July 12, 2002

12:54 PM

Van Explodes In Northwest Parking LotBreaking news - not sure if this is just a sad accident, or ... A friend who works in the area said that the place is swarming with cops, and FBI guys. Has anyone else heard anything? Nothing on any of the majors yet. Could be because this will turn out to be minor.
posted by Corky (41 comments total)

well, if the van exploded, but is still there to be on fire...it doesn't sound like high-powered explosives or anything. Easy to be a bomb expert as i sit here typing....

any MeFi's in the blocked off area?
posted by th3ph17 at 12:58 PM on July 12, 2002

I find it upsettiing that this country is living in a constant state of paranoid nervosa that instantly causes us to assume the worst whenever something bad happens.

And I'm not at all saying that to be snarky or elitist. I was in the shower the other morning, when I heard the emergency broadcast system tone on the radio. Whereas my usual thought, pre 9-11, would have been something along the lines of, "Fscking EBS", this particular morning it was, "Oh god, what just happened?" Then I get out of the shower and its just a test.

It made me sad.
posted by jammer at 1:00 PM on July 12, 2002

Goodness. Can I have the honor of being the first to post totally unwarranted dirty-bomb speculations?
posted by GriffX at 1:01 PM on July 12, 2002

Goodness. Can I have the honor of being the first to post totally unwarranted dirty-bomb speculations?
posted by GriffX at 1:01 PM on July 12, 2002

You can be the first, and the second! ;-)
posted by adampsyche at 1:02 PM on July 12, 2002

Parking attendants told News4 they heard an explosion and saw a van on fire. They said a man standing next to the van was also on fire.

Sounds like a Hitchcock movie.
posted by adampsyche at 1:03 PM on July 12, 2002

I'm about two miles from there, and I've started feeling nauseous and dizzy.

But then, I did have a huge stack of greasy french fries for lunch.
posted by brownpau at 1:06 PM on July 12, 2002

When you eat huge stacks of greasy french fries, the terrorists have already won.
posted by iceberg273 at 1:12 PM on July 12, 2002

D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey says the explosion in a Wisconsin Avenue garage was definitely the result of an explosive device.
posted by Sapphireblue at 1:37 PM on July 12, 2002

Not on CNN's front page now, though.

Heck, though the exploding gas tank has never been a popular vehicle feature, sometimes they do. It's a little strange but if the vehicle didn't also take down the parking structure it was in ... there probably wasn't anything there except the gas tank. And maybe a pipe bomb.

A couple of months ago in Chicago a house blew up, apparently as a result of a gas leak. A few days later another one blew up, but it turned out somebody thought that a gas leak leading to an explosion would be a neat scam. All over the local news for a few hours, then nothing.
posted by dhartung at 1:53 PM on July 12, 2002

Then I get out of the shower and its just a test.

Will no-one think of jammer's rug?
posted by Kafkaesque at 2:08 PM on July 12, 2002

An explosion in a Wisconsin Avenue parking garage on Friday appeared to be caused by a pipe bomb, D.C. police investigators said.

"We don't know a motive. It does not appear to have any relationship to terrorism," Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said.

I think the use of the word "terrorism" in that Post article is a little odd. It's a pipe bomb, but it's not terrorism? I thought a pipe bomb was, by definition, terrorism. Or does terrorism only mean large scale attacks by non-christian brown folks?

Here's my opinion. The next major terrorist attack in the United States is much more likely to be carried out by another Tim McVeigh, not another Zacharias Moussoui.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:25 PM on July 12, 2002

Mmmm. Huge stacks of greasy french fries. *drool*
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:27 PM on July 12, 2002

I thought a pipe bomb was, a pipe bomb was, by definition, terrorism

that's was my thought, too.

anybody aware of any other uses for pipe bombs? amateur housing demolition, perhaps?
posted by nobody_knose at 2:34 PM on July 12, 2002

I saw "Northwest" and I immediately looked at local news sites.

Nothing.

Then I followed the news link. Northwest Washington. Still a bit confused.

Oh. Northwest Washington D.C.

