Counterterrorism Scorecard: New Jersey Store Clerk: ‘A+,’ Congress: ‘F’
On January 25, a little before 4:00 a.m., a clerk at the Quick Chek on Route 28 in Branchburg, New Jersey, noticed a black male in a military jacket acting suspiciously inside the all-night convenience store. The clerk called the police. Patrolman Steven Cronce showed up and, after conducting a field interview, agreed with the clerk’s assessment. The man, whose name is Lloyd Woodson, was acting “extremely nervous.” Suddenly, the man ran. As Woodson fled, the policeman noticed his “back was flat,” which led him to believe Woodson might be wearing a bulletproof vest.
Outside, Lloyd Woodson disappeared inside a nearby trailer park. Patrolman Cronce called for backup, and soon a group of officers were canvassing the area for the suspect. There was a chase, a tackle, and Woodson resisting arrest. The pepper spray came out.
According to the police report: “Woodson was concealing a loaded Bushmaster semi-automatic .223 caliber (5.56 mm) assault rifle, which had been altered to fire .50 caliber ammunition, inside of his military-style coat.” And under his coat, “Woodson was wearing a military-style ballistic vest with a reinforced front steel plate and had four additional loaded magazines, all containing ball type and hollow-point ammunition.” The Bushmaster rifle had a “defaced serial number.”
In other words, he was weaponed-up and ready to do battle.
New Jersey prosecutor Wayne J. Forrest ordered Lloyd Woodson’s local hotel room searched. There police found:
- a Bushmaster .308 caliber semi-automatic assault rifle with a defaced serial number
- a 37 mm Cobray grenade launcher
- a second ballistic vest
- a rifle mountable Nightsight Illuminator NP75 (Russia) night vision scope
- hundreds of additional .50 caliber and .308 caliber ammunition along with military pouches and garrison equipment
- a police scanner
- a military-style backpack
- a map of a U.S. military installation — which turned out to be Fort Drum
- a map of an out-of-state civilian community
- a Middle Eastern red and white colored traditional headdress, or keffiyeh
There is not much else to tell you about this story that you can’t already surmise. The angry, weapons-toting ideologue bent on killing U.S. soldiers has become a familiar narrative in the war on terror. So has the mislaid blame.
The important player in this story, at least as far as winning the war on terror is concerned, is the Quick Chek clerk on Route 28. Like the Dutch filmmaker on NWA Flight 253 and the video clerk near Fort Dix, the clerk’s actions no doubt saved countless lives. Sad but true, the clerk gets an A+ for counterterrorism work well done. Long gone is the idea of John Doe being “the last line of defense” — the clerk, the filmmaker, and the video duplicator are increasingly finding themselves on America’s front lines.
This is, I think, largely due to a second narrative, best represented this week in a news story that broke 24 hours later.
On January 26, a little before the business day began, former Senators Bob Graham and Jim Talent — chair and vice chair of the “bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism” — released a “report card” saying the U.S. government is doing a bad job protecting the nation from terrorists’ WMD threats. In fact, say the former senators, out of 17 subjects to address, the U.S. government got three “Fs” and an “incomplete” — that one on implementing a comprehensive policy about nuclear risks in Pakistan, no less.
There are 535 members of Congress. There are 80 congressional committees and sub-committees dealing with homeland security. Eighty. And between them, they collectively failed three out of seventeen subjects and got an incomplete in the subject of Pakistani nukes.
These two stories epitomize what the war on terror has come to in 2010. The average citizen takes action, or is forced to take action, while an impotent Congress rearranges deck chairs on the Titanic for pay.
The average citizen takes action, or is forced to take action
How far will we be forced to go? This is our lives, our country. Another of today’s news stories is al-Qaeda’s determination to launch a large-scale WMD attack on America.
I know that sober, responsible forums ban certain suggestions, but we have to start thinking seriously about the extent of the action we’ll be forced to take.
Just for some perspective, this guy must have been pretty well-funded, and one wonders how he was ‘concealing’ this bad girl (or one of its equally bulky sisters).
Gee I hope he has been read his Miranda rights.
