Plot to blow up Dearborn mosque foiled by tip to police

[Big Don]

[FONT=arial, helvetica][FONT=verdana,arial]January 31, 2011[/FONT]
[/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Plot to blow up Dearborn mosque foiled by tip to police[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Serif]Man arrested in Dearborn served time for threats against Bush
[/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
JENNIFER CHAMBERS AND FRANCIS X. DONNELLY
The Detroit News EXCERPT: Emphasis added. [/FONT] [/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Dearborn — A decorated Army veteran accused of plotting to blow up a Metro Detroit mosque served time in federal prison for threatening to kill President George W. Bush and bomb a Vermont veterans' clinic in 2002.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Roger Stockham, 63, who flew 600 combat helicopter missions in Vietnam, is behind bars in Michigan after he drove from his home in California last week and parked a car with a trunk full of explosives outside the Islamic Center of America, authorities said.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Acting on a tip, Dearborn police thwarted the alleged plot by arresting Stockham outside the sprawling religious center, one of the largest mosques in North America. At the time, 500 members were attending a funeral at the mosque.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Stockham had high-end fireworks outside the 70,000-square-foot mosque, which has a 150-foot dome height and 10-story-tall minarets, said Dearborn Mayor John B. O'Reilly Jr.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]"The kind that are illegal here and if used in a building would cause tremendous harm," O'Reilly said Sunday.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Stockham, who lives in Imperial Beach, Calif., is charged with one count of a false report or threat of terrorism and one count of explosives/possession of bombs with unlawful intent.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]He is being held on a $500,000 cash bond. He will be in court Friday for a hearing on the charges before 19th District Judge Mark Somers.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Police said Stockham was in possession of class C fireworks, a 15-year felony. The terrorism charge carries a 20-year felony.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]FBI special agent Sandra Berchtold confirmed Sunday the FBI is investigating the incident, which was referred to the federal agency by Dearborn police.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]According to federal records, Stockham pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to federal charges stemming from the case in Vermont in 2004. That included threatening the president, mailing threatening communications, threatening by use of the telephone to use explosives, and threatening witnesses.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]A psychiatric examination found that Stockham suffered from bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and personality disorder with anti-social features.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]In the Vermont incident, he told authorities at the time of his arrest at a Veterans Affairs Department complex in Colchester that his minivan was full of explosives. A search found no explosives.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Before the arrest, Stockham called a local paper twice to say he was going to explode bombs in the neighborhood. In one call, he identified himself as "Hem Ahadin," saying he was "a local Muslim terrorist on a roll."[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]He ranted against the VA, the FBI and Bush, largely because of the things the president had said about Iraq in a speech earlier in the week.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]According to affidavit filed in U.S. District Court, Stockham threatened to carry out "jihad," or holy war, against the VA office in White River, Vt.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica][SIZE=+2]Released in 2005[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]In May 2005, a federal order of conditional release was issued for Stockham. It said the warden of the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Miss., certified that Stockham had recovered from his mental disease and that his conditioned release under a regimen of treatments would not create a risk of bodily injury or harm to others.[/FONT]


[FONT=arial, helvetica]EXCERPT[/FONT]
[FONT=arial, helvetica]Yeah, another peaceful leftist.
[/FONT]

 

[Flea]

I'll admit to not reading the original article. But from your excerpt, I have no idea where you get that he is either a liberal or a conservative.

 

[Big Don]

I'll admit to not reading the original article. But from your excerpt, I have no idea where you get that he is either a liberal or a conservative.

[FONT=arial, helvetica]According to federal records, Stockham pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to federal charges stemming from the case in Vermont in 2004.[/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica].[/FONT]

Who was president in 2004, again?

[FONT=arial, helvetica] That included threatening the president, mailing threatening communications, threatening by use of the telephone to use explosives, and threatening witnesses[/FONT]

[FONT=arial, helvetica]He ranted against the VA, the FBI and Bush, largely because of the things the president had said about Iraq in a speech earlier in the week.[/FONT]

Not exactly the actions of a conservative...

 

[Flea]

So he hates government. Join the club. :uhyeah:

The article doesn't say anything about his political opinions. Threatening the president about what exactly? What was in those threatening emails? For all we know he threatened to kill Bush with a tanker of broccoli. He may have stated that he had planted bombs around the neighborhood (and, for the record, that's not okay) but it doesn't follow that his goals were political. In fact, the article doesn't state any goals to his behavior at all. Just rage. Sad, really.

