Brother of OU Bomber Charged
December 7, 2006 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under Homeland Security News
The brother of a University of Oklahoma student who blew himself up outside the OU football stadium last year has been charged with threatening a second FBI agent.
The additional charge against Thomas Carlisle “Tom” Hinrichs of Colorado Springs is contained in an indictment that was made public Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Denver.
Hinrichs originally was charged Nov. 21 with threatening during Nov. 15-16 interrogations to assault or murder an FBI agent identified only as “Todd” in Colorado Springs.
The new charge alleges that Hinrichs threatened in an Oct. 12 telephone call to “bury” William Burruel, another FBI agent in Colorado Springs.
Hinrichs, 25, is the brother of Joel “Joe” Hinrichs III, who was 21 when he died Oct. 1, 2005, from the blast of a bomb he was carrying outside a packed Oklahoma Memorial Stadium during a football game.
His father later said his son was severely depressed.
The day after the bomb death, the FBI began investigating Tom Hinrichs as a domestic terrorism suspect as part of a broad probe to determine whether Joe Hinrichs’ death was an isolated event, a federal law enforcement source
said Nov. 21.The investigation of Tom Hinrichs was closed April 17, but an FBI court affidavit says the FBI and Colorado Springs police asked Burruel to monitor Hinrichs’ behavior monthly “to ensure that he was not a danger to himself or others.”
The affidavit says that on Oct. 12, Hinrichs told Burruel, “Your blowing smoke at me, I’m fed up . . . I will . . . bury you.”
Colorado Springs police arrested Tom Hinrichs on Nov. 15 for allegedly assaulting his father, Joel Hinrichs Jr., 62, of Colorado Springs.
Authorities said Tom Hinrichs had an assault rifle, two boxes of ammunition and a military helmet when they arrested him.
He remains in custody in that city on a state-court charge pertaining to the alleged assault, according to a new court filing by a federal prosecutor.