No PC profiling there! Just keeping ones eyes open and rely on experience with normal balanced humans goes a long way to spotting problems. After living in NYC and riding the subways, you get pretty good at spotting trouble and not looking at the eyes of the problem. Ask any experienced NYPD patrolman or Customs agent, they are instinctive at seeing folks looking for trouble.
Ms. Jacobsen – Good column except for one thing – your use of the term “assault rifle.” I have a version of the rifle but it doesn’t look so scary and looks don’t count when it comes to guns; what counts is the caliber. The version of the gun I have is a Ruger Mini-14 which Ruger calls, a Ranch Rifle. The gun shoots the same 0.223 caliber bullets and is listed as being a “varmint gun” because it’s best used for small game (foxes, coyotes, etc.). It doesn’t do well against big game (e.g., deer). You would not call my gun, an “assault rife” because it doesn’t look scary. A more deadly rifle is another one I have which shoots .308 rounds. Again, the gun doesn’t look scary but it would certainly do more damage than the original “assault rifle” of the perp. Of course, his having altered the .223 to shoot .50 caliber rounds makes the gun far more deadly irrespective of looks.
It’s OK. Well, it is not, but we know what we can expect from Congress.
But it is important that We the People remain vigilant and ready.
I am sure that the jihadists appreciate the FULL meaning of the Second Amendment.
The Japs during WW II appreciated it too.
Judas H. Priest:
“A mind-present stander-by saves the day”
From John Brunner’s Dystopian SF novel predicting
life in the US in the 21st century: “Stand on Zanzibar”,
which describes how far society will have decivilized,
and what suggested actions citizens will have to take,
in graphic prose which may not be quoted here – yet.
Relevant coined word:
“Mucker” from “Amok” a person who snaps under the strain
of surviving in society, and goes on a killing spree.
Sooner or later someone will finally get the message that an “assault rifle” MUST be convertible to full-automatic fire with the flick of a switch or it is NOT an “assault rifle.”
Of course, our great leaders must already know (wish?) this guy was a loner unconnected to other terrorists. If he happens to be a Muslim, that would be unimportant to them.
Nobody is talking about this, but Reston Virginia is only a few miles from Falls Church where the largest Mosque on the East coast is located. George mason University, only a few kilometers from the last know residence of this terrorist has a huge endowment from Saudi and other terror sponsors for “Islamic Studies”. The place is an Islamic hotbed crawling with Muslim terrorists, all funded and fomented by their Saudi paymasters, the same ones who have our politicians and functionaries, from Presidents to CIA chiefs to Senators, Congressmen, and Ambassadors in their trillion dollar financial thrall.
Only a few miles beyond the perimeter described above lies the “Saudi Academy” of terror, the place where the valedictorian from 1999, one Raed Alsaif, was arrested in 2003 in a plot to assassinate GW Bush.
Congress is too busy trying to come up with ways to intrude government into OUR private lives and make us pay for the privilege to bother with a nitpicky thing like anti-American terrorism.
.50 cal? I’d give him 2 maybe 3 rounds before he shatters his arm and shoulder and knocks himself on his from the recoil. Anyone ever fire a .50 caliber weapon before? They are hard enough to carry let alone shoot.
How does one modify a .223 AR frame to fire .50 caliber? Something isn’t correct about such a claim.
I didn’t think that a .223 rifle could be modified, at least not easily, to shoot 0.50 caliber ammunition of any kind. The barrel would have to be different. The receiver would have to be different. Even the magazine, assuming auto-loading, would have to be different.
I suspect that the police meant ‘the weapon was modified to fire 50 rounds [magazine]‘ not use 0.50 caliber ammunition. Technically, a larger capacity magazine might not require actual modification of the weapon but the normal magazine is 30 rounds so using a 50 round mag might be construed as ‘a modified weapon’. Then again, the officer might have wrote it wrong.
But I could easily be wrong.
.50 Caliber would need to be anchored to fire, the recoil would take your shoulder off.
Other than that, this is a perfect terorist, he has all the right stuff and loads of it, I never in my life would have guessed that of all places Virginia becomes a islamic haven, I onced lived without even the mention of a a muslim and they were building their camp right under my nose. the politicians are crazy as a bed bug.
@5. Jack in Silver Spring: – your use of the term “assault rifle.”
To be fair, “assault rifle” wasn’t the author’s choice of terms. It was the choice of whomever wrote up the police report she references (check the link). At worst, the use of ‘[sic]‘ might have been in order.
