center

Amy Wasser-Simpson, vice president for planning and community services at the Jewish Federation told The Seattle Times the man then got through security at the building and told staff members: "I'm Muslim-American. I'm angry at Israel," then began shooting.
"Police say they believe the gunman was acting alone and not part of any larger organization."

Now why do I believe that the police spokesman's mouth is way ahead of the investigation?

Article via Gateway Pundit which has a good roundup.

Might this pro-Israel rally have been just too much for Seattle's erstwhile jihadi? Just look at all those women and children - the brave jihadi's target of choice. How could he resist?

19 comments:

Rick Ballard said...

I wonder what his imam down at his mosque was preaching on today? The fact that the Jewish community has the highest rate of charitable giving of any identifiable group in the US?

Possibly not, although it's true. It would be good to know if CAIR lawyers were passing out cards after the service. Just in case someone might find themselves in need of legal representation. Purely a precautionary move.

ambisinistral said...

They've kept the lid on this type of crap so far -- the LAX Airport shootings, the kid who blundered and blew himself up in the parking lot at the college, the Coptic family that was murdered -- but they won't be able to keep the lid on this one.

All women, and one of them pregnant. Americans going to be furious over this.

gumshoe said...

ambisinistral -

you didn't mention
the Beltway Snipers.

chuck said...

the Coptic family that was murdered

IIRC, they were done in by a couple of drug dealers on probation, one of whom lived upstair. Here's the story in the Daily News. Sounds more like In Cold Blood than jihad. Hmmm, I wonder what's going on with this case?

Anyway, not every killing is perpetrated by Jihadists. Let's keep the score card honest.

Rick Ballard said...

I think that "I'm Muslim-American. I'm angry at Israel" might tilt the field a bit on this one though.

gumshoe said...

yeah,Chuck,you're right.

ambi forgot the SUV driver
with bad aim in North Carolina.

Anonymous said...

I've heard it mentioned on local TV (KOMO, KING5) that the FBI issued some sort of warning a few days ago. One reporter was saying that the police would not comment.

So right now we don't know whether or not this is true and if so whether it was a warning specific to Seattle, or was of a more general and perhaps national nature in light of events. Much we don't yet know.

And it would seem that a terrorist who was a disciplined member of some local cell wouldn't pull something like that.

As opposed to an undisciplined type...

Rick Ballard said...

Dunno, Skook - remember he's an American and it's a real no-no to listen in on any calls he makes to Pakistan where his family lives. Possibly in a hut next to Zawahiri.

What's the downside on what he's done? Getting someone executed in Washington is next to impossible. There's a kid killer who's been sitting on death row since '91 and the last execution was in '01.

I believe you'll be seeing that Ibn Ahog fellow from CAIR on TV quite a bit.

Anonymous said...

ambisinistral:

Time to nip this bud.

Although this will prove tough to do in Seattle proper, which has values similar to San Francisco.

Easier to do in the rest of the state.

Anonymous said...

Rick:

It is really two states. Seattle, which is geographically constrained and isn't growing much, with a strong liberal preservationist mentality, and the rest of the state, which is booming. A much different place in every way.

Rick Ballard said...

I know, Skook. I'm moving to the other one. There is no Blue Castle in my future home purchase plans. I may even start a movement to ban ferries going to Seattle. There's a bridge accross the Skookumchuk down on 101 that looks pretty rickety. With the Seattle ferries stopped and the bridge closed the peninsula should be fairly safe.

ambisinistral said...

Seattle or not, as I said Americans going to be furious over this.

On a hunch I went over to Democratic Underground and found this thread. They're horrified by the crime with a few floundering around looking for a party line.

cf said...

My husband has an office there and I finally agreed to go there with him last year. Biggest bunch of dimwits I've ever seen. I told him that was my last trip there.
Interesting Rick mentioned the ferries. I recall the city ordered HSA to stop security work on them after very suspicious activity was noticed.

It's an easy target if the jihadis choose it.

Anonymous said...

Rick:

Seattle tried for the brass ring in the 1980 - 1995 or so timeframe. Pacific Rim trade, Boeing, Microsoft, and all that. But aside from two sports complexes and a few post-Modern architectural excrescences that are even now starting to show their age, there is remarkably little progress.

It is also profoundly static. I have the feeling when I go to places like Fremont or the University District that I am in some sort of time warp - kind of like being in an Amish farming district. If I were to come back in 50 years, they would still be knitting Rastafarian caps and the scent of patchouli would hang in the air. Naturally the political party of stasis has a natural lock on the place.

There may be a weepy little editorial pleading for understanding in tomorrow's paper.

So you are better off. The Olympic Peninsula especially around Sequim is pretty rational and not too rainy. And on the other side of the Cascades, you are suddenly in the Intermountain West. Both nices places to live.

ambisinistral:

Yes, they will be furious. And they will be furious in Washington State too, just not so much within certain neighborhoods with the highest per capita decaf mochacchino consumption.

stephen_M;

You're right. No, you don't have to belong to a cell at all to earn the name. I was merely saying he was an undisciplined terrorist who walks in to an office and starts banging away as opposed to say, one who schemes and finally brings down a couple of freeway bridges with a few well-timed explosions. But a terrorist, yes.

Anonymous said...

Rick:

The only Skookumchuk River (Strong Water in Coast Salish) that I know is in the Cascades and runs east to west, crossing over I-5 near Centralia, WA.

It is a fairly common place name throughout the coastal Northwest, and can be spelled two ways. My nic is the older style, fading from the signs here in the US, but still common up in Canuckia. The newer, largely US spelling is "Skookumchuck". They are slowly changing the signs over the river to the new style. Too late to change my nic, though.

chuck said...

Skookumchuck

Gotta love the silent c.

Anonymous said...

Background on the guy here.

Anonymous said...

Some local perspective at Sunbreak City here and here.

Anonymous said...

Good commentary on the state of denial in the editorials of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer at NRO.

As I posted up above, at one time Seattle had ambitions of being a "world-class" city belonging to the Pacific Rim. It was to be a cosmopolitan place as attached to Shanghai as to Chicago, one of the new city-states like Singapore that would run the new globalized world at the end of history.

Unsaid was that part of the aim was to distance themselves culturally from the hicks in eastern Washington and, it also goes without saying, those in the Midwest and South. It didn't work out that way. But there is still this sense of national disengagement among the Democrat core, summed up in the idea of Cascadia - a set of closer bureaucratic ties and planning efforts with Portland and Vancouver. By the unelected elect. Hmm. Where have we heard of such schemes before? You don't hear about Cascadia as much today, but the self-imposed emotional and cultural isolation - a la San Francisco - remains. Jim McDermott is a good example of this, as are various other local politicans.

But only in Seattle and a few other blue dots on the state map. Elsewhere, it is very much America. A heavy military presence in Western Washington - the Navy in Everett, in Bremerton and Bangor, the Air Force at McChord, the Army at Ft. Lewis. And outside Seattle it is growing tremendously. Families, schools and churches. More like the new cities in the inland West. So all the demographics should be trending the right way.