March 24, 2015

Here's a question. If you thought of yourself as a patriot, would you build an IED and place it in a public park so people could be afraid and know what needs to be done?

Yeah, me either. But that's what Michael Sibley, age 67, allegedly did.

First, he allegedly set up the bombs to look like they were set by Sibley's idea of what a terrorist might do.

Documents filed in the case said Sibley built improvised explosive devices and left two of them in a backpack on Nov. 4 at the Vickery Creek Park in Georgia. The Park is part of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, according to the documents.

In an affidavit, FBI special agent Bridget Brock said Sibley was first interviewed by investigators on March 16. He then asked to meet with FBI agents again on March 20 at their Atlanta office and confessed, according to the documents.

Sibley told the agents he had googled how to make a bomb on his computer and constructed it in his garage, the documents said.

He said he purchased a backpack at a garage sale and, according to the documents, wrote the name "Mina Khodari" inside the backpack because he said "it looked foreign."

Along with the bombs, Sibley put print-outs of the Atlanta Falcons' schedule as well as public transportation timetables and the locations of Marcus Jewish Centers into the backpack because he thought officials would see those as "soft targets," the documents said.

Man, this sounds like something Fox News built, doesn't it? But wait, there's more. He has actually confessed, according to court documents.

Sibley told the agents he also placed a copy of the Quran and a book titled "The Rape of Kuwait" in the bag.

Sibley said he placed the bombs in the park because he's a "patriot." He said he regretted that people weren't "paying attention to what was going on (sic) the world" and he wanted to remind people "that this type of activity could happen anywhere," according to the documents.

Forget the Islamophobia, folks. We've got homegrown "patriots" who think the way to get people's attention is to place IEDs in public places while trying to pin responsibility on people with exotic names.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon