The bomb ensured that if the plan failed (as it did) the only witness would be dead (as he is). If the plan had worked, he probably would have killed the guy anyway.
For the purpose of a bank robbery, a fake bomb is much, much better than a real one. Think about it - the only point at which there would ever be a difference is when it goes off, and then you’re dead. Putting a real bomb around your neck makes absolutely no sense unless you’re suicidal or insane.
How about this scenario:
In the middle east, there is no shortage of people willing to die for the cause. In Iraq, a few hundred dollars will convince someone to risk their lives to kill some Americans.
In israel, there are hundreds or thousands of Palestinians willing to blow themselves up.
Now, like it or not, the suicide bomber is very effective. If you’re a rich country with a big military, you can afford to build smart bombs. If you’re a terrorist, suicide bombers are smarter and just as deadly. They’re the great equalizer.
But how do you get suicide bombers in the United States? You can’t pay people enough money, and you don’t have enough of your own people in the country that you can afford to lose them.
So, you make a collar. Put it on someone, and you can compel them to do all sorts of things. Perhaps not outright suicide, but things like drive a truck through a gate and then run away. Or lure police into an ambush. Or kill someone else.
So how do you kick off your new program? Well, this seems like a pretty good way, if you think of it as a test. The test isn’t just the bomb - it’s the method for collecting victims and seeing if they can be compelled to do what you want. And, in the end, blowing one up very visibly on TV sends the message to everyone that this is deadly serious and is a demonstration of what will happen to others if they don’t go along with the plan.
Sam, THIS IS thought provoking! I have to say that this is one post that actually engaged my brain into real cognitive thought.
Touche’
You might just have a theory here which may eventually prove true. It certainly helps with a motive for this strange event. Before your post I was just numbed by the shear amount harping twitter, trying to assign blame and playing connect the dots.
Think of it like this. We have been burned by the terrorism “air war” on 9/11 and are now on the look out for ANYONE who may look somewhat middle eastern. The JTTF and Homeland security forces are looking at grand attack schemes which require tremendous planning and perfect execution in order to succeed. Terrorist with limited resources have to consider other alternatives.
We must remember that the immediate goal of terrorism is to paralyze your opponent with fear and have them expend precious resources attempting to counter their PERCEIVED threats. What brilliant simplicity this act has illustrated by abducting individuals who don’t fit the terrorist profile and having them do the dirty work. As a terrorist you do not expend your human assets on pointless attacks. You strike fear, distrust and maybe even panic in your enemy’s general population.
If this can happen to a poor pizza delivery guy who’s to say it won’t happen to them as well. People will become reluctant to travel or go places which, before this, would not have caused even the slightest concern.
Our economy is built on the rapid delivery of goods and services. To attack this system on a personal level like this makes perfect sense (I mean to a terrorist with limited means of attack). If you wanted to put your enemy on guard and cause them to expend their martial resources with the most minimal amount of effort then this makes perfect sense.
Except, of course, this may have nothing to do with the likes of Al Quaida (or however you spell it) or other international groups. We have plenty of homegrown fuckwits. Ted Kazcynski (yeah, I’m probably having a Bad Spelling Day) worked totally alone and produced some pretty nasty devices. If he had never published his manifesto (which was subsequently recognized as his by his brother, who turned him in) he’d probably still be sitting in his Montana shack making letterbombs.
The Washington DC sniper wasn’t working with an organized group, either, even if he did have sympathy towards some of them - that was entirely his own doing.
The guys who pulled off 9/11 have no problem with funding, planning, or killing off their own - they trained thousands to die for their cause. They like big, they like flashy, and they like multiple attacks. While the Human Bomb Bank Robber could have been done by them, it just doesn’t fit their style, their M.O.
For that matter, Hamas and their kin are pretty small-scale and probably don’t have a huge amount of money, but they don’t seem to lack for suicidal volunteers, either.
Since somewhat similar “necklace bombs” HAVE been used in South America I think we have to be open to the possibility of drug cartel/organized crime involvement here.
Or serial killer.
For what it’s worth, the FBI/DHS says they can’t see a terrorist connection right now. Of course, right now is the start of the investigation. It’s important to keep an open mind to all the possibilities.
I also doubt the terrorism angle. One outcome of 9/11 is that it is no longer feasible to hijack a plane because the passengers will assume you are going to crash it and will revolt. Similarly, if terrorists started strapping bombs to people and sending them to blow up other people, soon enough people would stop giving in to the terrorists’ demands. You know you are going to die as soon as they strap the bomb to you. Why would you follow their orders? They could do it a few times, but soon everyone would know about the scheme and it would no longer be effective.
That’s right Broomstick. Right now anything could be a possibility. But the terrorist angle (no matter who it is) I’m beginning to feel could be a viable explanation.
