Breaking: One Garland Suspect Identified

From ABC News:

One of the suspects in the shooting in Garland, Texas, late Sunday has been identified as Elton Simpson, an Arizona man who was previously the subject of a terror investigation, according to a senior FBI official.

Overnight and today FBI agents and a bomb squad were at Simpson's home in an apartment complex in north Phoenix where a robot is believed to be conducting an initial search of the apartment.

Officials believe Simpson is the person who sent out several Twitter messages prior to the attack on Sunday, in the last one using the hashtag #TexasAttack about half an hour before the shooting....

More information at the link.

URGENT! BREAKING! Shooting At AFDI/Jihad Watch Event In Garland, Texas

IS THIS PARIS/CHARLIE HEBDO HAPPENING IN TEXAS???

Tammy Swofford is at the scene, contacted AoW. Has since been forced (by authorities?) to hang up.  AOW here...I am updating as I am able to do so at the bottom of this blog post.

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION EVENT APPARENTLY UNDER ATTACK IN TEXAS

Dallas Morning News:

Breaking: Gunfire reported at anti-Islam event at Garland ISD facility

A spokesman for Garland ISD has confirmed that gunfire was reported at an anti-Islam event at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland ISD.

Initial reports indicated that shots were heard outside the facility where an art show devoted to caricatures of Muhammad was being held.

WFAA-TV (Channel 8) has said an officer was involved in the shooting, and there are reports that SWAT officers had responded to the incident.

KXAS-TV (NBC5) says Garland police were still working to secure the area, and there were reports that officers had sealed the doors to the center.

Opponents had said the American Freedom Defense Initiative's Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest on Sunday would be an attack on Islam. But its organizers said they were simply exercising their right of expression.

The contest, which was offering a top prize of $10,000, has received about 350 entries depicting Muhammad. Caricatures of the Islamic prophet are considered offensive by many Muslims.

In January, a French newspaper that published such cartoons was attacked by terrorists and 12 people died.

As part of its contract with the district, the American Freedom Defense Initiative has paid $10,000 for extra security - nearly $50 for each of about 200 tickets that have been purchased so far. That cost doesn't include private security the group is employing.

AOW cutting in here: The bomb disposal unit has arrived; apparently, two devices were found. Those attending the event have been moved to a safe place and are under armed guard.

The explosive devices are believed to be in the parking lot where those attending the event are parked. Attendees are not allowed to go to their vehicles; buses are being brought in to take the attendees away from Curtis Culwell Center.

While waiting, the attendees are singing "God Bless America," "The Star-Spangled Banner," and other patriotic songs.

I got this information from Tammy Swofford, who is on the ground there and is attending the event.

AOW again...Heavy.com has this information.

midnight rider: per Pam Geller:

Two men with rifles and backpacks attacked police outside our event. A cop was shot; his injuries are not life-threatening, thank Gd. Please keep him in your prayers. The bomb squad has been called to the event site to investigate a backpack left at the event site

. -

AOW here...The lights have now gone off in the safe room. This information via Tammy Swofford, who is on the ground there.

She sent this picture

UPDATE - For some reason blogger is not posting our updates.

UPDATE FROM PASTORIUS - I have to wonder if the Police/authorities are trying to send this story down the rabbit hole by forcing our correspondent Tammy Swofford to turn off her phone and then corraling all attendees into a safe room, AND THEN TURNING OFF THE LIGHTS!

ANOTHER UPDATE - Jihad Watch's site is now inaccessible. It could be that there are too many people attempting to get their news there and the site crashed.

OR IT COULD BE THAT SOMEONE HAS ATTACKED THE SITE AND TAKEN IT DOWN -

IF THAT IS THE CASE, THE QUESTION IS, IS THIS A COORDINATED ATTACK?!?!?!?

UPDATE - GOOD NEWS - JIHAD WATCH IS BACK UP - PAMELA GELLER IS POSTING AT JIHAD WATCH BECAUSE ROBERT IS IN LOCKDOWN AT THE CARTOON CONTEST FACILITY.

UPDATE - At Fox News, commentator Harris Faulkner is getting worked up about this story. She is a conservative black lady, and she's hot, and she seems to cognizant that this is a big, big story.

MY QUESTION IS, HOW DO WE AS FREE PEOPLE LIVE WITH MUSLIMS WHEN THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE CRITICIZE THEIR RELIGION?

In a free society, all loci of power need to be criticized. It is part of our system of checks and balances. It is absolutely necessary that we be free to criticize all religions, businesses, academic insitutions and  government officials. 

That is a necessary part of freedom.

If we are importing Muslims by the tens and hundreds of thousands, granting them political asylum, this is what we are going to get.

It is not that all Muslims are Jihadists. But a percentage of them are. Look in our sidebar under "Game Over". There are 10 posts there featuring statistics that will show you what percentage of Muslims in various countries around the world, including the West, hold anti-Freedom ideas. 

That is the percentage we are dealing with.

and that is why this is happening. 

