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Cartoonist Lars Vilks Killed In Car Crash - Police Are Investigating

I'll take this opportunity to hail another secularist who took on Islamic Fundamentalists. When the fundies rose up against Ata Turk's reforms, getting rid of the veil etc, he had 200 of mullahs hanged in the centre of Ankara.
 
Spookdaddy said:
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I'll simply remind contributors to this thread—I don't need to check to name half of them—that when they finally get around to how terrible Islam is, we'll bin the thread and issue warnings.

Edit: somewhat surprisingly, we're on page two and nobody has mordantly posted 'religion of peace'; perhaps we're gradually improving each time we run through these same non-Fortean arguments? That said, we have had one post of immigration anxiety, so perhaps we shouldn't slap ourselves on the back just yet.
 
Yithian said:
That said, we have had one post of immigration anxiety, so perhaps we shouldn't slap ourselves on the back just yet.
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It's only natural that people should oppose Norfolk emigrants taking our lorry driver and hop picking jobs.
 
PeteS said:
Blimey that looks as though the car exploded. Some considerable speed must have been involved. Why the haste one wonders?
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Mythopoeika said:
OK, that explains some stuff - thanks. The lorry driver was not at fault.
Not sure why the police car would have been driven like that. Being chased?
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The car was an unmarked Police/security services car. He had been under protective custody/new identity since the cartoon was published and was being moved from one place to another. It wasn't the regular police who do this - is was Sweden's security service Säpo. The vehicle weighed 4.5 tons apparently and had run flat tyres, so I presume that it was some sort of armoured car. The theory is that one of the front tyres suffered a catastrophic failure and the car lost control at very high speed and then head on impact.

His former bodyguard said that this speed was normal when moving certain people as the object is to get there quickly. The unmarked vehicle was followed by another Police vehicle who was at a far enough distance as to not draw attention to the lead vehicle. They were so far behind however that they didn't witness the crash.
 
Ringo said:
The car was an unmarked Police/security services car. He had been under protective custody/new identity since the cartoon was published and was being moved from one place to another. It wasn't the regular police who do this - is was Sweden's security service Säpo. The vehicle weighed 4.5 tons apparently and had run flat tyres, so I presume that it was some sort of armoured car. The theory is that one of the front tyres suffered a catastrophic failure and the car lost control at very high speed and then head on impact.

His former bodyguard said that this speed was normal when moving certain people as the object is to get there quickly. The unmarked vehicle was followed by another Police vehicle who was at a far enough distance as to not draw attention to the lead vehicle. They were so far behind however that they didn't witness the crash.
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Interesting. Surprising that an armoured vehicle would be seem to have been virtually obliterated. The wheel seen in the photo above looks like a standard car wheel as well. A close up of the wheel might confirm the make involved. Pretty dreadful sequence of events.
 
PeteS said:
Interesting. Surprising that an armoured vehicle would be seem to have been virtually obliterated. The wheel seen in the photo above looks like a standard car wheel as well. A close up of the wheel might confirm the make involved. Pretty dreadful sequence of events.
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I must add that I am presuming that it was an armoured vehicle based on:

1. The weight given in the media
2. The fact that it had run flat tyres (as stated by the ex-bodyguard).

But I suppose with 4.5 tons of metal, travelling at +130km/h and then smacking into a 10 ton truck also doing 110km/h, it wouldn't matter if it was armoured or not.
 
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PeteS said:
Interesting. Surprising that an armoured vehicle would be seem to have been virtually obliterated. The wheel seen in the photo above looks like a standard car wheel as well. A close up of the wheel might confirm the make involved. Pretty dreadful sequence of events.
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l’d imagine that it was an externally-vanilla vehicle, but with considerable protection and an uprated engine, that wouldn’t be obvious to an external observer.

maximus otter
 
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Ringo said:
I must add that I am presuming that it was an armoured vehicle based on:

1. The weight given in the media
2. The fact that it had run flat tyres (as satted by the ex-bodyguard).

But I suppose with 4.5 tons of metal, travelling at +130km/h and then smacking into a 10 ton truck also doing 110km/h, it wouldn't matter if it was armoured or not.
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Some ordinary modern cars come with run flat tyres, but yes as you say 4.5 tons is one heavy car, and the speeds involved is the explanation.
 
