If you thought those guys who fouled up the recent British terrorist attacks were inept,
check out this story.
Three Burleson men who belong to a "radical Christian activist group" were in the Johnson County Jail on Friday night after a church deacon caught two of them attempting to ignite an explosive device on Independence Day at a church under construction in north Burleson, authorities said Friday.
Dayton Lee Calaway, 19, and Michael Philip Plaisted Jr., 18, were arrested Wednesday night near the Victory Family Church after they got bogged down in mud as a fleet-footed deacon chased them from the church in the 400 block of Northwest John Jones Drive, police said.
Two other people drove away, the deacon told officers.
An explosive device in a glass container was found propped against the church door. The suspects apparently tried to detonate the device twice before being interrupted by the deacon, police and Burleson Fire Marshal Stacy Singleton said.
...
On Thursday, Jered Michael Ragon, 18, voluntarily went to the police station for questioning after Calaway and Plaisted implicated him, police Detective T. Catron said. Police called a MedStar ambulance because Ragon's feet were burned, and a emergency medical crew treated him at the station.
Ragon had gotten gasoline on his feet as he tried to destroy evidence from the church fire in the field, and his feet were burned, Catron said.
So not only could four guys not manage to set fire to an unoccupied building, and not only did they run from a single unarmed man, and not only did two of them run into deep mud and fail to escape their persistent pursuer, but one of the two who got away actually
set his own feet on fire trying to destroy left over bomb-making evidence! Not exactly Iraqi
resistance fighter terrorist quality pyrotechnicians, were they?
At this point I was wondering why. Why were self-described radical Christians trying to burn down a church? Was it Mormon or something? Happily, the article explains things. As well as something this inane can be explained, anyway.
Cmdr. Chris Havens, the Police Department spokesman, said the suspects boasted about belonging to a leaderless group of 10 or 15 who share a belief that society has become too focused on self-improvement and self-gratification and has lost focus on the glorification of God.
"They admit to being Christian and being brought up Christian, but they believe there should be one denomination and one church, not multiple denominations," Havens said.
"They did not say they had a name for their group, other than they were a radical Christian activist group. That was the way they explained their group," he said.
Perhaps they were just taking actions
the Pope's recent comments seem to require? If you're wondering if you have to grow up in the asshole of nowhere to be so bored that this sort of thing seems like a good idea at age 18...
well yeah. Pretty much.
I should note that from age 12-13 I
was incarcerated lived about where the upper right corner of the green arrow is on that map. An experience that was not quite awful enough to make my ensuing San Diego-based years of high school tolerable, but that did imprint me enough with Southwest redneck PTSD that I've never been able to watch more than 30 seconds of
King of the Hill without starting to shudder at its documentary version of my junior high school years.
Labels: stupidity, terrorism
