Virginia shootings near known Muslim camp (UPDATED)

This story has been developing for hours and yet details remain sketchy:

A suspect has been surrounded after a shooting incident in Appomattox County that left multiple fatalities, Virginia State Police said.

Media General News Service reported that while State Police had confirmed there were fatalities, they were not releasing identities or the exact number killed.

State Police Sgt. Thomas Molnar said officers had set up a perimeter around a wooded area where the suspect was "contained" but not in custody. As of 7 p.m. EST, about 100 officers had converged on the targeted area.

A State Police helicopter was forced to the ground when it began to leak fuel after being hit by gunfire four times, Molnar said. No law enforcement officers were reported hurt.

Police were first alerted to the incident about noon when dispatchers received a call about a man lying in Snapps Mill Road in need off medical help. An officer who arrived at the scene heard shots being fired and the helicopter was fired on about 1:30 p.m.

Cornerstone Christian Academy, located in the vicinity, was locked down as a precaution and students were released to their parents shortly after 3 p.m.

The (Lynchburg, Va.) News & Advance reported officers were brought in from sheriff's offices in Appomattox, Prince Edward, Campbell and Charlotte counties, as well as officers from the Farmville Police Department and the Virginia State Police, including tactical and K-9 units. A suspect has been surrounded after a shooting incident in Appomattox County that left multiple fatalities, Virginia State Police said.

Media General News Service reported that while State Police had confirmed there were fatalities, they were not releasing identities or the exact number killed.

State Police Sgt. Thomas Molnar said officers had set up a perimeter around a wooded area where the suspect was "contained" but not in custody. As of 7 p.m. EST, about 100 officers had converged on the targeted area.

A State Police helicopter was forced to the ground when it began to leak fuel after being hit by gunfire four times, Molnar said. No law enforcement officers were reported hurt.

Police were first alerted to the incident about noon when dispatchers received a call about a man lying in Snapps Mill Road in need off medical help. An officer who arrived at the scene heard shots being fired and the helicopter was fired on about 1:30 p.m.

Cornerstone Christian Academy, located in the vicinity, was locked down as a precaution and students were released to their parents shortly after 3 p.m.

The (Lynchburg, Va.) News & Advance reported officers were brought in from sheriff's offices in Appomattox, Prince Edward, Campbell and Charlotte counties, as well as officers from the Farmville Police Department and the Virginia State Police, including tactical and K-9 units.

This is interesting on a number of levels... but especially because of what is found nearby in an area called Red House:

During the Beltway Sniper crisis, back in the fall of 2002, a series of articles in The Washington Times described John Allen Muhammad’s conversion to Islam, and his later break with the Nation of Islam (the articles are no longer available, but extracts have been preserved here). Apparently the NOI was not militant enough for Mr. Muhammad, and he left it to become involved with a group called Jamaat ul-Fuqra (Arabic for “community of the impoverished”), a terrorist organization founded by a notorious Pakistani cleric, Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani.

What drew my eye in the article was the mention of a Jamaat ul-Fuqra compound in Red House, Virginia. Red House?! I know Red House — a small village in rural Charlotte County.

Jihad Watch has more:

Islamic extremists in the United States have traditionally set up shop in big cities with large Muslim populations: places like New York City, Dearborn, Michigan and even Washington, DC. But one secretive group is doing just the opposite.

They call themselves Muslims of America. They've established compounds throughout the rural U.S. Members say they moved to the countryside to lead peaceful lives free of "Western decadence." But others say that doesn't tell the whole story.

"Certainly, when you're in a rural area it enables you to better escape from the prying eyes of law enforcement," said CBN News consultant David Gartenstein-Ross.

He says Muslims of America has close ties to a violent Pakistani group named Jamaat Al-Fuqra. Both groups are led by the same extremist cleric: Sheikh Mubarak Gilani.

"Sheikh Gilani is an extremist figure known to be very much involved in the jihads against India, also known to be very much anti-Semitic," Gartenstein-Ross said.

Gilani's images and messages are all over the Muslims of America Web site.

He founded the group during a visit to Brooklyn in 1980. Shoe bomber Richard Reid and Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammed are said to have been among his followers.

Gilani encouraged his U.S. pupils-mostly African Americans-to move to rural areas and establish Muslim communes. The group now has dozens of these communes nationwide.

"Al Fuqra has compounds from coast-to-coast.and what this indicates is they're going to areas where land is plentiful--where you can get land for relatively cheap prices," Gartenstein-Ross said.

CBN News visited the group's 45-acre site in Red House, Virginia - a town so small you can barely find it on a map. There are no traffic lights, and the only signs of industry are a pair of convenience stores. So when a street sign popped up named after a radical Pakistani sheikh-along with men and women dressed in traditional Islamic garb- the locals took notice.

So where exactly is Red House?  Roughly 11 miles south of Appomatox, Virgina.  Or roughly 16 miles from Snapp Hills Road, where one of the victims was found, 14 miles from the Christian school on lockdown.

I confess that what I'm tying together is thin... that I have nothing to substantiate what I'm writing here other than my recollection that near where this event has taken place today is this camp... I simply find the apparent sketchiness as to details on today's event to be too interesting not to report the location of the nearby camp.

Time will obviously tell. 

My hope is that this is merely coincidental.  And that I'm simply full of crap for posting about it.

