Reckless

The “hijackers” drove recklessly and 

were stopped by the police 

Compiled by

Elias Davidsson

Discrete terrorists who conspire to commit mass-murder in the United States would avoid contact with the police. Not so the 9/11 “hijackers”, who actually made a point of getting stopped by the police.

Hani Hanjour, alleged to have piloted Flight AA77 into the Pentagon, was fined by the police on August 1, 2001 for driving 55 mph in a 30 mph zone in Arlington, Virginia. Three weeks after this incident, Hanjour dutifully mailed in a money order to pay a $70 fine and $30 in court costs.1

Ziad Jarrah was pulled over by Maryland state troopers around midnight on September 9, 2001, only two days before his alleged trip to paradise, for speedy driving. Superintendent of state police David B Mitchell described Jarrah as “extremely calm and cooperative” when speaking to Joseph Catalano, the trooper who stopped him for speeding.2

Nawaf Alhazmi was stopped by an Oklahoma police officer for speeding while traveling east on interstate highway 40, near Clinton, Oklahoma.3

On February 21, 2001, a car registered to Mohamed Atta is queried by police in DeKalb County, Georgia. This incident is added to the NCIC, a widely used nationwide police database. It is not explained why he is stopped by police.4

On April 26, 2001, police discovers at a random inspection near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, that Atta has no driver’s license. He is given a citation.5 Although he gets a Florida driver’s license on May 5, he does not bother to show up for his May 28 court hearing,6 and a warrant is issued for his arrest on June 4.7 Good angels ensure that no one will look for him.

On August 23, 2001, the State of Florida indefinitely suspended Atta’s driver’s license for failure to appear in court regarding a traffic citation.8 Apparently this suspension did not prevent him from continuing to rent cars in Florida.  He was clearly unconcerned of being again stopped and even arrested.

Police in Delray Beach, Fla. said Atta got only a warning during a July 5 traffic stop for speeding through a 25 mph zone, even though he turned out to be wanted in neighboring Broward County for failing to appear in court for driving without a license.9 The official explanation for this negligence: “The local backlog of unpaid traffic fines goes back to 1977, and is not on computer networks.”10

On Monday, September 10, 2001 – one day before 9/11 – Mohamed Atta was again stopped at a toll booth at Exit 13 of the Massachusetts Turnpike. He apparently “boiled in anger when the operator demanded that he pay the $3.10 toll. When Atta refused and sped away, the operator wrote down the license plate number of his rented white Mitsubishi.”11 Apparently Atta had no reason to worry.

According to the Miami Herald of September 14, 2001, cited by other media, Abdulaziz Alomari “had an arrest record for drunken driving.”12

NOTES

1.  Manuel Roig-Franzia and Patricia Davis, Police Stopped Two Hijackers In Days Leading Up To Attacks, The Tech, January 9, 2002, at  http://tech.mit.edu/V121/N67/terror.67w.html

2.  Hijacker ‘pulled over by police’, BBC,  January 9, 2002

3.  Nolan Clay and Randy Ellis, “Terrorist Ticketed Last April on I-40”, The Daily Oklahoman, January 20, 2002

4.  Manuel Roig-Franzia and Patricia Davis, Police Stopped Two Hijackers In Days Leading Up To Attacks, The Tech, January 9, 2002, at  http://tech.mit.edu/V121/N67/terror.67w.html

5.  “A Careful Sequence of Mundane Dealings Sows a Day of Bloody Terror for Hijackers”, Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2001

6.  Ibid.

7.  Timeline, ABC News (Australia)

8.  Manuel Roig-Franzia and Patricia Davis, Police Stopped Two Hijackers In Days Leading Up To Attacks, The Tech, January 9, 2002, at  http://tech.mit.edu/V121/N67/terror.67w.html

9.  “The Road to Ground Zero, Part Five: A Trail of Missed Opportunities”, Sunday Times, February 3, 2002, #346

10.  Manuel Roig-Franzia and Patricia Davis, Police Stopped Two Hijackers In Days Leading Up To Attacks, The Tech, January 9, 2002, at  http://tech.mit.edu/V121/N67/terror.67w.html

11.  Jospeh Mallia and Steve Wick,” Details on Hijacking Suspects Few, But Hardly ‘Ordinary’“, Newsday.com, September 30, 2001

12.  John Riley, Tom Brune and Shirley E. Perlman, FBI lists 19 as hijackers, Newday.com, September 15, 2001. #946