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| Cops Search Shootout Loon's Apartment |
| 2002-07-05 |
| Police looking for possible links to terrorism searched the apartment of an Egyptian who opened fire at Los Angeles' airport, killing two people at Israel's El Al ticket counter before being shot to death by a guard. Al Qaeda couldn't make it because they had to wash their hair on the 4th... The shootout came on the Fourth of July, when the possibility of terror attacks had put security on high alert around the country. The FBI, however, was withholding judgment on whether to label the attack as terrorism. "We've never said it's not terrorism," FBI spokesman Matt McLaughlin said. "We can't rule that out, but there's nothing to indicate terrorism at this point." McLaughlin also suggested it might be a hate crime. A hate crime that involves the deliberate assassination of random people at the El Al counter. And the difference between that and terrorism is...? The shooter was identified as Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, a 41-year-old limousine driver. He opened fire in Los Angeles International Airport and was shot dead by an El Al guard. Hadayet, who also went by the last name Ali, had California driver's licenses listing two different birth dates – April 7, 1961, and July 4, 1961 – according to the FBI. You could tell he was an Arab from the multiple IDs and the assumed name... Ticket agent Victoria Hen, 25, and Yaakov Aminov, 46, a jeweler and father of eight who was dropping off a friend, were fatally shot before two El Al guards overwhelmed Hadayet. The guards and a woman were wounded; another woman suffered heart problems. The FBI released the gunman's name late Thursday as police in suburban Irvine, 35 miles southeast of the airport, searched his apartment. Police Lt. Sam Allevato said they were looking for his wife and two sons. Neighbors said they went to Egypt for the summer. Convenient, wasn't it? Neighbors said Hadayet was quiet but became incensed when an upstairs neighbor hung large American and Marine Corps flags from a balcony above his front door after Sept. 11. The flags remained there Thursday night. That neighbor declined to talk to reporters, but another neighbor, Steve Thompson, said Hadayet "complained about it to the apartment manager. He thought it was being thrown in his face." How offenseive of those infidel neighbors: flying the national flag after a national tragedy perpetrated by Arabs, many of whom had false IDs and all of whom felt nothing but contempt for this country... Hadayet's car was found in a nearby parking structure, triggering an evacuation there until a bomb squad found nothing unusual in the black Mercedes. Guess that's something, anyway... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #3 Fred: Go take a look at my last couple days. One thing that keeps ringing thru' my head is the comment from the old instructor: "An isolated terrorist is a dangerous terrorist." Mary Lu |
| Posted by: Mary Wehmeier 2002-07-06 05:02:23 |
| #2 The LA Times Joe Mathews and Henry Weinstein ask in Saturday's edition, "When is crime a terrorist attack?" Ask anyone at LAX yesterday. It WAS TERRORISM. |
| Posted by: Mary Lu 2002-07-06 04:59:26 |
| #1 The difference between a hate crime and terrorism? Numbers. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2002-07-05 13:06:59 |