We can not live with this. We can not abide it for one second.

midnight rider: Fox TV reporting a local Walmart has now been evacuated

UPDATE - This appears to be a Tweet from one of the attackers - 

UPDATE - THE ATTACKERS HAVE BEEN KILLED

VIDEO 

Motoon Jihad Bust of the Day: Denmark Arrests 5 in Plot to Shoot Up Jyllands-Posten

Another day, another blood-for-cartoons terror plot by "insulted" Muslim jihadist thugs. This one reported by FOX. The good news is that the Danish intelligence service is on the ball and shut this one down before anyone got hurt. The bad news is that in the minds of the dhimmified majority, this won't even count as an "attack" since "it didn't actually happen".

Denmark Arrests 5 Suspected of Planning Terror Attack

COPENHAGEN, Denmark

Five men planning to shoot as many people as possible in a building housing the newsroom of a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad were arrested Wednesday in an operation that halted an imminent attack, intelligence officials said.

Denmark's intelligence service said it arrested four men in two raids in suburbs of the capital, Copenhagen, and seized an automatic weapon, a silencer and ammunition. Swedish police said they arrested a 37-year-old Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin living in Stockholm.

"An imminent terror attack has been foiled," said Jakob Scharf, head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, or PET. He described some the suspects as "militant Islamists with relations to international terror networks" and said that more arrests were possible.

PET said it seized a 44-year-old Tunisian, a 29-year-old Lebanese-born man and a 30-year-old who were living in Sweden and had entered Denmark late Tuesday or early Wednesday. The fourth person detained was a 26-year-old Iraqi asylum-seeker living in Copenhagen.

The Danish intelligence service said the group had been planning to enter the building where the Jyllands-Posten daily has its Copenhagen newsdesk and had wanted "to kill as many of the people present as possible." The four men face preliminary charges of attempting to carry out an act of terrorism. They will face a custody hearing Thursday.

Read the rest here. SSDD.

Islamic Group In Jordan Objects...

(All emphases by Always On Watch)


...to the Danish Motoons. From Velvet Hammer, citing the Associated Press:

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - A group of Islamic activists in Jordan says it plans to file lawsuits against nearly 20 Danish newspapers and magazines for republishing a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.

The group says it also plans to sue the editor-in-chief of the Danish newspaper that first published the drawings in 2005 and the daily’s cartoonist.

Last month, Denmark’s leading newspapers reprinted 1 of the 12 original cartoons after Danish police said they had uncovered a plot to kill the cartoonist. The papers said the reprint was meant to promote freedom of speech.

The group says it will file the lawsuits in Jordanian courts because the country’s penal code says publicly slandering religious figures is an offense that carries up to three years in prison.

Velvet Hammer's post goes on to give more history on the Muslim ire at the Danish Motoons. Apparently, the flag-burning, fire-throwing cartoonifada has graduated to litigation-ifada.

According to Ali Sina, founder of Faith Freedom International, ridicule is exactly what is needed, whether Muslims like it or not:

o Muslims committed the huge blunder of revealing their vulnerability [cartoon flap]. Now the world knows what hurts them. When you find your opponent's weak spot, it is exactly where you want to hit him. If Islam is ridiculed publicly and systematically, it will be defeated.

o Muslim psychology is all pomposity and bravado. I give you my word that if Islam is ridiculed publicly and systematically, it will be defeated. Shame is a great motivator as well as deterrent. Do not underestimate the power of ridicule. This is serious stuff not a laughing matter.

o How much ridicule is enough? Until it hurts. The pain of shame must become bigger than the comfort of clinging to this false fetish. When you see their eyes are popping out of their eyeballs, their veins bulging in their necks, foam forming at their mouths, and they are ready to explode, you know that the remedy is working. Give them more. They will either die of heart attacks or they will come to their senses and recover from this insanity.

o Every one of us must become a cyberwarrior and mock Muhammad, Islam and the Muslims. Use your talent. Draw cartoons based on the hadith and the Quran. You can find tons of ridiculous stuff in these books to lampoon. Write articles, lyrics, jokes, plays, do whatever you can to ridicule Muhammad the prophet pretender and Muslims. Don't heed to their howls and cries.

The West has a long tradition of satire and in the form of cartoons. Thomas Nast is but one famous example of such a cartoonist:

In general his political cartoons supported American Indians, Chinese Americans and advocated abolition of slavery. Nast also dealt with segregation and the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, which was detailed in one of his more famous cartoons called "Worse than Slavery", which showed a despondent black family having their house destroyed by arson, and two members of the Ku Klux Klan and White League are shaking hands in their mutually destructive work against black Americans. His cartoons frequently had numerous sidebars and panels with intricate subplots to the main cartoon. A Sunday feature could provide hours of entertainment and highlight social causes.

One has to ask, "Why are Muslims so incensed about a bunch of CARTOONS. After all, if Muslims don't like the Motoons, they don't have to look at those images. After all, most of the Western press has refused to publish the illustrations, although fearless Denmark will.

As far as Jordan is concerned, how many Jordanians read the Danish press, anyway.

Muslims seem to feel that they have the RIGHT not to be offended. Since when is that "right" a Western one? In fact, the West is famous, or infamous, for exactly the opposite.

Make the following your mantra, and stand up for Western freedoms, while you still have them: