A relative of the US men's volleyball coach has been killed, another family member seriously injured, and their Chinese guide also wounded, all in a knife attack in Beijing, the US Olympic Committee said. Those attacked included Todd Bachman, his wife Barbara, their daughter Elisabeth and a Chinese guide.
(The U.S. head volleyball coach is Hugh McCutcheon and his assistants are Ron Larsen and John Speraw, who is also the UC-Irvine head coach. They all live in Orange County, California. McCutcheon, a native of New Zealand, is married to former U.S. national team player Elisabeth Bachman.)
Drum Tower
The American man was killed and his American woman companion wounded, on Saturday, August 9, 2008, by a Chinese man who then leapt to his own death, falling approximately 130 feet. The body of the attacker, who was wearing a red shirt, lay on the ground for two hours before it was removed by an ambulance, witnesses said.
A Chinese tour guide, a woman, was also wounded in the attack, which happened at the historic Drum Tower monument, a popular tourist site, just after noon, around 12:20 pm (local time).
The attacker was identified as Tang Yongming, a 47-year-old man from the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, He jumped to his death from the second level of the Drum Tower, a spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Government Information Office said. The official said both U.S. citizens had entered China with tourist visas.
A White House spokesman informed the media that President Bush, who is attending Olympic events Saturday, was told about the attack against the U.S. citizens. The U.S. Embassy and the White House have offered the victims' families whatever assistance is needed, according to China's official news agency, Xinhua and the international news agency, CNN.
The Drum Tower is in the historic heart of Beijing. Together with the Bell Tower, the sites were once used for banging of drums and bells to tell time. Now the Drum and Bell towers are tourist sites, with visitors able to stroll from them to the city's famed old lakes and other historic areas.
Police closed off the Drum Tower following the incident.
The Drum Tower is located northwest of the Bell Tower, across the Bell Tower and Drum Tower Square. Both of them are called the "sister buildings" or "morning bell and dark drum." In ancient China, especially from the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), the drums were used to signal the running of time and on occasion were used as an alarm in emergency situations.
Dark, indeed.
In lexilinking, the name game, and the twilight language, one of the most significant monikers is Bell (e.g. Brotherhood of the Bell, Bell Witch, Art Bell, Nazi Bell, Confederate spy John Yates Beall hanged at Fort Lafayette).
"Words tend to be involved in events of, at best, a sort of Puckish drollery and at worst, tragedy....I'm not talking here of such spooky tongue-twisters as H. P. Lovecraft's Yog-Sothoth or Arthur Machen Ishakshar, but of quite ordinary names like Bell, Beall and variants...." ~ Jim Brandon, The Rebirth of Pan, 1983: 185.
This is just day one of the Olympics. We can't have an Olympics without a bomb going off, or a death or two anymore. That's just the way it is.
ReplyDeleteAmerican killed in a "brain-washed" sacrificial way, then of course the suicide to hide the truth of the act.
ReplyDeleteNote the military increase in security...what's next
All of our world governments are total and complete frauds along with their bought and paid for mainstream media. These gangsters lie and play their own games for the agenda of Power and control.
ReplyDeleteWhile everyones eyes are on the olympics and these little drama's in China the USA is gearing up for their war in Iran.
Pay attention people, your lives are about to change drastically.
Our very own government could not care less about us, or what we want, not that we know what we want anyway. If it's not programed into our minds then it seems we just sit around and pretend it's not happening.
The US Gov't wants control of the oil in the middle east and it will be done at your expense.
The illusion here in the USA is about to pop and when your fear is at it's highest they will come in and offer to save you.
Don't take their help! We must become independent of these gangsters and take responsibility for ourselves. Until we do this history will repeat itself over and over.
I'm not into conspiracy theories, but as soon as I saw this news story I figured the killer was brainwashed by the Chinese. No motive, died before he could be questioned, etc. The only thing I'm not clear on is the reason they would want that coach dead.
ReplyDeleteYou know the Chinese Olympic Committee is doing major damage control right now. Any American in their right mind would board the next flight to the US and get out of China. I thought the risk of disease from the incredible air pollution was enough, but now you can't even walk through the streets without risking your life.