Being from Seattle, I have never before heard the generic term "Northwest" refer to anything besides the Pacific Northwest.
posted by Lokheed at 2:36 PM on July 12, 2002

That's exactly what I did, Lokheed, I was reading the article thinking "Wisconsin Avenue is closed between Harrison Street and Western Avenue?!" Where the hell are those streets?
posted by Shadowkeeper at 3:08 PM on July 12, 2002

anybody aware of any other uses for pipe bombs? amateur housing demolition, perhaps?

Murder. Of the discriminate kind (i.e. someone wanted the guy who owned this van scared or dead), which I don't think qualifies as terrorism.

Or maybe this fits in with the whole "whatever happens, don't call it terrorism" plan that the government seems to have these days.
posted by jaek at 3:10 PM on July 12, 2002

Re the NW thing: I grew up just outside of NW DC and now I live in downtown Seattle, so I was able to hit the ground running with this confusing title.

So, DC is split into 4 areas: NW, NE, SE, SW. SE DC is the crime-ridden area, NW is the area with a lot of Smithsonian Buildings, the mall, the white house, etc. It's mostly a colloquial term, I think.

So Seattle may be the Northwest, but Capital Hill and Woodl(x) Park Zoo are DC inventions, thank you very much ;)
posted by jragon at 3:20 PM on July 12, 2002

I saw "Northwest" and I immediately looked at local news sites.

I saw "Northwest" and I immediately thought of Northwest Airlines...
posted by mrbula at 3:32 PM on July 12, 2002

I saw "Northwest" and I immediately looked at local news sites.

I saw "Northwest" and I immediately thought of Northwest Airlines...

I saw "Northwest" and I immediately relaxed, because nobody uses that word to describe my area.
posted by fnord_prefect at 3:47 PM on July 12, 2002

Here's my opinion. The next major terrorist attack in the United States is much more likely to be carried out by another Tim McVeigh, not another Zacharias Moussoui.

I've been thinking that too. That's exactly how it played out in the mid '90s.
posted by donkeyschlong at 3:53 PM on July 12, 2002

Here's my opinion. The next major terrorist attack in the United States is much more likely to be carried out by another Tim McVeigh, not another Zacharias Moussoui.

I was thinking of someone more along the lines of Marinus van der Lubbe or (more specifically) Salvador Guersson Smecke.
posted by fnord_prefect at 4:02 PM on July 12, 2002

I was thinking of someone more along the lines of Marinus van der Lubbe or (more specifically) Salvador Guersson Smecke.

Really? I would've guessed Rod Torfulson or Herman Menderchuck long before either van der Lubbe or Smecke. To each his own, I suppose.
posted by Danelope at 4:11 PM on July 12, 2002

The District of Columbia is roughly diamond shaped (with a huge bite of it taken out), and the US Capitol building is at the center. Drawing a line north to south and east to west with the Capitol at the axis gives you the different areas of DC.

While the other three quatrants of DC are pretty downtrodden economically, NW DC is the most affluent, encompassing Foggy Bottom, Georgetown, Cleaveland Park, etc. The Watergate, the White House, the Federal Reserve, Embassy Row, the National Cathedral, Dupont Circle, the State Department, my wife's office building, The Kennedy Center, the National Gallery, the Archives, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service, among many other things, are all in NW DC. Most of the nationally known landmarks of DC are in NW.

NE and SE are pretty much residential, and the further you go from the Capitol building, the higher the crime rate is (though, depending on who you talk to, alot of crimes are committed right in the Capitol building every day). The Supreme Court is in NE, only just. Anacostia, a largely black neighborhood is in SE. There are those that say that people with white skin have no business being on the streets in many neighborhoods in NE and SE, day or night.

SW is pretty much Arlington, VA, which is where the Pentagon and the National Cemetary are. There is a little sliver of land between the Capitol and the Potomac on the DC side. The Smithsonian Castle is technically in SW, as is the Air & Space Museum, the Hirshhorn, the Frick, the US Department of Agriculture, the Holocaust Museum, the US Department of Transportation, the US Department of Energy, and the US Botanical Gardens are all in SW DC.
posted by crunchland at 4:11 PM on July 12, 2002

So, DC is split into 4 areas: NW, NE, SE, SW. SE DC is the crime-ridden area, NW is the area with a lot of Smithsonian Buildings, the mall, the white house, etc. It's mostly a colloquial term, I think.