On the news this morning, Police have now opened up a murder inquiry alongside the accident inquiry to see if there were any signs of foul play. Their main focus being on the car and to see if anyone could have tampered with it before the journey began.

The Police were very clear in saying that they had no suspicions as to foul play but wanted to rule out the possibility. Belt and braces I suppose when it comes to a high profile casualty.
 
The cartoons are, or should be, spearing the human practitioners who are in all cases mentioned subverting the words of the given prophet rather than studying them and applying them to themselves. I don't blame the creatives, but this kind of comment is much harder to craft. I don't think I ever saw the original cartoon, but "prophet's head on the body of a dog" means to me how people are misreading the prophet's words. But it's just a tad subtle. Same with Jesus as a sock puppet. It's not about the religious figure, it's about the reader. Much easier for self-obsessed teachers to gather the attention of not-so-subtle followers by screaming about the cartoon.
 
Don't think there is a "religion of peace" to blame here. It was probably just a second of illness by the driver which lead him to drive over the barrier at full speed. The driver and the two others are probably toast now, so it's impossible to check their health at the death moment.
 
If... and it's a big If, it was a "hit"of some sort , then I would think a small explosive device (or carefull tampering) on or around the left front lower ball joint on the steering rack or nearby suspension would do the trick.
About 8 years ago I was driving on a B road and was just leaving the 40mph zone of a small village when I had one collapse - front left wheel went horizontal and the front left of the car hit the ground hard ripping the the drive shaft right out of the gearbox as the car veered hard left.
Luckily I had a long soft grass bank and realised what had happened - kept of the brakes and dropped the clutch and put it out of gear and fought the steering best I could till it came to rest. Front of the car dug a nice deep trench but was otherwise undamaged and was back on the road fully repaired next morning for minimal cost.
However, if it had been the front right ball joint that had failed instead I would have went head first into an oncoming bus - me at around 40mph him probably 50 or more. Now imagine that on a car on a fast road and it veering into oncoming traffic.
Always finds the TV cop shows where they have folk being murdered by tampering with the brakes quite silly - I've driven plenty of vehicles with non existant brakes and you don't go flying over cliffs and exploding as a result. But a collapsed ball joint or suspension\steering component at the wrong moment is non survivable if it takes you in the wrong direction.
 
Lobeydosser said:
If... and it's a big If, it was a "hit"of some sort , then I would think a small explosive device (or carefull tampering) on or around the left front lower ball joint on the steering rack or nearby suspension would do the trick.
About 8 years ago I was driving on a B road and was just leaving the 40mph zone of a small village when I had one collapse - front left wheel went horizontal and the front left of the car hit the ground hard ripping the the drive shaft right out of the gearbox as the car veered hard left.
Luckily I had a long soft grass bank and realised what had happened - kept of the brakes and dropped the clutch and put it out of gear and fought the steering best I could till it came to rest. Front of the car dug a nice deep trench but was otherwise undamaged and was back on the road fully repaired next morning for minimal cost.
However, if it had been the front right ball joint that had failed instead I would have went head first into an oncoming bus - me at around 40mph him probably 50 or more. Now imagine that on a car on a fast road and it veering into oncoming traffic.
Always finds the TV cop shows where they have folk being murdered by tampering with the brakes quite silly - I've driven plenty of vehicles with non existant brakes and you don't go flying over cliffs and exploding as a result. But a collapsed ball joint or suspension\steering component at the wrong moment is non survivable if it takes you in the wrong direction.
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I've always wondered why, in films, after they find they have no brakes they never think to take their foot off the accelerator or change down through the gears
 
Nosmo King said:
I've always wondered why, in films, after they find they have no brakes they never think to take their foot off the accelerator or change down through the gears
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Sometimes, using the accelerator will get them out of trouble.
 