ReplyDeleteGod help us all when it comes to LONDON in 2012
ReplyDeleteWhy do some people insist on the inane entry of "I`m not into Conspiracy Theories" and such other lame, Political Correctness?! The whole of this Planets History was made on nothing but Conspiracy. Come on! SPEAK YOUR MINDS! NO FEAR! This is what the Manipulators and so called elites, laugh in your faces about. SPEAK OUT! Don`t parce words. Political Correctness is Mind Control to the utmost.
ReplyDeleteBell is from Latin meaning "war" Bellona was the Roman goddess of war-- her husband was of course, Mars-- the god of war.
ReplyDeleteWell said Shadow.
ReplyDeleteThese folks were marked. This Chinese fellow arrived at the Drum tower carrying the knife on his person. He had a plan.
What was it, and why them.
The opening ceremony was one of the most stunning things I have ever seen, and it did change my view of China, which I am sure was it's intention. This recent killing is incredibly sad, but it shouldn't change your view of China. Remember 1996 Atlanta had a bomb attack and the reasons for the attack were give as the following: "the purpose of the attack on July 27 was to confound, anger and embarrass the Washington government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand."
ReplyDeleteI guess you can call that brain washing too if you want, I mean that's what terrorism is isn't it? But if you think the Chinese goverment planned this, then you need to get out of your house and learn some social skills.
Ok, I'll get out of my house and visit Tibet...
ReplyDeleteHmm, wasn't there a bomb set off by an American during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics? He must be brainwashed by the Chinese!
ReplyDeleteBecause conspiracies DO happen, t doesn't mean that every event has to be the result of a conspiracy. I think that those who believe in a totally conspiratorial world view are no less irrational (and sometimes frighteningly so) as those who refuse to countenance the possibility of there ever being conspiracies.
ReplyDeleteAs far as this particular case is concerned, yes it could (as could any event) be the result of some kind of conspiracy, but with so few facts available, why should any rational mind rush in the direction of that belief and discard the far simpler explanation that this was the action of some mentally disturbed individual who perhaps additionally disliked Americans? That is not a belief, it is merely the most likely hypothesis to me until I see some evidence to the contrary.
Brotherhood of the Bell
ReplyDeleteJust because you believe one event to be more likely than another doesn't make it so either.
ReplyDeleteIts actually quite rare for an insane person to randomly target someone and kill them and injure others with an assassin's proficiency, then knowingly leap to their own death.
Statistically that ranks up there with winning the lottery. Yet we know the Chinese government is capable of organizing such targeted assassinations, and has in the past from CIA intelligence. Yet you still stick with the lightning strike theory because you believe that's more likely. You may want to pretend that government killings don't exist, but China has a very long record of them. And this is one area where the evidence of the secret world is well known- governments, especially China, kill people, and do so quite often. Educate yourself on the probabilities and you'll find that being killed by the Chinese government is a far greater risk than being targeted in a public place by an insane killer in a random act of violence. From where I'm sitting, your view seems pretty irrational and the least likely.
No, the 1996 Atlanta bomber didn't jump to his death to cover tracks like a trained assassin. But he was a trained to kill by a government- the US government. And yes, he was brainwashed by the religious right.
ReplyDeletejust a wild guess, but how about a manchurian candidate (how apt) publicly warning off a US intel agency incursion into china during the games? or some variation of the same.
ReplyDeleteI am the author of the post at 8:16 pm and of no other on this topic (at least one other anonymous person is posting similar views to my own).
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous at 2:03 am.
Quote: "Just because you believe one event to be more likely than another doesn't make it so either."
If you read my comment with any degree of attention or comprehension then you would have grasped that I do not "believe" anything about the event. I am, in fact, a true philosophical sceptic (absolutely NOT the same thing as a scientific/pseudo sceptic or "debunker") who neither believes nor disbelieves in anything. To me, all knowledge is uncertain and consists of competing hypotheses with varying degrees of subjective probability that is continually assessed and adjusted according to the evidence that is available to me at any time.
