Friend of Victim Heard Suspect Ask Police Odd Question: 'If I quit shooting at people, can I get back on the bus?'

Remember the deadly shooting incident at a Greyhound bus station in southwest Missouri that involved a man with a Muslim name less than 48 hours ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States? Today, I offer an update about the incident the mainstream media has, thusfar, refused to acknowledge as a possible terror event.

Mohamed Dawod

On Sept. 9, police officials in Springfield, Mo., were quick to label as “random” the incident involving Mohamed Dawod, a 25-year-old man from Glendale, Ariz., who now faces a first-degree murder charge in the shooting death of Justin Hall, 32, of Mt. Vernon, Ohio.

Later the same day, according to a KSPR-TV report, those same police officials said that, because of a language barrier, they had only learned Dawod’s name and had asked the FBI to help them with the investigation. Also in that report was this telling paragraph:

Ten separate witnesses say they did not notice the men fighting or arguing before the shooting. One passenger said she watched the suspect wander around the terminal until the call to line up to re-board the bus. “She then observed the suspect remove a silver and black handgun from a back pack he was carrying,” the officer wrote. “The suspect then pointed the handgun upward while saying something. The witness could not understand what the suspect said and didn’t know if he was speaking English.” No matter what was said the witness said Hall didn’t react or turn around. Shortly after the witness says Dawod shot him from a few feet away.

Could it be that, when the man pointed the handgun in the air, he shouted, “Alluh Akbar,” the cry that’s been heard coming from the mouths of so many Islamic extremists moments before they suffer from so-called “sudden jihad syndrome”? No answer to that question yet, so let’s fast-forward to a new report published today in the Springfield News-Leader.

Based largely on interviews with three people who were at the scene of the shooting, the article notes two observations — that the shooter tried to fire again but could not because his gun jammed and that the witnesses believed the shooter intended to shoot several people — that I had already reported in my original post. In addition, however, it notes that Patrick Beeman, a friend and traveling companion of the victim, said Dawod asked police a question in English after he was arrested: “He said, ‘if I quit shooting at people, can I get back on the bus?'”

So he does speak English after all. Hmm?

Not surprisingly, the alleged shooter pleaded not guilty during an arraignment Monday morning. The extent to which Dawod might carry out some form of “legal jihad” — that is, causing the U.S. court system to waste as much time, effort and money as possible on his case — remains to be seen.

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