sigfreund,

a long article about the training to escape and how that training was employed

https://www.dallasnews.com/new...gue-hostages-escape/

Cohen said he tried to remain calm and deliberate and never raised his voice or made a quick move. He remembered from training that fighting back wasn’t an option because it meant getting closer to an armed attacker. Even so, Cohen said he mentally prepared himself to use his prayer shawl around Akram’s neck or hand that held the gun.

Akram let the hostages call their families. Cohen called his wife, daughter and son while thinking he was most likely going to die.

Cohen said he moved chairs in front of him in case they could divert a bullet or shrapnel, all while staying within 20 feet from the exit door, which “proved critical for our escape.”

He said the hostages kept Akram engaged, and the man lectured them and stayed somewhat calm. Then Akram told the hostages to get on their knees, and Cohen said he reared up and “stared at him sternly” while mouthing “no.”

It was during the final hour of the standoff that Cytron-Walker said Akram “wasn’t getting what he wanted.” And when Cytron-Walker saw an opportunity, he told the other men to run and he threw a chair at Akram.

The three lunged toward the door just after 9:30 p.m.

“Going out the door, I stumbled hitting the ground hard,” Cohen wrote. “I heard our attacker open the door. I was on the ground without my glasses, my plan became getting through the hedge line. In all honesty, I thought I was further under than I was. In fact, I was quite exposed.”

Cohen said he heard the door close and an officer yell, and he got up and ran to safety.

Thanks for that additional information.

quote:

In all honesty, I thought I was further under than I was. In fact, I was quite exposed.”

Don't just get training, walk your escape routes?

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:

quote:

In all honesty, I thought I was further under than I was. In fact, I was quite exposed.”

Don't just get training, walk your escape routes?

Just like dropping trees …

Sigfreund make a good point about failing to act or escape. As I was taking reports from victims, they often made these statements:
"I thought something was odd, but I did not do anything about it".
"I thought something was wrong, but I was not certain".
"I heard something strange, but thought it was ok".
"I thought it looked strange, but... Nah"!
"The guy did not look right, but I did not want to make a scene".
Hands down favorite, while standing near the smoldering ruins was "I thought I smelled smoke"!
Everyone has intuition, especially women. If you think something is odd or wrong in your world, act on that thought. DO something.
And the Rabbi? Former Yooper!

Info on the gun:

Over a roughly two-week period in Texas, Akram also searched on his phone for gun shops and pawnshops in the Dallas area, the officials said. But authorities have traced the handgun he used in the attack and think he bought it “on the street” rather than at a business. The gun’s last official sale was recorded in early 2020; it was reported stolen from a hotel room later that year, the officials said.

Complete article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...488c31bb1_story.html

Texas hostage-taker searched Internet for rabbis, gun shops and Aafia Siddiqui

By Devlin Barrett, Matt Zapotosky, Jack Douglas and Souad Mekhennet
Yesterday at 5:25 p.m. EST

A British man conducted Internet searches for influential rabbis, an imprisoned terrorist and gun and pawnshops in the days before he took congregants hostage inside a Texas synagogue, according to law enforcement officials.

FBI agents examining the digital trail left by 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram have found plenty of evidence hinting at his plan and state of mind in the days before the attack, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Searches on Akram’s cellphone, they said, led him to focus on Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of New York City’s Central Synagogue, who has been named on various online lists over the past decade as one of the most influential Jewish people in the country.

Akram, who was shot dead by FBI agents after an 11-hour standoff, parroted antisemitic tropes during the hostage-taking, saying he believed Jewish people had the power in the United States to free convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui.

Investigators suspect Akram saw Buchdahl mentioned on such lists and came to believe she had the political connections to get his demands to senior U.S. policymakers, officials said. Searches for influential rabbis also led him to focus on his ultimate target: Congregation Beth Israel in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Colleyville.

Over a roughly two-week period in Texas, Akram also searched on his phone for gun shops and pawnshops in the Dallas area, the officials said. But authorities have traced the handgun he used in the attack and think he bought it “on the street” rather than at a business. The gun’s last official sale was recorded in early 2020; it was reported stolen from a hotel room later that year, the officials said.

