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2010-02-19 12:41:54
By JIM VERTUNO, Associated Press Writer Jim Vertuno, Associated Press Writer
58 mins ago
AUSTIN, Texas A software engineer who crashed his plane into a Texas office
building containing nearly 200 Internal Revenue Service employees, killing
himself and at least one worker, apparently left behind an irate
anti-government manifesto but offered little other hint of his intentions
before the attack.
The Red Cross said the wife of A. Joseph Stack III planned to contact media and
answer questions Friday, a day after law enforcement officials, speaking on
condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, said her husband
apparently set fire to their house and posted his rambling screed on the Web
before launching his suicide attack.
It was unclear what she might discuss.
"He didn't rant about anything," said Pam Parker, an Austin attorney whose
husband played in a band with Stack. "He wasn't obsessed with the government or
any of that. ... Not a loner, not off in a corner. He had friends and
conversation and ordinary stuff."
But in the self-described "rant" dated Thursday and signed "Joe Stack
(1956-2010)," the author fumed about the IRS and wrote, "Nothing changes unless
there is a body count."
"I have had all I can stand," he wrote, adding: "I choose not to keep looking
over my shoulder at `big brother' while he strips my carcass."
The pilot took off in a four-seat, single engine Piper PA-28 from an airport in
Georgetown, about 30 miles from Austin. He flew low over the Austin skyline
before plowing into the side of the hulking black-glass building just before 10
a.m. Flames shot from the building, windows exploded and terrified workers
rushed to get out.
The Pentagon scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to patrol the skies over the
burning building before it became clear it was the act of a lone pilot, and
President Barack Obama was briefed.
"It felt like a bomb blew off," said Peggy Walker, an IRS revenue officer who
was sitting at her desk. "The ceiling caved in and windows blew in. We got up
and ran."
The entire outside of the second floor was gone on the side of the building
where the plane hit. Support beams were bent inward. Venetian blinds dangled
from blown-out windows, and large sections of the exterior were blackened with
soot. It was not immediately clear if any tax records were destroyed.
Emergency crews originally said people were missing inside the building, but
later recovered two bodies. Austin Fire Department Battalion Chief Palmer Buck
declined to discuss the identities of those found, but said authorities had now
"accounted for everybody."
At least 13 other people were injured, with two initially reported in critical
condition.
Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said "heroic actions" by federal employees may
explain why the death toll was so low.
Andrew Jacobson, an IRS revenue officer who was on the second floor when the
plane hit with a "big whoomp" and then a second explosion, said about six
people couldn't use the stairwell because of smoke and debris. He found a metal
bar to break a window so the group could crawl out onto a concrete ledge, where
they were rescued by firefighters. His bloody hands were bandaged.
The FBI launched an investigation and Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican from
Austin on the Homeland Security Committee, said the panel will take up the
issue of how to better protect buildings from attacks with planes.
The tirade posted Thursday on a Web site registered in Stack's name began: "If
you're reading this, you're no doubt asking yourself, `Why did this have to
happen?'"
He recounted his financial reverses, his difficulty finding work in Austin, and
at least two clashes with the IRS, one of them after he filed no return
because, he said, he had no income, the other after he failed to report his
wife Sheryl's income.
He railed against politicians, the Catholic Church, the "unthinkable
atrocities" committed by big business, and the government bailouts that
followed. He said he slowly came to the conclusion that "violence not only is
the answer, it is the only answer."
According to California state records, Stack had a troubled business history,
twice starting software companies in California that ultimately were suspended
by the state's tax board, one in 2000, the other in 2004. Also, his first wife
filed for bankruptcy in 1999, listing a debt to the IRS of nearly $126,000.
The blaze at Stack's home, a red-brick house on a tree-lined street in a
middle-class neighborhood six miles from the crash site, caved in the roof and
blew out the windows.
Elbert Hutchins, who lives one house away, said the house caught fire about
9:15 a.m. He said a woman and her daughter drove up to the house before
firefighters arrived.
"They both were very, very distraught," said Hutchins, a retiree who said he
didn't know the family well. "'That's our house!' they cried. `That's our
house!'"
Thursday was not the first time a tax protester went after an Austin IRS
building. In 1995, Charles Ray Polk plotted to bomb the IRS Austin Service
Center. He was released from prison in October of last year.
The tax protest movement has a long history in the U.S. and was a strong
component of anti-government sentiments that surged during the 1990s. That wave
culminated in the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City that
killed 168 people. Several domestic extremists were later convicted in the
plot.