As I said, at the moment I can see absolutely no evidence suggesting that there is anything conspiratorial about this particular event. Every society, including China, has its mentally disturbed people, some of whom have violent tendencies towards both others and themselves. You claim that random maniac knife attacks are as improbably rare as winning the lottery. That is certainly not true in my country, the UK, where they are, in fact, frequent enough (I think it is about 21 cases per year) to prompt the drawing up of legislation to preventatively lock up such potential offenders (and before they actually do anything) indefinitely on the judgement of a panel of psychiatrists. Such cases would be rarer in the USA because your maniacs tend to use guns like ordinary criminals, and, unless it is a mass killing spree, they just get submerged in the overall crime statistics.
The only other "evidence" that you offer for your conspiracy theory of this event is the hoary old "Yellow Peril", anti-Chinese prejudice. Well, I can tell you that much of the world now regards America as being not much different to China in the "evil" stakes. So, why shouldn't it, in fact, be an American plot (a CIA engineered false-flag maniac attack, if you will) to discredit the Chinese, spoil their Olympics, and rev up the "let's get those bastard yellow commies" sentiments at home? (Very convenient when he Chinese are supporting Iran, "stealing" "your" oil from the region and "your" mineral resources from Africa.)
Yes, it has to be a planned act by the Chinese government. They first spent billions to prep the Olympics just to please the westerners, pump them up, then the very next morning following the party night, sent a brainwashed martyr to kill a American small businessman just to piss the freedom world off. Quite a plan, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteBTW, did you know that they just gave us $360 billion to save the housing market. That only worth about 30 years of their education budget. They must hate us too much. We will keep the money, suckers!
I am chinese,I think just because this things happen during Olympic,some one link this thing about the chinese government and all the chinese. It's not equity. some time i also get some news about chinese was killed in American also other country，We all don't like to see this thing happen,my friends,my family and I also feel so sad about the dead man，and also hate the chinese killer, every country have the bad person and also friendly person, includ china. I am so sad to hear some one said this case was be planed. I am not good in writing english maybe some sentence have wrong meaning. We wish the world will be more peace. Some foreign media don't show the ture in a lot of things, so please feeled by your self. Welcome to china, may be you will change your mind about this country.
ReplyDeleteWhile watching US TV last night, 8/13, during Olympic swimming an object flew across the screen and into the water ... it was a drum.
ReplyDeleteGehenna, ie the southern edge of Jerusalem, which served as a symbol of destruction, hell, etc., was once the place of worship of Molech. Worship where the food offering to the god were the worshipper's children. Its described as accompanied by DRUMS and the word 'Tophet' which means 'the morsel'.
As a symbol I have come to see it as how we feed our children to peacock patriotism, religious idols, dogma whether political, religious, etc. We get our marching orders, drummer boy in the background, and march into the abyss, willingly in service to some god.
Ezekiel 14 makes it even more astounding in that IHVH says he will answer one through his idol to destroy him, ie he makes the image come alive trickster rabbit fashion.
Peace.
Drum and Bell Tower pairs are common in Chinese cities (there are other smaller ones in Beijing itself). The one you've pictured is not the Beijing Drum Tower. I think it's the one in Xi'an.
ReplyDeleteI live in Beijing, quite near the Tower. Interestingly enough, my Chinese friends also have conspiracy theories about this event - not about brain-washing, just about money. It's a very materialist society here nowadays, and they tend to believe that everything has a financial motive. There's not much doubt that the perpetrator was a disturbed loser, a crazy and desperate man. However, some Chinese conjecture that he may have been paid to carry out this attack by someone not crazy but thoroughly evil, perhaps someone with a personal grudge against the family, perhaps just someone who hates Americans, perhaps a sports gambler hoping to unsettle Team USA (that theory would require a succession of similar attacks to have any chance of success; and, mercifully, that hasn't happened). Personally, I think these suggestions are all very unlikely - he was just a lone madman. But it was a terrible lapse of security that he managed to enter a major tourist site carrying a big knife.