Media dropped the ball on this one
 

I'm really disappointed in the local government and news agencies for trying to cover this one up. You would think in a post VT world, people would be more concerned with having a nut running around with an automatic rifle than Britney Spears walking in a bathroom barefoot. I heard about this incident a week after the arrest from a friend, even though I myself read the Detroit news sites daily, and after several different google searches the only hits I get are from anti-terror sites. From what I heard (rumor of course, this is being covered up due to the close proximity of Sep 11) is that crazy wanted to bring his AK-47 to campus. According to my buddy who still goes to Wayne State the majority of the student body is oblivious to this incident.

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/ne...mpus-jihadist/

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/h...in-dearborn-mi

While local media outlets may have dropped the ball by not uncovering this story (and local law enforcement or someone else would have had to tell them about it), I don't think that it's necessarily a "cover up."

Why do you use that term?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296865,00.html

From 9/14/07

Google News search brings up other articles from the 13th (the day your links were posted) through the present ranging on the fact that the judge ordered an examination and his motivations for his actions.

How precisely is that a cover up? I really wouldn't trust a student's awareness on a lot of things. I tried to keep informed in college but I wasn't always successful, particularly on more local issues, as this was. (Is the Wayne University medical school on the same campus as the rest of the University?)

It appears that the sites you posted found it in their best interest to claim that no other sites were covering this issue.

Plus those sites are very... whats the word... fear-centric. This guy claims to be part of Hezbollah so they jump to the possible conclusion that Hezbollah ordered the attack instead of the same thing that happened previously with other "would be terrorists." They find a name, a group, that they like, but the group doesn't know who the hell they are.

Holy shit Rick I never heard that story! This is something that all the colleges around the area should have known about.

eta: that second link isn't working for me.

The Med school is across the street from the main campus. And for the "fear-centric" links I posted, well thats exactly my point. Where was channel 7 ACTION news or the Detroit Free Press??

I don't know about either specific news outlet, but you'd have to look at the police blotter to find out what the local journalists knew... perhaps it wasn't nearly as interesting on paper. BUT there were several real news outlets with the story on the 13th. Just because you didn't hear about it then, doesn't mean it's covered up.

Your links are biased sources of information... telling people that the information isn't out there, and that there's a "cover up" only serves their purposes

So, once again, it's possible some local news agencies missed a story, but how does that make it a "cover up?"

It happens A LOT in this area, especially when it has something to do with universities. Take a look at the rape/murder that happened at Eastern Michigan. Why didn't the campus know this was going on? The news actually uncovered it and it was the first time for many of the students to hear it. Campus was trying to cover up. There have apparently also been rapes on my alma mater's campus, but they don't report them because they don't want to create a fear. I was pretty upset when I didn't hear about that one.

I also think this is an important topic that the news and other sources should have let out because of the area that we live in. There are terrorists everywhere but to know that you could be sitting next to one in your next class is scary. If this were my school, I'd be pissed if they didn't inform the students. We already knew that we were among possible terrorists in our classes. But in this area, especially Dearborn where my school is and it's 99% Middle Eastern (I made up that percentage, but it's probably close), these types of things should be let out, and I have a feeling that it was covered up. News resources would have been all over this.

I'm certainly not in the know when it comes to the media in your area, but perhaps it was not covered for fear of accusations of (unjustified) racial profiling, and not because it was a "cover up". Just because an area has a high percentage of Middle Easterners doesn't mean it therefore has a high percentage of terrorists.

The way I read PIKA's first post, he was saying that the institution and the media were somehow covering this up.

There's a difference between the two.

I can understand a university trying to hush something up, but this is the kind of stuff that media jump all over.

I can't imagine Channel 7 (WXYZ-TV), any of the other stations or The Free Press knowing about this and not reporting it.

There's just no sense to that.

Since 2001, they've busted plenty of sleeper cells or whatever they're called. There are known terrorists at UMD who are members of the Muslim Student Association. And they've found a lot of suspicious happenings that deal with money. That's not a profiling... it's true and fact and if I had the time to look up all the stories online I would.

They would definitely uncover the story if they knew about it. I'm just curious how they didn't find out about this because all of the Detroit media investigative teams are amazing.

Cite?

I wasn't saying it necessarily WAS profiling; I was simply offering a reason as to why it might not have been covered. It sounds like I was wrong (although, as KSigRC said, a cite would be nice).

That's it. This incident took place right before Sep 11, The Mayor of Dearborn didn't want people rushing to conclusions about the intent of the guy being terrorist related.
I know there's not, thats kind of why I posted this. Here was a student running around with an AK-47, all paramilitary, planning to do God knows what. I just don't think it's right for them to brush this one under the rug, thats all.
Yes, it would be nice to see what would come up. I only know of one al-qaida related cell, 8-12 people that were busted here in Detroit ( I think) in '02. Now for the shady dealings part, you may find more. Hezbollah is kind of a big deal in Detroit.

