January 24, 2004

Chemical Plant Guard Shot by Man Photographing Plant

Downright Spooky - this is from National Security Blog: bq. U.S. and Texas law enforcement agencies are investigating the shooting of a security guard outside an ammonia terminal on the Texas Gulf Coast, a law enforcement official said on Saturday. bq. A security guard at the BASF Corp. ammonia terminal in Freeport, Texas, 60 miles south of Houston, was shot late on Friday by a man in a pickup truck parked outside the terminal's fence and within sight of a multistory ammonia tank, said Henrietta Gonzalez, chief of the Freeport Police Department. bq. ...The guard spotted the pickup truck while making his rounds outside the terminal's grounds. When confronted, the truck driver, whom the guard described as having a heavy Middle Eastern accent, said he was taking pictures of the lights of the ammonia terminal and adjacent port, Gonzalez said. Ammonia is nasty stuff - this is 100% pure anhydrous, not the dilute stuff you buy for cleaning... Get a good whiff of this and your eyeballs will shrivel up to the size of raisins. It pulls water out of things like you would not believe. They also link to a FOX News report: bq. A security guard at a BASF Corp. (search) chemical plant was shot in the shoulder Saturday after he approached a suspicious truck and talked to a man who said he had been taking pictures, authorities said. And more: bq. The guard told police the gunman was a man of Middle Eastern descent with bushy hair and a mustache. The man was driving a white pickup with tinted windows and a black stripe. I'm a photographer and if I wanted to take photos of an industrial plant at night, I would contact the plant's security office several weeks in advance to obtain permission. Taking pictures of an ammonia tank and then shooting a guard do not sound like normal activity to me... (department of understatement) Posted by DaveH at January 24, 2004 8:53 PM