UPDATE: My being full of crap (on this one) is being substantiated as more details are learned:

Late Tuesday, state police officers said that they thought they had the gunman, whom they identified as Christopher Speight, 39, surrounded in the woods and that he was still alive.

Seven bodies were found in one house, the authorities said, and the eighth victim was found by the side of the road and died on the way to the hospital.

All the victims were adults, the police said.

A state police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation, said two of the victims were thought to be the wife and the son of the gunman. He would not give other details.

I now suspect, as Dymphna implied in the comments, that this is all about a domestic situation gone horribly awry.

Comments

[Lacnunga]

DUGG here because I came to EXACTLY the same conclusion!

http://digg.com/d31G9hd

Please DIGG.. every DIGG can get 1000 extra views.

Remember that there may be moderate Muslims but that there is NO moderate Islam! Islam is at war with the west... so-called extremists represent TRUE Islam.

[Dymphna]

I think it's coincidental. My co-blogger was part of the demonstration at the Charlotte courthouse trying to get the name of Sheikh Julani Lane changed (the county supervisors were too scared) and he's been to Red House a number of times, taking pictures.

In fact, the opening shot in the main video out on this group was taken by my son. I was a wreck until they got back home.

Red House has no ties to Appomatox County except that the people at the compound do their grocery shopping there.

Of course there is always the possibility that this was some kind of satellite program but I think we'd have heard about it. Frankly, it sounds like a family problem which probably involved alcohol or drugs. Family members often live near one another. Doesn't mean they necessarily get along and if you have one real problem member who is either mentally unbalanced or on substances, you can have a big, noisy problem.

I see why you'd want to make the equation and in a way, I'd like it if you were right. It would mean that inner cohesion is breaking down.

Unfortunately, when they finally leave that compound in Red House, it's not going to be as muted or limited as what happened today.

[Jackassalope]

Sorry doods. I know you really wanted the murderer to be a Muslim terrorist, but he turned out to be one of your own... a Christian, camouflage-wearing, gun-toting, corn-fed, hot-tempered teabagging dittohead.

[Rick]

We await your substantiation of these claims Jackassalope...

[Jackassalope]

No need to be profane, Mr. Rick, I'm just being "Brutally Honest." You know, "Plain thoughts, delivered roughly."

[Rick]

We're still waiting for some substantiation of your claims... you may have noticed in my post that I allowed the notion of being full of crap, and then updated the post to state that in fact, I was full of crap in this instance...

When will you do the same?

We won't hold our breath... we're familiar with your type around here... Jackassalope...

[Jackassalope]

Interesting, Mr. Rick. Exactly what is "my type?"

[Rick]

You're a liberal troll Jackassalope... plain and simple... we continue to await some substance from you, something with meat on it to back up your claims... we don't get it or some admittance that you're full of crap yourself and frankly, you're likely to start getting edited...

Your call.

[Jackassalope]

The details are starting to emerge. According to The Richmond Times Dispatch this morning, "Speight is a 6-foot, 195-pound handyman, construction worker and security guard who held a longtime fascination with guns and a fear of governmental conspiracies, according to co-workers."

Certainly fits the profile of the typical white, Christian, rural southern teabagger to me. He's gun- and explosives-obsessed, and raised in a part of the country where Eric Rudolph is considered a folk hero.

The article didn't say if he was wearing a Timothy McVeigh-style "Don't Tread on Me" T-shirt under his camous and bulletproof vest when he was arrested.

Smells like a typical teabagger to me.

[Jackassalope]

The Washington Post, today on Speight (I know, according to the gospel according to the teabaggers, the Post is a Communist, Nazi, Muslim newspaper.)

Friends, in letters in support of his successful 1995 application for a concealed weapons permit, called him "an upstanding, Christian young man" and "very mature and responsible."

Co-workers who knew Speight as a calm, fervent Jehovah's Witness who liked to shoot said they were astounded by the allegations. Speight was a shooter more than a hunter, and guns were one of the main interests of his life, said [David] Anderson, who owns the Sunshine Market No. II, where Speight worked as a contractor security guard for many years.

Speight had collected at least 25 firearms, including black powder weapons, replicas of Old West era "cowboy"-style cap and ball six-shooters and many .223-caliber AR-15 semiautomatic rifles, which were among Speight's favorites.

"You ever been in a gun shop before, and they're all lined up across the wall? That's Chris," Anderson said.

In addition to the gun safes full of weapons, Speight also had the equipment for reloading ammunition, Anderson said. Anderson said Speight had military and paramilitary gear such as night-vision goggles and Kevlar vests. Speight also had ghillie suits, which appear covered with leaves and allow hunters or snipers to become nearly invisible in the woods.

Roland B. Parris Jr. of Appomattox wrote to support Speight's gun application that year, saying that Speight had participated in a National Rifle Association high-powered rifle clinic and competition, which he excelled in. "I can tell the character of a man after coaching him for two days on the rifle range," Parris wrote. "Chris did very well with high scores to prove his ability with the rifle."

[Jackassalope]

This from the Lynchburg, VA News & Advance:

A 1996 form in the records showed he [Christopher Speight] completed training and Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services private security certification in handguns and pump shotguns. Another certificate showed he completed a three-hour handgun training course conducted by the Liberty University Police Department.

Isn't Liberty University a Madrasa started by the radical cleric, Jerry Falwell, and still run by his son?