You're assuming the mayor knew and the campus didn't keep it quiet. (Again, despite the fact the news stations had the story the same time as your "it was a conspiracy!" sites.)

Universities DO try to keep this stuff quiet all the time. Now as for the media or the city? Yeah right. If it had shown up on the police blotter, it would have been in the paper ASAP. If the University police handled it, it may not have been on that blotter.

The Free Press has run at least 3 articles about this incident.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...05/1007/NEWS05

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...709220319/1001

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...EWS02/70921018

I know that these articles were published, but why was this story floating around on the internet and blogs for well over a week before freep makes mention? Thanks for missing the point. :)

ETA: Did you read the comments on the first and third links? Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks this way, and I swear I didn't write any of those.

I'm not exactly sure what your trying to say here, but the "conspiracy" site I linked to posted the story on the 13th, which got the story from some Lansing TV news station. The earliest article I've seen from the Detroit news was posted a week after that, the 19th. And as for the mayor knowing, well he did know. The article mentioned that the mayor had asked that all questions involving the case be sent directly to his office rather than to the local police.

So, it wasn't covered up, the Detroit paper didn't pick it up very quickly. Since the other news sites had the information out it was public by that time. Who knows why the Detroit paper made the call it did, but assuming it was related to September 11th is like 5 steps too far down the logic train.

"O’Reilly said although the man had recently visited Lebanon, he was cautious to indicate there was a larger terrorism issue brewing so close to the Sept. 11 anniversary.
“I really wanted not to let it become more of a bigger issue to be played out,” O’Reilly said. “The real story will come out when he is bound over.”"

It kind of sounds like the mayor really didn't want this story out because of the Sep 11 anniversary. Do you disagree? What do you make from that statement?

I make that he wasn't willing to speculate on whether it was a large scale terrorism plan since he a) didn't know and b) it would scare people unnecessarily since he was speculating. He didn't yell "TERRORIST" to the world. That's different than keeping it a secret.

Also, the reporter said 9/11, not the mayor. There's no indication that 9/11 was truly the mayor's motivation.

I think the mayor of Dearborn worries a lot about the reputation of his city. They've been cited as having the highest middle eastern population outside of the middle east numerous times and with the whole La Shish owner situation, he does feel a need to do some damage control although I don't know if I'd call it a coverup. I wasn't sure if there earlier articles or not because I only did a search for "recent news" and I didn't search any of the local tv station web sites either.

I am surprised that this wasn't bigger news around here.

Maybe that's the one I'm thinking of, but I remember hearing about more. Not to mention people have been getting busted for sending money to support terrorism.

And La Shish? Why do people continue to go to that restaurant? I understand that people really like their food, but where is your money going?

It's a problem of size and resources.

I worked in Detroit TV for five years before moving out here.

The size of the metro area, the number of smaller cities and the number of people in the region make finding stories like this more luck than skill, unless some assignment editor happens to hear a police call on a scanner or lucks into the information on a phone call. Again, because of the number of agencies, it would be more than a full time job to be in touch once a day.

I've never been a patron of La Shish, or La Terrorist as my friends and I call it. I really am surprised that the chain is still open and that there's still people that want to go there after getting busted like that.

Cuz they get what they want. The Muslim Student Association wanted footbaths put in the bathrooms and BOOM they get what they want. I wouldn't want MY tuition money going towards one set religion, especially since there has been "activity" in that club.

Whatever was the outcome of that? I've heard conflicting stories on where the money came from, " The footbaths were paid for from the omnibus fees, which every student pays"; "the footbaths were paid for by the state, etc...."

I've also wondered how it stayed open. If you deal drugs out of your home or business, everything that you may have bought with the drug money is confiscated. But, apparently you can fund terrororism from your business, leave the country, and others can keep running your business. I presume their books are being audited very carefully?

From what I've heard, it came out of the university's budget. And they most definitely got put in.

The most absurd excuse I heard about them was "Everyone can use them. Some people's feet get dirty when they're wearing sandals to class and they can now wash their feet". Bullshit. It's kinda like saying "Anyone can join the Muslim Student Association" but everytime I had walked by one of their meetings, they were speaking Arab. That'd make it a little hard for non-Arabs to join, wouldn't it?

I've heard that most of the money they bring in now is going straight to the IRS to pay off back taxes, and the wife is crying that she didn't know about her husbands dealings and her restaurant shouldn't be closed because of him. But yeah, with all of the fake immigration docs they were passing out, loan sharking, bribing, drug running, it is odd the chain is still operating.