The Pewaukee, WI "City Hall/Police Dept." bomb threat was big-time "Breaking News" on the cable channels, earlier this week.
But except for a tiny fragment of text, that story was not deemed important enough for our local paper to provide any coverage, until a day and a half after the event:
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=777790Even then, the Journal's more lengthy article completely omitted the one, pertinent piece of factual evidence that may have shed some light on the "bomber's" motivation. The Journal's TV outlet, on their website, filled in the missing part of the story...
http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/26069459.html Suspect Malcolm Richards, 26, told Pewaukee police he wanted to steal a gun and a squad car and go on a shooting spree.
Richards told officers he wanted to shoot lawmakers in Madison and Washington, D.C.
Richards doesn't fit the profile of a typical criminal. He's a college graduate. He's an Iraq war veteran. His mom told officials he has post traumatic stress disorder.
Richards was in court Tuesday on charges he locked himself in a City Hall bathroom claiming to have a bomb.
We learned Tuesday that the SWAT unit used pepper spray to get him out.
Court documents show his reason: he demanded a "weapon" from the police department and a "squad car" because he wanted to "overthrow state government" first then "oust the federal government."
He wanted to do it by shooting "congressmen and senators." He also claimed to take "orders directly from God" and said "angelic beings" "walk among us."
His supposed bomb turned out to be a bunch of harmless wires.
He was charged in court Tuesday for making the threat. It was an unusual hearing because he kept interrupting the court commissioner.
Court Commissioner: “To include any other explosive device...”
Richards: “(laugh)”
Court Commissioner: “Sir, do you think this is funny?”
Richards: “I don't have an explosive device. I had a battery thing hooked up to my vest.”
Court Commissioner: “Sir, just listen. These are the terms and conditions of your bail.”
Richards insisted on representing himself without a lawyer.
Richards: "Think there's an emergency right now."
Court Commissioner: "I’m not going to play word games with you right now. Sir you keep going, you just keep digging yourself deeper and deeper, especially with the government. You just keep digging yourself into a deeper hole."
The judge ordered testing to see if Richards is mentally competent. His mom told officials he has post traumatic stress disorder from his service in Iraq.
“People sometimes come to mental illness later in life after they've done things like go to college, after they've made it through the military. Of course there might be questions as to whether the military service caused some problems. We don't know any of that at this point,” prosecutor Kevin Osborne said.
This case gets sadder. We learned in court that Richards has only had a job for three months in the last two years. He donated his plasma for money. He's from Indiana and had only been living in the Village of Pewaukee for about three months.
Here's a link to an online scan of the "bomber's" threatening note:
It's probably not worth taking the literary allusion too far, but the note is signed, "Joshua." As in the guy who "fit" the battle of Jericho. He was Moses' first lieutenant and designated successor, who brought down the walls of the city by blowing a horn.
In this case, Joshua's "bomb" was part of a cell phone charger:
{Richards}...created the device he strapped to himself five days before the incident, the complaint says. He cut a hole in a winter vest and using a cell phone car charger, he put the wires from the charger into the vest and used the other end as a fabricated detonator for what he later claimed was a bomb, the complaint says.
Bottom Line on this revealing episode in journalism:
IJMPO, but I'd say no one at the Dept. of Heimat Security wanted this guy to be out there, with lots of coverage revealing all of the details, in the same week that the crazy ass wad in Tennessee shot up the folks at the "lib'rul" U.C.C. church.
The contrast between the two -- and between over-the-edge "wingnuts" & (?) "moonbats" (not even sure he's one of us) -- couldn't be more revealing.