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Praise Allah and Pass the AmmuNikes

 Allah never did much for Richard Reid. Transformed him from a two-bit British punk to an international laughingstock, I guess that’s something. But in his Colorado supermax cell, Shoe Bomber Dick’s faith is strong:   

“I had a couple of good dreams about my situation changing for the better in the not too distant future so this is a blessing from Allah.

“I place my trust in Allah that he will bring that into fruition and ask him to give me patience until the time when that occurs.”

Reid, who was arrested in December 2001, is held in virtual solitary confinement at the maximum security ADX Florence in Colorado. The petty criminal converted to Islam while in Feltham young offenders institution.

In the letters Reid tells his father Robin, who is a recovering drug addict living in a homeless hostel, that his deceased aunt could not be in a “better place” because she was not a Muslim.

Reid added: “How’s your situation in regards to upholding the daily prayers?

“Hopefully my advice was well received and if you didn’t start praying yet, I’d ask you to re-read the two letters I wrote earlier this year on that subjectand to reflect on your situation with Allah.

“As long as we strive to follow the laws which he has laid down for us then everything which occurs in this life contains some good for us.”

Dick’s concern for his hapless homeless old man is touching, how from solitary confinement he tries to steer him toward salvation … in Allah. How he gently explains, tough luck about your sister, but she’s burning in hell.

I’ll always have a soft spot for that wacky jihadi.  Aka Abdul Raheem, but for some reason his Mo name never took.

I was working the night Richard tried to detonate his sneakers on American Airlines 63, Paris to Miami.  It was just three months after September 11, and the passengers jumped him, beat the crap out of him, and trussed him up with their belts.  Here’s what he looked like after the feds rescued him from the passengers and hustled him away.  I still love that picture, don’t you? Here’s his mugshot, after the swelling went down.  As you can see, Richard belongs to the Ringo Starr Look-Alike Club.

Anyway, in the newsroom on the night of Dec. 22, 2001, we began hearing scanner chatter about a plane being escorted into Boston by fighter jets, some kind of terrorist incident. I was dispatched to Logan International Airport, where I ran into all my old  media vulture pals, and we settled in for the wait. The passengers had been corralled for questioning, and to keep us the heck away from them.  But as the hours passed, we importuned, and eventually they were going to have to cut these people loose for the night, so when the passengers were let out to pick up their luggage, they were allowed to wander over if they chose to a barrier that had been set up to keep us at bay.  A French passenger came over, and here’s what I wrote from that: 

The passengers on American Airlines Flight 63 had finished a quiet lunch and were settling in for the long Atlantic flight faced with nothing more exciting than a movie when a flight attendant cried out for help yesterday.

French TV journalist Thierry Dugeon, 36, was 10 rows behind the fracas in coach.

“Suddenly, I heard a female voice, `I need some help! I need some help!’ ” Dugeon said.

Instinctively, he ran up the narrow aisle to join the group of passengers in a desperate struggle with a man believed to have a bomb.

“It’s three months after September 11th. Of course the first thing you think is something like terrorism,” Dugeon said. “Ten rows in front of me it looked like a fight. I joined the fight . . . It’s pure instinct. It goes so fast. It was my ass as well as the others. You hear a stewardess screaming on an airplane, what do you do? You fight!”

Dugeon was one of 185 passengers aboard the Miami-bound Boeing 767 that landed safely, under fighter jet escort, at Logan International Airport. He spoke with the Herald after being questioned by police and before boarding another plane for Florida.

Dugeon described the melee that lasted long minutes. “Everybody was trying to hold whatever part of the body he could. He was a powerful man. You could feel him resisting,” he said.

The fight took place in a crowded, narrow economy class aisle. Shortly after a woman left her seat, the culprit by the window of Row 29 lit a match, drawing a reprimand from a flight attendant. Minutes later she caught him trying to light the tongue of his black, suede high-topped basketball shoe. When she tried to take the matches away, he bit her on the hand, other passengers said.

“The nearest passengers saw it and grabbed him and tried to put him in his seat, put him under control . . . He was struggling. He was real powerful. But we were like five or six,” Dugeon said.

The struggle, he said, was a blur as passengers tried to subdue the 6-foot-4 suspected terrorist in his seat. They finally had him immobilized.

