The Gwinnett County Five

Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department Top row, from left: Michael Brewer, Phillip Ray Duncan, Shirley Maddox. Bottom row, from left: William Dale Parten, Matthew Henry Rothove


Last week, a story showed up in the Atlanta Journal Constitution about five creepy hillbilly-looking mf's arrested for having bombs in their van.

Gwinnett Fire officials are still investigating five people arrested after a county police officer discovered explosives during a routine traffic stop Monday.

Two devices confiscated from the scene contained shrapnel materials such as nails and screws, Tommy Rutledge, Gwinnett Fire spokesman, told the AJC.

“At this point there is no information that indicates any type of involvement with domestic terrorism or that links the individuals to any type of hate group or militia group,” he said. “Investigators are looking at any previous involvement or history that these individuals may have had with police.”

Since then, I've heard nothing about these psychos. Searching on Google just turns up various reprintings of the original article. We don't know who or what their target was ar what sort of f'd up motivation they had to blow up that something or someone. I don't even know whether the FBI or Homeland Security have gotten involved in the investigation.

When Bush was in office, every time they arrested anyone with any hint that they might be looking to blow something up, administration officials would be all over the news crowing about the super-deadly domestic terrorism ring they'd so cleverly managed to thwart.

Then it would turn out that they were just a bunch of morons with no ability to make explosives and no real intent to blow anything up, but we'd all have fun being scared for a couple of weeks and feeling like ol' Uncle George and Uncle Dick were keepin' us safe from a group of homeless Florida potheads with confusing religious beliefs or whatever.

I don't miss that. But I would like to know what the hell is going on with these nutjobs. Maybe if someone were to call the Gwinnett County Sherrif's Department and tell them that these 5 might be Muslims, we'd see some action on this case.