Yesterday I noticed a large number of search hits for Anson Chi Plano Bomber, and various combinations thereof. And today a little bird told me that Chi is indeed the hospitalized bombing suspect. So let me post a little bit more about him.
I’ve been following up on this story because I had initially guessed that the then-unknown bombing suspect might be part of Occupy Wall Street. When news outlets have revealed enough information to deduce that Anson Chi was the likely suspect, and it turned out he’s a Ron Paul supporter, then it seemed only fair to post that, since one of the guiding rules of blogging is to correct your own errors, even if it may temporarily hurt your “side.” The first side you should be on is the truth.
Now that I’ve been able to round up more information about Chi, my initial guess that he might be part of Occupy is, if not right, somewhat less wrong than it appeared at first. Indeed, he’s posted some pictures from various Occupy encampments around the world. While he’s not a fan of Obama or the IRS, he’s also not a fan of Christianity, genetically modified food or corporations. Chi seems one of those people both deeply interested in, and deeply disenchanted with, contemporary politics:
That, along with the other images in this post, are taken from Anson Chi’s Facebook page. If Chi is indeed the Plano bomber, he deserves to go to prison from a long time. But his web pages don’t give off the screaming capital letter fanaticism of some nuts; Chi actually comes across as a normal, intelligent, and ironic guy with issues about his own Asian heritage and a disenchantment with politics that, were it not for the bombing angle, would seem pretty normal.
So here are a few pieces of information on Anson Chi, gleaned from his various web pages (and some of which are NSFW).
IBM – Dallas, Texas 2005 – 2006
Web Middleware EngineerAmeriquest Mortgage Company – Orange, California 2005
System Engineer IIAtos Origin – Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan 2004 – 2005
System EngineerHeartland Payment Systems – Frisco, TX 2002 – 2003
UNIX System OperatorLoudcloud – Sunnyvale, CA 2001
NOC EngineerAlcatel – Plano, TX 2000 – 2001
UNIX System Administrator
The political section of that resume shows “Travis County District 149 Precinct Chairman” and “Ron Paul 2008 Grassroots Campaign – Austin, TX 2007-2008 Campaign Director.”
The thing that strikes me most about spending an hour wading through Chi’s Facebook page (which was last updated June 16) is how perfectly normal everything he put there was, except for the fact that, as far as I can tell, there’s no description of personal interactions at all (maybe they’re there but set to private so his only friends can see them). But Chi strikes me as someone believing in some ideas on the middle of the far left and the middle of the far right, but not as someone who would blow up a gas pipeline.