“After that, we tied him up with everything we had,” Dugeon said. Passengers gave up their belts, strapped a seatbelt around the man, and someone else produced several plastic zip-ties, anything they could get to restrain the unruly man.

A member of the flight crew threatened to blast the man with a fire extinguisher if he moved.

Two doctors on board the Paris-to-Miami flight appeared with syringes and administered sedatives while a flight attendant began questioning him. Passengers rifled his pockets.

“A flight attendant said, `Are you French?’ He said no,” Dugeon said.

Searchers found a passport in the name of Richard Reid.

“When we found the passport, the flight attendant said, `Are you British?’ He said, `No, I’m Jamaican,’ ” Dugeon said.

The journalist said despite the tumultuous, life-and-death fight, the plane settled into a stunned silence almost immediately after its end. Some passengers spoke quietly of fears that there might be a bomb in the cargo hold.

There did not appear to be fear of other assailants nor a search for possible accomplices, Dugeon said.

“Nobody panicked. The crew was very efficient. Everybody kept sitting. Nobody was saying anything . . . Everybody was really quiet,” Dugeon said.

Flight attendants used the public address system to ask passengers to remain seated and assured them the plane was secure and they were now being diverted to Boston.

Only as the flight neared its new destination did the captain take up the microphone to again reassure the passengers and to warn them they might see F-15 fighter jets escorting them.

The final hours of the flight were filled with the scheduled showing of the goofy comedy “Legally Blonde,” which is based in Boston.

“Bad luck!” Dugeon joked.

When asked if he was proud of what he and others had accomplished, Dugeon answered, “Proud? No. It is basic, I think.

“It was like everybody knew not what they had to do, but what they needed to do,” Dugeon said.

Of course nowadays, we’re all on the same plane. Not everybody knows what they need to do.  But I don’t want to get preachy.  I’m just thinking about my old pal Abdul Raheem. * Good luck with that Allah escape plan, Dick!

*That wasn’t the last contact.  The guy who installed my cable a few years ago was a moonlighting deputy sheriff from the Plymouth County Jail, where the shoe bomber was held awaiting trial in U.S. District Court in Boston.  It was like old home week as we chatted about the doofy jihadi, and he recounted some of the conversations he had had with him … you know, about the righteousness of blowing people up for Allah, about the Great Satan, all that. 

Topics: GWOT, Islam, Boston

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:57 am on Wednesday, August 1, 2007

8 Responses to “Praise Allah and Pass the AmmuNikes”

1. sarah rolph Says:
   August 1st, 2007 at 8:41 am

   Thanks for posting this article, I had never heard this whole story.

   Maybe I ought to be reading the Herald…

2. Mr. Bingley Says:
   August 1st, 2007 at 9:24 am

   Kind of ironic it was Nikes, though, isn’t it? Remember when they got in lots of djimmih trouble for having ‘air’ spelled in flowery script that made it look like ‘allah’?

3. twolaneflash Says:
   August 1st, 2007 at 9:47 am

   Nike just keeps getting itself enmeshed with thugs with no conscience: first Reid, now Vick. Maybe Nike can team up with CAIR and remake their image with the muslim and thug crowd. Something like: “Nike Air-Jihads: When You Have To Run Like Hell.”

4. Jeffersonian Says:
   August 1st, 2007 at 10:19 am

   Good story, Jules, and kudos to your French interviewee for his actions that day. I’m slowly but surely revising my take on the French.

   How long do you think it’ll be before ol’ Abdul Raheem realizes that things are not proceeding according to divine plan?

5. saltydog Says:
   August 1st, 2007 at 11:53 am

   Well, it looks like Allah wants Reid to spend his days in solitary. Good ol’ Allah.

6. The Thunder Run Says:
   August 1st, 2007 at 2:26 pm

   Web Reconnaissance for 08/01/2007

   A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.

7. RebeccaH Says:
   August 1st, 2007 at 3:16 pm

   Even when he gets out of prison, it isn’t likely his jihadi buddies will welcome him back (if any of them are still alive and not in jail by then). He’s already an incompetent. They can’t be sure he wasn’t turned as well while a guest of Supermax.

8. The Nose On Your Face » Blog Archive » Top 9 Ways Shoebomber’s Life Will Change For The Better Says:
   August 3rd, 2007 at 10:12 am

   […] “shoebomber” Richard Reid recently told a reporter that although things have not been going very well for him, he sees a light […]

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