I was going to bring this up, up above, but it’s a tad ancillary. On topic, you’d think with EIGHTY federal organizations dedicated to homeland security, they’d have at least ONE person with some actual firearms experience, who could go out into the land and school these clueless police departments on what is and what is not an assault rifle. The very phrase used in the report – “semi-automatic assault rifle” – is an oxymoron.
So, how does one convert a .223 caliber to receive, and fire, a .50 caliber round? Without blowing up the weapon? Because a .50 caliber round is just a teeny bit more powerful than a .223 caliber!
I call BS on changing a AR weapon 5.56, or 7.62 to fire a .50 round.
I bet money he was taught Islam is prison. Check the Mosque, Imam, cell phones, and CPU’s anywhere this nice man has been spending his time.
Never mind, put me in charge right now.
BZO, or Die!
thanks for writing this …it is not on the news that I have seen.
Guys, gals: Click the “this bad girl” link
in comment 2. goy, and see the Bushmaster;
All your weapons questions answered.
The WWII fifty caliber Browning Machine Gun (BMG)
round was designed to shoot through a palm tree,
and the Japanese soldier standing behind it,
and can hit a man-sized target a mile away.
The grenade launcher would have been for use at
short range, against crowds, or when barricaded,
against the Police, at the end of the Death Run.
A competent Commando’s casualty count would have
been in triple digits by then; We lucked out, again.
17. Hotpatch6:
So, how does one convert a .223 caliber to receive, and fire, a .50 caliber round? Without blowing up the weapon? Because a .50 caliber round is just a teeny bit more powerful than a .223 caliber!
not sure but it would mainly a barrel change plus firing mechanism.
I would probably venture that it is really the other way around and .50 modified (or mounted) on a .223 caliber weapon to make it lighter and more portable and concealable.
caveat, I may be mistaken
I know it isn’t well liked, but its time for all of us to remember we have a moral obligation to protect our families and help out neighbors. That may be as simple as being vigilent and calling authorities when we see something suspicious. An action I heartily endorse, by the way. But also be prepared to use escalating force if needed & possible to prevent home invasion, car jacking, purse snatching, general terroristic threats from gangs, etc. We never should have abbrogated our responsibilities in this arena. My opinion is that it is a natural consequence of newpapers and television constantly harping on the fact that the government will take care of us, plus the police departments and other law enforcement agencies not wanting to have to make concious decisions to see who might be law abiding citizens in possession of firearms (any firearm not in their possession is a threat – get it, but we ask our soldiers and marines to make that assessment in a much more hostile environment every day and they do it well). Then you have the folks who are constitutional illiterates and can’t get the implications of Art II. Oh well, I banged (maybe bunged?) my head on the wall enough; I feel better now. BTW, probably not a .50 cal weapon. Lots of reasons why that idea is toast, but I can’t see it, so I don’t really know – sure as the world not an auto or semi-auto weapon loading .50 cal rounds. That one is an M2 and weighs upwards of 70-100 lbs.
@17. Hotpatch6: – So, how does one convert a .223 caliber to receive, and fire, a .50 caliber round?
Apparently it’s now pretty easy, albeit expensive. And I don’t know how reliable or manageable the resulting assembly would be. See the link in my post at #2. There are other similar systems available. Just google. What I’m curious about is how on earth this guy was “concealing” that thing under a “military” (field?) jacket. You’d have trouble concealing that conversion under a full-length raincoat if the magazine were attached (as the report implies).
Let’s see, American dead by terrorist under Bush and Cheney – 3,000. American dead under Obama – a dozen at Ft. Hood. I guess that gives Bush a “Z”
18. Leatherneck:
Yu sound a lot like Sgt. Charles Dyer. Are you an Oath keeper? Do you have a niece? You do? Great. You’re officially in charge. What are our next steps, skipper?
“a Bushmaster .308 caliber semi-automatic assault rifle with a defaced serial number”
Please,. There is no such thing as a “semi-automatic assault rifle”
Was it chambered for .50 BMG? I doubt an AR/Bushmaster receiver even has the length or bolt travel to feed a cartridge the size of a cigar. And the recoil in a ~6 lb weapon would be crippling; might even break the aluminum. Christ, the only current .50 BMG “shoulder” weapons, the Barret, the Macmillan and similar sniper rifles, are bipod mounted and employ recoiling barrels and muzzle brakes.