Akram also looked up online information about Siddiqui, an American-educated Pakistani woman who was convicted in 2010 of trying to kill U.S. soldiers and is serving an 86-year-prison sentence in a federal prison in Texas. Freeing her has become a focus in some Islamist militant circles.

Investigators are still piecing together Akram’s movements in the United States. He arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Dec. 29 and a few days later flew to Dallas, where he stayed at facilities that serve the homeless and got into at least one confrontation at a local mosque, according to law enforcement officials and others familiar with his movements.

On Jan. 1, Akram joined in the day’s last prayer at the Islamic Center of Irving, then asked if he could stay the night, according to Khalid Hamideh, a lawyer and spokesman for the mosque who has watched security footage of the episode and talked to those involved.

Hamideh said a staff member told Akram that city and mosque regulations prevented him from sleeping there, and Akram grew upset, telling staff, “You will be judged by God for not helping a fellow Muslim” and insisting “I’m from a good family.”

Hostage-taker’s English hometown not known for radical fervor

Akram — who was carrying a bag or backpack big enough to hold a weapon — left after the staff member threatened to call police, Hamideh said.

“God knows if he already had acquired the gun and already had the gun in there,” Hamideh said.

“We don’t search anybody,” Hamideh added. “Maybe we’ll start.”

Akram returned about 6 a.m. the next day, Hamideh said. By then, his demeanor had changed.

“This time he was calm, cool, collected,” Hamideh said. “He apologized for his behavior on the previous night and asked for permission just to use the sanctuary to conduct his prayer.”

Hamideh said Akram prayed alone, and left between 7 and 8 a.m. — walking into an empty parking lot. That night, he was dropped off at OurCalling, a Dallas center for homeless people, by a man who escorted him inside and embraced him before saying goodbye, the center’s chief executive has said.

Officials think he also spent time at another area facility for homeless people before knocking on the door of Congregation Beth Israel during Sabbath services the morning of Jan. 15.

After being invited inside and sitting through some of the service, Akram pulled out a gun and took four hostages: Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, congregant Jeffrey Cohen and two others whose names have not been released.

He soon demanded that Cytron-Walker call Buchdahl — who is known for her creative use of music in religious services and was photographed at a White House Hanukkah party during the Obama administration.

“He mentioned her by name, because he knew that she played guitar. . . . He thought that she was the most influential rabbi,” Cytron-Walker said Thursday in an online forum about the hostage-taking that was hosted by the Anti-Defamation League.

Akram wanted Buchdahl specifically to act on his demand that U.S. authorities free Siddiqui. Cytron-Walker reached Buchdahl by phone and relayed Akram’s desires, though both rabbis thought the demand was as far-fetched as it was frightening.

A spokesman for Buchdahl’s synagogue declined to comment.

Speaking at the same online forum, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said agents are still analyzing and reviewing “phones and other electronic devices and media, and there’s a lot more work to be done.”

“This was not some random occurrence — it was intentional, it was symbolic,” he said. “And we’re not going to tolerate antisemitism in this country.”

The hostage-taking has amplified public concern about security at houses of worship in general and synagogues in particular. On Thursday, Wray said the Texas attack was further evidence that terrorism threats increasingly come from lone actors plotting “fairly simple and unsophisticated — but just as deadly — attacks.”

The challenge for investigators trying to connect the dots to prevent an attack, he added, is “there are a lot fewer dots that connect and a lot less time to connect them.”

Law enforcement officials, who are investigating the hostage-taking as a terrorist act, say their portrait of Akram so far suggests Akram was a disturbed individual whose behavior occasionally raised concerns — but not urgent alarms. Officials caution that their understanding could change as they gather more information.

Akram’s relatives have said he had mental health problems. Law enforcement officials said he was known to British security officials, and the BBC reported earlier this week that MI5, Britain’s counterintelligence and security agency, investigated him in 2020 as a “subject of interest” but concluded that he no longer posed a threat.

On Thursday, two men in Manchester, England, were detained for questioning about Akram. Previously, law enforcement officials said, Akram’s teenage children were detained for questioning and released.


Douglas reported from Dallas.

One of the few rational comments:

So we now know that he bought a stolen gun in Texas, or at least bought a stolen gun from Texas, although I see no reason he would have researched gun shops in Texas from Texas if he already had a gun from NYC.

