The Orange County Murders

Ali Syed

By now everybody knows about the murder spree that occurred yesterday morning in Orange County. The killer's name is known. He is Ali Syed, a 20-year-old part-time college student at Saddleback Community College. Naturally, because of his name, speculation is rife about the motive for the killings. The UK Daily Mail has multiple photos that I had not previously seen.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2281171/California-shooting-suspect-Ali-Syed-gunned-woman-bloody-25-minute-murder-spree.html

Could this be one of those stories where foreign news outlets have more details than our own?

Already, there is speculation that this was a case of "sudden jihadi syndrome" or that the female victim in the killer's home was the victim of some sort of honor killing. What were people doing up at the ungodly hour of 4:45 am? Why did he spare one motorist's life but kill two others?

Etc, etc, etc.

Here is an update from Daily Mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2281718/Ali-Syed-Police-investigate-motive-Orange-County-shooting-spree.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

Let's be fair. These are questions yet to be determined by the police. The female victim has not been identified. Until she is, we don't know the motive for her death. Nor do we yet know why Syed decided to kill those he stole vehicles from. It could be that this is just another crazy killing spree by some deranged person that we suffer from in our country. On the other hand, the public needs to know the motive(s)  for these killings. Let's hope these answers will be forthcoming.

In the meantime, maybe we need to keep checking our foreign news sources.

Update: NY Daily News is quoting a witness who heard a statement by Syed during the shootings.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2-southern-california-shooting-spree-victims-identified-article-1.1269107?localLinksEnabled=false

“He said this was a result of the drug industry, the narcotics industry, and that it didn't matter because he'd be dead in 20 minutes," foreman Shane Caporaso said. "I just started running and got lucky."