Someone threw an Improvised Explosive Device through a window in Bloomington yesterday. Police are baffled.
Neither the FBI nor the Bloomington Police Department, which initially responded to the explosion, speculated on a motive for the incident.
“At this point, our focus is to determine who and why,” Potts said at a news conference. “Is it a hate crime? Is it an act of terror? … Again, that’s what the investigation is going to determine.”
We know a few things already.
A Bloomington mosque was attacked with an explosive device Saturday as people were preparing for morning prayers, investigators and witnesses said.
A bomb was thrown into a religious building before the start of their services, but it might not have been an act of terror. OK. It might not have been intended to intimidate or discourage practitioners of a certain religion that has mobs of haters who blame them for their problems.
OK.
I’ll wait patiently while the cops try to figure it out. At least they aren’t responding by shooting people, which is a step forward.
Didn’t you know that white Christians (I’m assuming, here) can’t be terrorists by definition? (/s)
How much you want to bet they decide this was a lone wolf/vigilante with likely mental health issues, and the T word is never mentioned again?
Well I would wait patiently. It seems likely that this was a bias crime and properly classified as terrorism, but we don’t know that. It could have been a personal dispute or some other motive. Let’s see how people react if and when they solve it. We had an incident here in Connecticut a while back where a guy shot up a mosque (didn’t hit any people, fortunately) and I think the public and media response was largely appropriate. BTW the congregation reached out to the guy, he got to know them, and he is now very regretful. After he did his time he made a public statement of contrition.
This sounds to me like the police being traditionally cagey, as they are with many other crimes: “We can’t say for certain it was this or that,” when they’ve just begun gathering evidence and correlating witness statements. But that just raises the question of why in other cases the police — I suppose, to be fair, I should say other police — are so keen to use the T-word.
Forgive me for being an asshole about this, but, it really is entirely possible that this is a false-flag thing. I hate to say it, but it really is possible. It would not be the first.
The police may be hedging, but your governor certainly isn’t. Gov. Dayton has already called this an act of terrorism, a hate crime, and termed it a “terrible, dastardly, cowardly act”. So at least someone in authority in Minnesota is willing to stand up and say what ought to be said. Now he just needs to get the police to do what needs to be done and catch the hateful, bigoted troglodytes who did this.
@4, handsomemrtoad
Anything is possible. What matters is: what is probable?
I don’t see any reason to think that is very probable.
Since the idea of false flags against oppressed groups has come up here, I’d like to take this opportunity to plug my analysis of Zootopia, which put such a scenario into a kids movie.
Only half the major news sites even had anything on it. Only one of them used the word “terrorism,” and that only because they quoted the governor.
Imagine if a person of Arab descent threw a bomb into a Christian church. Same headlines? Of course not.
Woops, that link isn’t quite right. Here’s the correct link:
http://brianpansky.wikia.com/wiki/My_Analysis_of_Zootopia
I’m going to go ahead and say it.
This was terrorism.
(Cross-posted from the current Political Madness All the Time thread here at poopyhead’s.)
A somewhat bland Al Jazeera article on the response to the Minnesota mosque bombing, but it does make the good point (citing Mother Jones) that hair furor has said nothing, Double standard decried as Minnesota mosque bombed:
Police reticence here doesn’t strike me as a step forward. It’s standard operating procedure when the suspects are white and christian. Nothing has changed.
IED stands for Islamic Explosive Device
I just realized from the photos that the building in question that got bombed used to be known as Minneapolis Lutheran High School. I graduated from there. The imam’s office was once the principal’s office.
Given how some would feel about that place becoming a mosque, I really hope the bomber doesn’t turn out to be someone I used to know…
Of course it is domestic terrorism. Every hate crime is a form of terrorism. The distinction is only a matter of degree.