Last time I looked, stealing a gun was illegal as is selling a stolen gun.

Once again I ask, how do you prevent the illegal sales of guns?

https://www.star-telegram.com/...rticle257744768.html

Man accused of selling gun to Colleyville synagogue hostage-taker federally charged

BY JESSIKA HARKAY UPDATED JANUARY 26, 2022 2:16 PM

Nearly two weeks after 44-year-old British national Malik Faisal Akram took a Colleyville synagogue hostage for nearly 11 hours, the Department of Justice announced that a man has been charged with selling the hostage-taker a gun.

Henry “Michael” Williams, 32, is accused of selling Akram a semiautomatic Taurus G2C pistol on Jan. 13, just two days before the synagogue standoff that the FBI is investigating as an act of terrorism. The weapon was recovered at the scene after federal law enforcement fatally shot Akram, authorities said. The four hostages were unharmed, after one was released and the other three, including the congregation’s rabbi, escaped.

Williams was first interviewed the day after the standoff, after an FBI investigation found the two men “exchanged a series of calls between Jan. 11 through Jan 13.” Williams, at the time, told law enforcement that he recalled meeting a man with a British accent but was unable to remember his name.

Agents interviewed the defendant again on Jan. 24, after he was arrested on an outstanding state warrant,” the Department of Justice said in a news release. “After viewing a photo of Mr. Akram, Mr. Williams confirmed he sold Mr. Akram the handgun at an intersection in South Dallas.

Analysis of both men’s cellphone records showed that the two phones were in close proximity on Jan. 13.” The 32-year-old later reportedly told law enforcement that Akram said the gun was going to be used for intimidation purposes and “to get money from someone with an outstanding debt.”

Dallas FBI Special Agent in Charge Matthew DeSarno said the department has “worked around the clock” since Jan. 15 to figure out how Akram obtained a weapon and that the agency, along with federal, state and local partners, “pledge to continue our efforts to protect our communities from violence.”

Williams is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Williams was previously convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and attempted possession of a controlled substance, authorities said. He appeared in federal court in Dallas on Wednesday afternoon and is scheduled to have a detention hearing Monday.

“Federal firearm laws are designed to keep guns from falling into dangerous hands. As a convicted felon, Mr. Williams was prohibited from carrying, acquiring, or selling firearms. Whether or not he knew of his buyer’s nefarious intent is largely irrelevant — felons cannot have guns, period, and the Justice Department is committed to prosecuting those who do,” said U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham. “We are grateful to the many officers and agents who sprang into action as soon as the synagogue hostage crisis began, and who worked tirelessly to track the weapon from Mr. Akram to Mr. Williams. The freed hostages, the Beth Israel congregation, and indeed the entire Jewish community deserve that support.”

Along with Williams’ arrest, the Greater Manchester Police Department announced Wednesday morning that two men in Manchester have been arrested and are being questioned in connection to the hostage situation. “They remain in custody for questioning,” the police department shared over social media. “We continue to work closely with colleagues from other forces. Communities defeat terrorism, and the help and support we get from the public is a vital part of that.”

British police previously have questioned others with possible connections to Akram but have not announced any charges. U.S. authorities have said they believe Akram carried out the hostage-taking alone.

Henry “Michael” Williams, you are fucked, son.

So... where did Williams get a gun? Stolen perhaps??

No mention of how he obtained? Obviously there is a rightful owner?

I believe the pistol was reported stolen from a hotel room a couple of years ago.

pffft!

quote:

Whether or not he knew of his buyer’s nefarious intent is largely irrelevant — felons cannot have guns, period, and the Justice Department is committed to prosecuting those who do,” said U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham.

I'm not shedding any tears for a felon getting federal prosecution for having a gun. But it'd be nice if the feds went after all the other bad guys illegally in possession of guns or having bought them illegally too. They only seem to care when it's a link in a chain leading up to a bigger crime.

Ah, The Cell Phone. Communications device of feloniously stupid.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Henry “Michael” Williams, you are fucked, son.

He do have that kinda 'oh, sh*t' look about him, doncha think?

Texas 3 Isis 0

quote:

Originally posted by njauto:
Texas 3 Isis 0

From 2001… An oldie but goodie:

“Guess we gotta play cowboys and Indians, again.”