Thursday • April 27, 1995
^j^^ATION y PCAL
The Battalion • Page 9
Militias: Folks ‘who feel
they’ve been pushed too far’
□ Experts say that the militia
movement draws much of its
strength from economically
struggling white men.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The militia
movement draws much of its strength
from economically struggling white
men, many of them veterans, prone to
believe in conspiracies, often living in
rural areas, fervently defending the
right to bear arms.
Some members are former college pro
fessors; others never made it through
high school. Some insist they are not big
ots; others see Jews, blacks and foreign
ers as the perpetrators of a huge, anti-
American conspiracy.
While militia watchers underscore
that reliable data and a detailed under
standing of these groups is lacking,
rough sketches have emerged in the days
after the Oklahoma City bombing. Offi
cials are checking for any links between
the bombing and members of such pri
vate groups.
Clark McCauley, a psychology profes
sor at Bryn Mawr College, Pa., and an
expert on terrorism, said that what is re
markable about militia members is that
they are so unremarkable.
Stafford: Club
“We’re not talking about crazies here.
We’re not talking about people who are no
longer human. W^’re talking about people
like you and me who feel that they’ve been
pushed too far,” McCauley said.
Political science professor Michael
Barkun of Syracuse University agrees.
He says, “We make a substantial mis
take and eventually underestimate the
danger if we simply assume that every
one engaged in such organizations is ig
norant or disordered or pathological.”
A series of incidents has fueled mem
bership: the federal raid on separatist
Randy Weaver’s Idaho compound in
1992; the burning of the Branch Davidi-
an compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993;
passage of the Brady gun registration
bill in 1993 and of an assault weapons
ban last year.
Members often learn about the orga
nizations at gun shows. They are pre
dominantly white and male, aged 18 to
46. Many served in the military and be
long to a Christian religion, according
to the Center for Democratic Renewal
in Atlanta, a group that monitors ex
tremist groups.
Membership is “predominantly mid
dle class, working class, small business
owner type people,’’ adds Noah Chan
dler, a researcher for the center who has
attended militia conventions.
closes its doors
Burglaries
Continued from Page 1
think that a thief would fear being seen and
caught,” Fermi said. “I usually just throw
my backpack anywhere I can.
“I don’t consider it something that could
entice a thief into robbing my car. I plan to
keep my eyes open in the future.”
Kretzschmar said students should make
sure their car doors and windows are locked.
However, he said, not all vehicle burglaries
have occurred because students left a win
dow open or door unlocked.
“Burglars use Slim-Jims or just break
the car window if they want to get in,” he
said. “They do this in broad daylight and
don’t get caught.”
Students and faculty, Kretzschmar said,
should call the police immediately if they see
anything suspicious.
“We have quite a few people make these
calls, but an hour later,” he said. “It’s impor
tant they do it right away because usually an
hour after is too late — the crime has oc
curred, the criminal is gone.”
Kretzschmar said the police caught
someone burglarizing a car on campus this
past week, and the department thinks he
may have committed more than one on-
campus crime.
“Since this a crime of opportunity, the sus
pect could have committed a number of
crimes,” he said. “We hope catching this per
son will scare others away from the idea of
breaking into a car.”
Bomb
Continued from Page 1
says the Ryder truck used in the bombing
was rented in Junction City later that day.
The next day, McVeigh borrowed Nichols’
pickup truck and told him, “If I don’t come
back in a while, go clean up the .storage
shed.” He returned the truck later that day.
Both McVeigh and Nichols had access to a
shed outside Herington that was rented un
der an alias, Rathbun said. Sources have
said tire tracks matching the type of truck
used in the bombing were found at the shed.
The bomb exploded the next morning in
Oklahoma City.
Minutes before the blast, and apparently
before the arrival of the truck carrying the
4,800-pound bomb, three witnesses saw
McVeigh in front of the federal building, a
law enforcement official in Washington told
the AP on condition of anonymity.
The truck was in front of the building
“less than 10 or 15 minutes. There was prob
ably a very short-fused timing device on it,”
the official said.