However, it might just be the case that he had his Bushmaster modified to fire, say, .50 Action Express or a similar mega handgun round.
And don’t miss the key evidence of motive:
“a Middle Eastern red and white colored traditional headdress, or keffiyeh”
He was misunderstood and a product of poverty and racism but embraced the religion of peace. Now move along, nothing to see here.
So, are Brangelina still together?????
lets see, real hero american army marine soldier one.
Stupid dudes and dudettes like u …zero…
so it one to zero.. u lose
cuz its those of us that actually serve… and are those that lose minus those like u that actually have all the money and win….great stuff… good duty, great honor, fantastic Bush Country…
Our government needs to undertake aggressive profiling. A man with a semiautomatic weapon can do a lot of damage. However, we live in environments that are just chock full of items that could create far more casualties than a shooter could. I will not describe them and I hope that no one else will.
I am all in favor of Americans owning guns and carrying guns. But guns are good against gunmen and not much else. We need to take out the terrorists before they can act.
@ 20; Actually the 12.7×99 aka .50BMG was adopted in 1921, primarily for ground use against the armored vehicles and aircraft of the day.
The 37mm “grenade launcher” is not capable of firing explosive grenades (they’re 40mm).If it was it would be classified as ordnance.It can fire flares,smoke,tear gas and other non lethal rounds.
Troll @ 24&25; Careful what you wish for Moho,Obama has 3 more years,and I doubt you would like Leathernecks’ answer to your second question.Probably something along the lines of Gen. Pershings’ Moro antidote.
@26. Bohemond: – Was it chambered for .50 BMG?
Yikes.
Does no one actually READ the comments before they comment?
Just google “.50 cal bushmaster“. You’ll find all the info you can read about conversion kits for this.
Now, THAT said, I have to wonder whether or not these cops actually know what they’re talking about at all. Since, as you note (and I did, up above), the phrase “semi-automatic assault rifle” is a bona fide oxymoron. It’s typical language used by a government far more interested in demonizing firearms than in preventing terrorism.
If these guys don’t understand this simple fact, how are we to trust that they know a .50 when they see one? To wit…
A “large bulge”?? Are you kidding me? LOOK at this thing. That’s an example of what you end up with when you convert a Bushmaster to .50 cal. It would print much more than a “large bulge”. It would be sticking out considerably below the standard “military-style jacket”. And if the rifle had been converted to .50 cal., then it was no longer a .223. Duh. It simply makes one wonder whether this Cronce guy has the first clue about what he saw and whether this department has any clue at all.
What has been spent from 2004 to 2006 in the Bush years would have paid for 30 years of health care and free ….free higher education for an entire generation of young americans.
thirty years…
instead, we chose to spend it all on halliburton, blackwater, wars and OIL companies….
Thanks George Bush….
we feel so much safer now…
did the trolls get banned at huffinton post that they come here?
33: Gee, if going into Iraq was for the evil oil companies and the Bush/Cheney cabal, why did Russia and China get all the oil contracts from Iraq and we get squat?
Give up the “blood for oil” meme, please. It’s false and it’s tired.
And at least after 9/11 we didn’t (under Bush) let people waltz in with bombs in their underwear and then treat them with kid gloves, while vilifying our own military, and then claim “the system worked”.
I cannot tell if the “50 caliber is 50BMG or something else with a 1/2 inch bore size and a (presumably) smaller casing.
However, it seems obvious that the conversion unit is a turnbolt
and is neither self-loading nor self-firing. Thus, the entire
force of the firing is contained in the conversion unit itself.
This is why it can be mounted on the lower receiver of the AR platform.
Cannot say what kind of intrinsical accuracy it would produce, but I daresay practical accuracy ain’t exactly up to Boone and Crockett standards, let alone those of Alvin York and Carlos Hathcock.