Nope, it's a standard term. The quadrant is a required component of all mailing addresses in DC. George W's address is not 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., but 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW. The postal service overlooks this particular transgression, but 700 E St SW is NOT the same as 700 E St NW, for example.

While NE and SE are less desirable areas, NW is the largest quadrant. (The confluence of the four quadrants is the U.S. Capitol, which is slightly southeast of the geographical center of the city.) Because of the path of the Potomac River, SW is the smallest quadrant; housing mostly federal buildings and a small but thriving waterfront residential community.
posted by PrinceValium at 4:11 PM on July 12, 2002

D'oh! Crunchland, you beat me to it by TEN SECONDS!
posted by PrinceValium at 4:13 PM on July 12, 2002

Two great tastes that taste great together.
posted by crunchland at 4:18 PM on July 12, 2002

Can anyone actually get to the Washington Post's website? Seems dead from here in California, which is ... odd to say the least.
posted by WolfDaddy at 4:31 PM on July 12, 2002

Never mind. Stupid Squid.
posted by WolfDaddy at 4:51 PM on July 12, 2002

I was thinking of someone more along the lines of Marinus van der Lubbe or (more specifically) Salvador Guersson Smecke.

Huh?

Really? I would've guessed Rod Torfulson or Herman Menderchuck long before either van der Lubbe or Smecke.

Now I'm completely lost, haha.
posted by donkeyschlong at 6:48 PM on July 12, 2002

hey now. I'm representing from Northeast and I won't have you calling me 'downtrodden.'

Carry on.
posted by Sapphireblue at 8:07 PM on July 12, 2002

Marinus van der Lubbe. Salvador Guerrson Smecke. Torfulson and Menderchunk.

And the van bomb was probably meant for the victim's father, whose son was borrowing it for an errand; the man is an insurance executive whose claim to fame is an office shrine to his beloved Redskins, and is otherwise a boring country-club guy.
posted by dhartung at 8:40 PM on July 12, 2002

Um, that Mexican Zionist thing was a joke, right?

Right?
posted by donkeyschlong at 8:56 PM on July 12, 2002

Damn those anti-parkinglot terrorists!
posted by delmoi at 9:05 PM on July 12, 2002

I thought a pipe bomb was, by definition, terrorism. Or does terrorism only mean large scale attacks by non-christian brown folks?


Well, it could be vandalism, amoung other things. Terrorism has a political goal
posted by delmoi at 9:08 PM on July 12, 2002

Um, that Mexican Zionist thing was a joke, right?

Right?

Nope.
posted by fnord_prefect at 10:39 PM on July 12, 2002

So there are actually Mexican Zionist terrorists?
posted by donkeyschlong at 12:16 AM on July 13, 2002

This article sheds a little light on why some people are attempting to escalate conflict between Mexican-Americans and Jews.

A house up the street from me blew up due to a gas leak, and evidently there were enough ordinary household chemicals in the garage that the site was put off limits until it was cleaned up. This sort of situation underscores the need for ongoing toxics reduction efforts at all levels of society, not just EPA, so that first responders can have the resources free to deal with the potential for CBR evildoing.
posted by sheauga at 6:50 AM on July 13, 2002

donkeyschlong: No, but there was a heavily-armed Mossad agent who was (apparently) intent on blowing up the Mexican parliament.
posted by fnord_prefect at 9:57 PM on July 13, 2002

The Smecke thing was a joke. The Torfulson thing was real.

No, wait, I'm getting confused. But the Mexican government isn't [translation]. There doesn't seem to be a major-media news article out there that isn't somehow traceable back to La Voz De Aztlan's inflammatory screed. This peace news site's compilation story seems to cover the Mexican media point of view. For the record, the Israeli government denies that Guersson Smecke worked for Mossad or the IDF in any capacity; and a few pipe bombs won't level a building.

The ADL argues that La Voz De Aztlan is anti-semitic, and given their references to popular white racialist constructions such as the "Zionist Occupation Government", seems unlikely to be an unbiased source of information about such matters. ADL notes that The Nation of Aztlan is not to be confused with La Raza or other groups using "raza" or "Aztlan" in their name.
posted by dhartung at 12:15 AM on July 14, 2002

They targeted a REDSKINS FAN???!!! This is fucking war.
posted by owillis at 2:54 AM on July 14, 2002