Joe Stack Plane Crash Austin Aftermath: 13 Injured, Two Critically
Photo: Echelon Building in Austin, Texas Feb. 18, 2010.
Authorities said Thursday that 13 people were hurt - two critically - after Stack deliberately flew a small plane into a building where the Internal Revenue Service had about 200 workers.
"It felt like a bomb blew off," said Peggy Walker, an IRS revenue officer who was sitting at her desk. "The ceiling caved in and windows blew in. We got up and ran."
Photo: Joe Stack.
Firefighters worked Thursday afternoon to put out the blaze at the Echelon Building located on the side of a major Austin thoroughfare.
Authorities said that Stack worked alone. He was presumed dead, and police said they had not recovered his body.
The FBI believes that Stack left a twisted suicide note / bomber's manifesto on the Web two days before the crash in which he ranted against the IRS, the Catholic Church, tax loopholes, bailouts and his own sorry state of affairs.
"Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well," the page read.
He talked about the "storm raging in my head" and railed against taxation without representation. "Anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a 'crackpot', traitor and worse," the page said.
Stack was angered by a "handful of thugs and plunderers (that) can commit unthinkable atrocities" including bailed out GM executives and the drug and insurance companies who "are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple."
He hoped that the "the American zombies wake up and revolt," and at times expressed that he was at a breaking point.
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