Continued from Page 1
the closing. This month they had a great
calendar with lots of big name perform
ers, and for the amount of tickets we sell,
somebody must be going to these shows.”
Nguyen said an announcement will
soon be made regarding the opening of a
new club close to the A&M campus. The
new, larger venue will book the same
style of performers as Stafford, ranging
from folk to reggae to alternative.
Nguyen said the new club will function
like Stafford, hosting any solid act re
gardless of music type. But one thing,
Nguyen said, will change: the name of
the new club.
“The Stafford Opera House has very
beautiful memories of a nice, unique at
mosphere,” Nguyen said. “We decided to
call the new place something else, and let
Stafford go out in style.”
Traylor said the new club will probably
continue to draw similar, large crowds be
cause there is a large enough crowd in the
Bryan-College Station area to support
new bands and unusual music.
For the final weekend performances,
Nguyen has scheduled several events to
commemorate closing of the Stafford
Opera House.
Proceeds from Friday night’s perfor
mance will benefit the Brazos Food Bank.
Dah-Veed will be performing the last
show on Saturday. Nguyen said Dah-Veed
was one of the first performers wken the
club opened, and has remained close to
the Stafford Opera House family.
“Dah-Veed has been very loyal,”
Nguyen said. “It seemed right to close
that way. It will be a very emotional
evening, but it will also be lots of fun.”
Elusive bomber taunts
victim of past attack
□ The deadly Unabomber has eluded authorities
for 17 years because he's been careful and his at
tacks random.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Unabomber taunted one of his in
jured victims for opening a mysterious package that blew up, calling
him a “techno-nerd” in a letter released Wednesday.
The text of the letter to Yale computer science Professor David Gel-
ernter was distributed by the FBI the day after another letter from
the elusive bomber was published by The New York Times.
“People with advanced degrees aren’t as smart as they think they
are,” the letter to Gelernter said.
“If you’d had any brains you would have realized that there are a
lot of people out there who resent bitterly the way techno-nerds like
you are changing the world and you wouldn’t have been dumb enough
to open an unexpected package from an unknown source.”
Gelernter was badly injured when a mail bomb exploded in his of
fice on June 24, 1993.
He needed extensive surgery on his right hand and also was in
jured on his abdomen, chest and face.
The letter was one of four mailed the same day as the Unabomber’s
latest package, which killed a timber lobbyist Monday in Sacramento.
Jim Freeman, the FBI chief in San Francisco, told reporters Tues
day only three letters were mailed.
He said Wednesday it was four and the two others were received
by people unrelated
to the case. He re
fused to reveal ad
dresses or the letters’
contents and said the
FBI has no plans to
release the letters.
The bomber, be
lieved to be a male
loner in his 40s,
taunted the FBI in
his letter to the
Times and offers to
stop the bombings if the newspaper or other major media print a
“manuscript” detailing “our” beliefs that society should be broken
down into “very small, completely autonomous units.”
He also demanded that he be given the opportunity to respond to
critics in print or expand on his views.
The bomber makes no such demands in the letter to Gelernter. The
letter, which used FBI headquarters in Washington as its return ad
dress, attacks Gelernter’s 1991 book, “Mirror Worlds,” for saying the
advance of computerization is “inevitable” and “any college person”
can learn to compete in a computer-driven world.
In the letter to the Times, the bomber condemned industrial soci
ety, growth, technicians and “manipulating people’s attitudes.”
Both letters were signed “FC,” the name of a group of anarchists
the bomber used the last time he communicated in a letter, also to the
Times, in 1993.
Though he claims to be part of a group, and uses the construction
“we” in the latest round of letters and the 1993 missive, investigators
believe he is acting alone.
The bomber might have been motivated to write letters out of jeal
ousy of the attention received by the Oklahoma City truck bomb explo
sion, said criminologist Michael Rustigan of San Francisco University.
Though he claims to be part of
a group, and uses the
construction 'we' in the latest
round of letters and the 1993
missive, investigators believe
he is acting alone.
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