The Arlington police department has a strange idea of what terrorism means, according to this report from the Star-Telegram. Police found two "sophisticated" pipe bombs in a hotel room rented by a man who died in an Arlington hospital, but deny that the man was a terrorist. CQ readers can make up their minds from this description:

Management at the InTown Suites, an extended-stay hotel in the 1700 block of Oak Village Boulevard, called 911 about 6 p.m. Friday to report a duffel bag filled with ammunition and two pipe bombs in the room of a man who died at an Arlington hospital about two days ago, Deputy Fire Marshal Darin Niederhaus said. ...

The pipe bombs were about 15 inches long, about 3 inches in diameter and connected to each other by 10 to 12 feet of wire. The bombs were filled with black powder, gunshot pellets and enough bullets to create a spray of shrapnel if exploded, investigators said. ...

“The purpose of this was to create as much havoc as possible, so that innocent bystanders are hurt,” he said. “We were lucky.”

And yet Niederhaus also told the Star-Telegram that there was no evidence that the man was a terrorist. They do know that the unnamed 'plumber' only came to Arlington a month ago and took a job at a local business. He drove a car with Louisiana plates, but had driver's licenses from Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. He lived out of a motel and spent his money on explosives, and used his spare time building sophisticated pipe bombs that were designed to "create as much havoc as possible", maximizing injuries to innocent bystanders.

But he wasn't a terrorist ... according to Arlington's finest.

A word of advice to Arlington authorities: one does not have to have an Arabic surname to be a terrorist. Domestic lunatics that want to kill doctors for performing abortions, nutcases who attack researchers who use animals for developing medicines, and environmental psychotics who blow up car dealerships in order to protect Gaia all qualify as terrorists. In fact, anyone who produces pipe bombs designed to inflict maximum carnage on explosion meets the definition of terrorist on the face of the evidence at hand. Unless the Arlington police department has some other application for such explosive devices, I'd say they'd be better off assuming that this drifter was a full-fledged terrorist for some purpose rather than assume he just liked the smell of gunpowder in the morning. (h/t: CQ reader Gregg G.)

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