If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that this piece was picked simply on the basis of looks just to say “jihadist”. Other gear, especially flare gun, fits right in with this. all
of which is reinforced by that headress. (Latter BTW is of the type normally worn by the Philistines, AKA Palestinians. Might have been provided via a handler who was of that background, or who wanted us to think he was, or is a red herring, or perp picked it on his own. NFI. Meaning of the fashion statement is clear, orgin of statement murky.)
who the hell is this guy? this should be an enormous story, with a lot of detail about where he comes from and what were his intentions. moslems are getting very bold like cockroaches who come out even when its light. if only we had a president. if only.
Brothers and sisters, you can bet that this terrorist wannabe lone ranger isn’t the only lone ranger. Hell this guy wasn’t even hiding. There will be more. Stay vigilant. A few nuts like this go off and then a crackdown over reaction instead of a serious well thought out program to root them out while protecting indivdual rights. A few nuts go off and all will pay. It will be tragic. Just wait till the government runs out of other peoples money and all of the second handers hit the streets because the checks aren’t in the mail anymore.
skeezix/homo/davids/troll: I ‘ll bet you got beat up a lot on the playground when you were little. . .get over it, grow a pair and become a man Our country needs defending, not hating. . .I hear your mommy calling from the kitchen- your pb&j sandwich is ready. . . .Poor citizen-go back to smoking your rope and get off the 60′s propaganda bandwagon.it is over.
27. Bohemond:“a Middle Eastern red and white colored traditional headdress, or keffiyeh”
This jumped out at me too. The AP led me to believe the guy was disgruntled because he was discharged by the Navy and this was just another “killing for being fired” situation. I had no idea until now the greasy thug was a Muslim.
Weapon was likely a Bushmaster converted to .50 caliber Beowulf with a new receiver/upper, a custom round that is a .50 caliber bullet loaded in what is basically a very large pistol cartridge. It uses the same lower and magazines as the .223 version, but is a larger lower velocity bullit good for a large impact at shorter ranges, It as about 1000 dollars for the upgrade. That plus the other gear shows this guy either stole or bought a few thousand dollars worth of gear. They should check to see where the money came from.
“What has been spent from 2004 to 2006 in the Bush years would have paid for 30 years of health care and free ….free higher education for an entire generation of young americans.”
Huh? The delusions and ignorance of the trolls are really on display in this thread. And yes, let’s all pay more of our wages to provide free higher education so that more trolls can be so indoctrinated. Then we can just sit back and watch the dividends to society pour in.
http://truthandcommonsense.com/2010/01/29/annie-jacobsen-rates-the-terrorist-defense-systems-in-america-store-clerks-beat-the-federal-government/
In my post I cite a number of recent attacks, all apparently random. The trouble with the feds, and I’ve worked with them, is their inability to change direction quickly. At my website I have posted several examples my fellow officers ran into. The trouble with this time of “jab” attacks is that it is meant to keep the opponent off guard, and will. As you can see, the last two administrations, at least publicly, are in full denial for a number of reasons, the biggest being they can’t admit they can’t handle it. (If you can’t do the job, why do we need you? kind of deal.)
However, the key is to realize the attackers do not have to know each other to function in coordination. All they have to know is the common goal, which is to keep us afraid. As I said in my post-
“Just because Woodson didn’t know the shooter in Arkansas personally (and I am making an assumption here) doesn’t mean they aren’t working for the same company. Try to imagine a jihadist UPS, using individual drivers to deliver packages across the nation. They don’t know each other, but they do know the goal, to disrupt the nation’s confidence.”
What will occur because of this refusal to admit we are in a shooting war? More people are going to get killed. There can be no other outcome. Obama is willing for YOU to take that hit as long as it suits the “greater good.” The only time he will address this situation is to demonize gun ownership- which is coming. On a side note, I’m sure part of the plan with healthcare was to use a single-payer system to discourage ownership (higher rates, less coverage, etc. because of the “higher risk of gun ownership” to the policy holder. Hey, if they are squawking about Big Macs being bad, you think they’ll pass on guns?). But that appears to be on hold, for now, so he’ll be finding a way to link terrorism and gun ownership in order to squeeze down the legitimate owners in America. His lame attempt over the Mexican border drug gang war issue was the first shot across the bow. There will be more.
However, as far as your personal security is concerned, hope that the clerks stay alert. They seem to be the only ones paying attention.
Rich Day, #28,
Great one! Perfectly sums up our politicians and brain dead tube specialists!