Nosmo King said:
I've always wondered why, in films, after they find they have no brakes they never think to take their foot off the accelerator or change down through the gears
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For one thing ... The most recent passenger vehicles have isolated drivers from any ability to use these and other tactics.

Most new vehicles now have automatic transmissions, many of which offer little or no affordances for manual gear selection at speed. Onboard electronic controllers mediate gear changes (in some cases, exert absolute control over gear shifts) and may simply ignore overly radical manual inputs. Actual shifters / gear selectors are disappearing from center consoles of vehicles with automatic transmissions, further preventing any driver ability to force a downshift.

If cruise control is engaged the driver has to have the presence of mind to disengage it immediately, and in some vehicles this is a trickier maneuver than setting it in the first place. Touching the brakes to disengage cruise control may or may not work, depending on what the cruise control controller is monitoring as an input source.

Perhaps most importantly, drivers have almost totally been denied any recourse to a direct / mechanical emergency brake feature - by design. The general purpose emergency brake has devolved into a single-purpose parking brake feature, and even this feature is increasingly a simplistic on / off function that's electronically mediated and hence available if and only if the onboard controller allows it to be engaged.
 
Lobeydosser said:
If... and it's a big If, it was a "hit"of some sort , then I would think a small explosive device (or carefull tampering) on or around the left front lower ball joint on the steering rack or nearby suspension would do the trick...
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For what it's worth, I've always thought that the car crash was a risky way to 'accident' someone. Granted, a car is a potentially lethal device, driven at potentially lethal speeds, in potentially lethal conditions - but, given the numerous other factors involved, it would be very hard to predict or control the precise outcome of any intervention. People walk away from utterly wrecked vehicles, and die in relatively unscathed ones. Too many variables, to my mind.
 
Spookdaddy said:
For what it's worth, I've always thought that the car crash was a risky way to 'accident' someone. Granted, a car is a potentially lethal device, driven at potentially lethal speeds, in potentially lethal conditions - but, given the numerous other factors involved, it would be very hard to predict or control the precise outcome of any intervention. People walk away from utterly wrecked vehicles, and die in relatively unscathed ones. Too many variables, to my mind.
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People do enjoy a good conspiracy though.
The Princess Diana fatal car crash, despite all the evidence that it was just a tragic accident, still attracts a host of fringe beliefs and I suspect this incident will pan out in similar manner.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
People do enjoy a good conspiracy though.
The Princess Diana fatal car crash, despite all the evidence that it was just a tragic accident, still attracts a host of fringe beliefs and I suspect this incident will pan out in similar manner.
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True, but there are huge differences between the incidents. ln one, a drunk, pilled-up man with no (known) training in high-speed/pursuit driving crashed a conventional car for a reason, albeit a tenuous one (trying to evade pursuing photographers).

ln the other, a presumably-sober and highly-trained security forces driver was at the wheel when his armoured vehicle crossed the central reservation (and its wire rope lane divider), then struck an oncoming HGV head-on, for no currently-ascertainable reason.

lt would be a very brave investigating officer who decided not to look long and hard at the police driver’s character and antecedents.

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
True, but there are huge differences between the incidents. ln one, a drunk, pilled-up man with no (known) training in high-speed/pursuit driving crashed a conventional car for a reason, albeit a tenuous one (trying to evade pursuing photographers).

ln the other, a presumably-sober and highly-trained security forces driver was at the wheel when his armoured vehicle crossed the central reservation (and its wire rope lane divider), then struck an oncoming HGV head-on, for no currently-ascertainable reason.

lt would be a very brave investigating officer who decided not to look long and hard at the police driver’s character and antecedents.

maximus otter
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I'm guessing there will be a very long and thorough police investigation, given the high profile casualty, police officers were killed and the fact he was under police protection at the time.
 
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