defining our terms

[sisyphusshrugged]

What's white and domestic and threatens to blow up a 28-story building full of people (with a daycare center on site) if the government doesn't do what he says?

Either a pinot grigio having a really bad day or some wet-brained men's rights activist who thinks the female judge who decided his divorce should resign.

Definitely not a terrorist, though, because as we know, them're furrin.

A lawyer held hostage by a gunman with a grudge against a judge said the man, who threatened to blow up a 28-story office tower, was irrational in his thinking but in control of his actions.

The man, later identified as John Knight of Fort Wayne, Ind., gained access to attorney Christopher Hazelip's 13th floor office Wednesday in the Riverplace Tower by claiming to be an agent of the Justice Department.

For the next three hours, Knight and the attorney sat alone in his office while the man made threats and demanded the resignation of Duval County Judge Sharon Tanner, who had sentenced Knight to a day in jail in a domestic violence case.

"If you don't do exactly what I say, I'm going to blow this place up and kill everybody," Hazelip quoted Knight as saying. Because of the judge, "I've lost my house, my job, my money. I'm at the end of my rope," Knight told Hazelip.

He had a 9 mm pistol tucked into an envelope, and kept the gun pointed at his hostage throughout the ordeal, Hazelip said Thursday in an interview with the Associated Press.

"I don't think he was thinking too clearly," Hazelip said. "He was irrational only in terms of his reasoning. He seemed to be in control of his faculties."

During their time together, Hazelip said he and Knight talked about a number of things, including religion, and most of the time he seemed calm.

"He got agitated when it became clear to him the building was evacuated or when he heard helicopters and saw SWAT teams. He became upset," said Hazelip.

Knight had Hazelip call Mayor John Peyton. With a police negotiator at his side, Peyton talked with Knight for about 45 minutes while police hurriedly evacuated hundreds of workers from the office tower, including about 45 toddlers in a child care center.

He was charged with?

He was appointed a public defender to represent him on charges of kidnapping, aggravated assault, carrying a concealed firearm, making a bomb hoax and falsely impersonating an officer.

Remind me what we gave up freedoms for.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Yup, this story certainly speaks to the need of racial profiling.

Oh, and while Annie Jacobsen was "a victim of terrorism," obviously the lawyer was just a victim of a "bomb hoax."

--S.Z.

[(Anonymous)]

And what about Gale William Nettles? http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/08/05/courthouse_bomb/index.html
Is he white, or do we have to add yet another ethnic group to the profiling roster?

-Dr. BDH

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

at the risk of racial profiling, looks white to me.

[(Anonymous)]

........
Yeah but the guy didn't take a picture of that building unlike those brown furrin'er, did he?

Those camera wielding brown people is a manace and need to be locked up incommunicado for sure.