If it was for the sole purpose of robbing a bank the perpetrators of this event could have (I’m assuming they have some intelligence) come up with a better way. But, if they were using this as a test bed for future operations the best way to get this publicized was to have the poor guy rob a bank. It gave them the TV exposure and a reconnosiance of how the police and authorities deal with events like this. They got the pizza guy to do what they wanted because they led him to believe that there may be a way out for him.
Its important to remember the thought process here. If they strapped a bomb to you and said we want you to drive this gasoline tanker into a school, you would know if you did what they want you would still wind up dead. But a bank robbery, you would have some hope of removing the device and living AFTER doing what they told you to do.
The poor guy in his state of mind knew it was going to be over soon once the police had him. Even if he was successful in eluding the police and delivering the loot he should have realized that they would still kill him. On a personal level though I feel, when in a situation like this we seem to always hold out hope that we will make it out alive.
I’ve thought about htis, and I don’t think the “involuntary suicide bomb” is a very good tactic for terrorists. isthatsowrong? is right–this idea has a limited utility. Kidnapping someone, strapping on a bomb, and letting them loose in a mall might work once or twice, but the key to getting someone to do what you want them to do in a situation like this is both carrot and stick. The carrot, in the case of the OP, is “if you do what I say I’ll take the bomb off.” If you just strap a bomb on somebody and they know they have no chance of getting out of it alive, they have no reason to cooperate with you any further. In fact, they have every motivation to stick as close to you as possible. “What are you gonna do, shoot me? If I blow up, I’m taking you with me, motherfucker!” If this was a terrorist, they would have offered the guy false hope and then blown him up in the bank where he would have done the most damage.
My money’s still on serial killer.
I smell a FARC.
I think the FARC might be sending a message to the US with this action. Erie, PA is, after all the hometown of Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge.
Does any Doper out there have a link to the MEU that we supposedly sent into Colombia in February, 2003 (I heard it on Pacifica Radio then) with the mission of hunting FARC leadership? It was apparently around 1,100 Marines, and now all I can find is from Narconews… Feh.
BTW: this is one of the reasons I’d asked Doc and Tuckerfan about decapitation of the victim. From the video I saw, it looks as if his head ended up under his body – albeit still connected – after his body came to rest.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/6703456.htm and FBI questions ‘associate’ of pizza man
gonna all be answered in the next day or two.
I guess there’s no incident so uniquely peculiar that hordes of otherwise apparently intelligent people won’t leap to the most ridiculous conspiracy theory to explain it. :rolleyes:
Oh, come on. We’re just exploring wild theories. It’s fun. And sometimes, you get the longshot guess right, and you can brag about it.
Obviously, the most obvious explanation will turn out to be more mundane. Occam’s razor and all. Some crazy co-worker or neighbor goaded him into this plot or something.
The facts are still confusing. It appears that this guy was in no way capable of building a device like this. Marginally skilled, not too bright. The device itself appears to have required a machine shop and quite a lot of skill. The guy’s behaviour makes no sense - he was told the bomb would go off in 20 minutes, but he stood in line at the teller rather than going to the front? If he was a victim, what was he doing with a cane gun? Who made THAT, and if it was the same guy, why would he give it to the victim?
It almost sounds like a not-too-bright guy fell in with some brilliant twisted character who befriended him, did things like made him a cane gun to gain his trust, and then one day talked him into this bank robbery heist, assuring him that there was no way the bomb would go off, and if he got caught he could claim he was forced into it and walk away. All the while planning to kill him if he got caught.
But clearly, a case with as many confusing facts as this one could have a zillion explanations.
If the pizza guy wasn’t in on it then why wasn’t he trying to tell the police who strapped the bomb on them and where they could be found?
Why wouldn’t he have gone directly to a police station where he might stand a better chance of getting out of it?
Why was the thing under his shirt instead of over it? Why would they go through the trouble of concealing the bomb from view?
And the pizza guy seemed pretty sure that it was a real bomb.
So my vote is that he was either a willing participant or had a submissive type relationship with whoever did it.
Yeah, you’re right, it is kind of fun. I just wish people were more honest that the wild speculation is merely that, wild speculation. There’s a tinge of “Nuh-uh! That’s stupid! My theory is better!” in some of the messages here. Obviously, with the almost total absence of facts, just about any outlandish hypothesis can be formulated; that doesn’t make it reasonable. I mean, I’m kind of surprised the Knights Templar haven’t made an appearance. 
They have.
I certainly wasn’t expecting the Knights Templar.
<Looks around expectantly>
If you knew they were here, if you could see them, then they have already failed.
So their two prime weapons are stealth, cunning, and a fanatical devotion to the Pope?
No, wait . . .
I found myself wondering if it could be a trial run for another, larger crime. But then I ask myself: why do a trial run? This case has alerted every cop in the country.
BTW, Doc, I consider Ladyhawke to be a good movie, and it starred Rutger Hauer.
<Ahem>
(Bolding mine.)