I enjoy listening to local talk radio in the morning. Not only does it help to get my creative juices flowing, but it also helps keep me up to date on the latest craziness going on in my own state. In listening last week I was blown away to find out that Khalid Sulaiman Bilal, a terrorizing non-terrorist, was being deported instead of being tried in US courts after being charged for various crimes while at a Goodwill in Muncie Indiana. I couldn’t believe that this case had not been much bigger news.
Here is the background to the story.
Bilal was a Saudi Arabian native who was in the United States to attend school at Ball State University. On March 25th, 2017, Bilal went to a Goodwill Store in Muncie, Indiana. At some point while at the store Bilal attacked the clerk. First, he demanded that the store clerk convert to Islam. Then when the clerk refused, Bilal threatened to kill her and others in the store. Bilal then began choking the clerk.
Luckily for the clerk, a police officer arrived and tasered Bilal after he turned to fight the officer. When a second officer arrived and attempted to restrain him, Bilal once again fought the officers resulting in one officer breaking his hand. During the confrontation with the police, Bilal was shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’. The police then transported him to the hospital where he escaped his restraints and attacked hospital employees and a police officer before once again being subdued.
Immediately after the arrest the Department of Homeland Security got involved. They executed a search warrant of his apartment stating that, “Bilal showed signs of radicalized behavior in the (March 25) incident and is a danger to the community.” After the search the agents filed a report stating that they had seized, “Apple MacBook, Dell Inspiron Laptop, Canon camera (and) travel documents.”
He was ultimately charged with five counts of battery resulting in bodily injury to a police officer, three counts each of resisting law enforcement and battery resulting in bodily injury, and single counts of attempted strangulation, intimidation, criminal trespass and battery.
After the investigation was completed Bilal was deported back to his native country. Delaware County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Eric Hoffman moved to have the charges against Bilal dismissed as he was no longer in the country and would assumedly not be allowed to return.
In researching the case I was surprised that Bilal was not charged with terrorism. I looked up the code, 18 U.S. Code § 2331, to determine if this was a case of terrorism.
(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.
In looking at this code it would certainly appear that a case can be made. Clearly, he committed acts that endangered people. It is also beyond question that in his demands that the clerk convert he violated subsection (i). On the one hand, I understand the reason for deporting him. It saves the tax payers the expense of both trial and potential incarceration and removes easy access to the Americans he is looking to harm. On the other hand, it also removes the ability for justice and closure for the victims of the crimes.
No matter what, there was a clear attempt to kill the clerk at the store. It would seem to me that justice demands the individual answers for the crime he committed, especially considering the severity of it. Hopefully this is not the new norm where we quickly and quietly deport individuals who committed relatively minor (when compared to the likes of the Boston Marathon Bombing for example) acts of terror.