 

[Big Don]

So he hates government. Join the club. :uhyeah:

The article doesn't say anything about his political opinions. Threatening the president about what exactly? What was in those threatening emails? For all we know he threatened to kill Bush with a tanker of broccoli. He may have stated that he had planted bombs around the neighborhood (and, for the record, that's not okay) but it doesn't follow that his goals were political. In fact, the article doesn't state any goals to his behavior at all. Just rage. Sad, really.

It was George Herbert Walker Bush (The 41st President) that didn't like broccoli. More for me.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I'll admit to not reading the original article. But from your excerpt, I have no idea where you get that he is either a liberal or a conservative.

I agree. In fact, my first thought was that he is an ultra-conservative, one of those who thought that GWB was way too soft on Islam after the 9/11 attacks, when he said nice things about Muslims in general and tried to create a distinction between Muslims and Islamic terrorists. I remember a lot of ultra-right-wing people who were furious with Bush for that. And blowing up an Islamic center would not strike me as the actions of a left-winger in general.

However, I suspect he's more a nutter than anything else. Like the Arizona shooter, I'm not sure his beliefs are of any particular persuasion. Check this out:

http://ceinquiry.us/2011-01-30-roger-stockham

 

[Bill Mattocks]

More...

http://coronado.patch.com/articles/...m-restraining-order-filed-by-local-vfw-member

Miller could not be reached for comment before this story was published but Donnie Pitts, a member of the local VFW for more than a decade, said the restraining order was due to Stockham harassing Miller for having an African-American boyfriend, post commander Michael Smith, who Stockham supposedly also threatened.

Very left-wing...

During the federal court trial, Stockham said he regularly communicates with extraterrestrials, and psychiatrists testified that he believed he was Christ.
In 1981, he escaped from a mental hospital, and turned himself in four months later.
In 1983, he was released from a state mental hospital after a prosecutor said he hadn’t done anything “crazy” in awhile, the paper's archives show.

Not much left or right wing here...

Over the years, he also threatened to kill Presidents Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush.

Maybe he was a right-winger when he threatened President Carter and later became a left-winger when he threatened President Bush?

Hey, who knows? Nuts is nuts.

I think applying a political agenda to this guy's motives is not going to work terribly well.

 

[granfire]

Not every crazy has a political agenda....

 

[crushing]

By 2004, many real conservatives were extremely disappointed in big government, big spending, international interventionist Bush.

 

[granfire]

By 2004, many real conservatives were extremely disappointed in big government, big spending, international interventionist Bush.

And yet, sometime bat poop crazy is just that: BAT POOP CRAZY...

Not always is there a grassy knoll to look at...

 

[Flea]

During the federal court trial, Stockham said he regularly communicates with extraterrestrials, and psychiatrists testified that he believed he was Christ.

Yup. When you're that sorely misinformed, a lot of decisions will seem rational that would leave most people wondering, or terrified. Unless his little green friends are Democrats, I'd chalk this up as apolitical.

 

[WC_lun]

Be really careful about trying to score political points off of people who are insane. It tends to backfire. I find it amusing that someone who decried the media and some left wing people for trying to score political points on the Arizona shooting now tries to do the same thing

 

[Blade96]

don it looks to me like your looking for something to use to attack left winger with....kind of like a fisherperson throwing out the line anywhere in the lake and hoping for a bite......

 

[elder999]

..kind of like a fisherperson throwing out the line anywhere in the lake and hoping for a bite......

You left out the part about dragging it along in the water behind the boat, but you've got the right idea.......

 

[Blade96]

You left out the part about dragging it along in the water behind the boat, but you've got the right idea.......

D'oh.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Who was president in 2004, again? Not exactly the actions of a conservative...

Perhaps you are unaware that George Bush was a little too centrist for most of the conservatives taste; so, he was as much a target for rightist loonies as leftist. Nice try though.
Sean

 

[crushing]

Perhaps you are unaware that George Bush was a little too centrist for most of the conservatives taste; so, he was as much a target for rightist loonies as leftist. Nice try though.
Sean

Bat poop crazy and grassy knoll!

Well, that's kind of the response I got when I said pretty much the same thing. :lol: