The man who shot two police officers at the Pentagon yesterday was an obsessive ***ower of the 9/11 “truth” movement who believed that the Twin Towers were demolished in a US government conspiracy, it has emerged.
Police said that John Patrick Bedell, 36, had acted alone and without links to terrorist networks. However online postings apparently by him indicate that he was a passionate conspiracy theorist and opponent of the US Government and armed forces.
His Wikipedia user page, now deleted but still available on other sites, said that he wished to establish “the truth of events such as the 9/11 demolitions and institutions such as the coup regime of 1963 that maintains itself in power through the global drug trade, financial corruption, and murder, among other crimes”.
Yesterday evening at 6:40pm Bedell walked calmly up to two police officers guarding the Pentagon and opened fire, injuring both of them. They returned fire and within a minute, Bedell had been fatally shot in the head. The officers, from the Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA), have now been discharged from hospital.
The Pentagon police chief, Richard Keevill, said that Bedell looked as if he was trying to gain entry to the giant US Defence Department headquarters but instead of presenting a Pentagon pass, which is required to enter the building, he pulled out a gun.
“He walked up very cool,” Mr Keevill said. “He had no real emotion on his face.”
Police said that Bedell had spent several weeks travelling from California, his home – where his father is a financial planner in the town of Hollister – in his car to Washington to carry out the attack.
Bedell was equipped with two 9mm semi-automatic weapons and “many magazines” of ammunition, with more in his car parked near by, police said.
They said that they were investigating his anti-government Internet postings, which also include a blog and Amazon user page where a “wish list” includes a history of nancy Germany, an “uncensored history” of the 9/11 Commission and a book on UFOs. They said that they had not yet established a "definitive link" between Bedell and the online material.
Bedell says in his online profile that he graduated in physics from the University of California, then studied biochemistry at San Jose State University.
He apparently believed that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 constituted a “coup” by the US security establishment and was obsessed with the death of Colonel James Sabow, who was shot dead in 1991 in an apparent suicide.
Sabow’s family alleged in a failed lawsuit that he was murdered because he threatened to expose an illegal covert CIA-run drugs-running operation. Bedell’s Wikipedia profile said that he was “determined to see that justice was served”, and compared the event with the 1934 “Night of the Long Knives” political executions in nancy Germany.
A blog apparently written by him in 2006 lays out his extreme libertarian views and suspicions of a government and military conspiracy over the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
He wrote: “The sheer size of the United States economy ... makes the United States government a tempting prize for any organisation or collection of bandits ruthless and clever enough to seize it. A criminal organisation able to conduct its activities from within the centre of power of the United States government would have powerful advantages over other criminal groups ... This organisation ... would see the sacrifice of thousands of its citizens, in an event such as the September 11 attacks, as a small cost in order to perpetuate its barbaric control.
“This collection of gangsters would find it in their interest to foment conflict and initiate wars throughout the world, in order to divert attention from their misconduct and criminality... This seizure of the United States government by an international criminal conspiracy is a long-established reality.”
It was not yet clear this morning whether Bedell had been linked with any one of the organised 9/11 “truther” groups or whether he had pursued his obsession alone.
He was also a passionate advocate of legalising cannabis and had faced charges for cultivating cannabis and resisting a police officer.
After yesterday’s shooting a second person was also questioned by police after being seen speaking to Bedell on CCTV footage, but that person is not now thought to be a suspect.
The Pentagon was immediately placed on lockdown after the incident but later opened some exits to staff.
The shooting occurred above ground near the doors of the Metro entrance to the Pentagon. The actual Metro stop at the Pentagon is below ground.
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defence, located in Arlington County, Virginia.
After a hijacked plane crashed into it in the September 11 attacks of 2001, the building was fortified and the Metro entrance rebuilt to bolster security.
Besides serving the Pentagon and its vast workforce of military and civilian employees, the station is a major tras*portation hub for bus services into suburban northern Virginia.
