Sooners 'bombed' during the game?

Police and OU officials are downplaying Saturday night's explosion near Oklahoma Memorial Stadium which killed one student in what is being called "a suicide." Inside the stadium were 84,000 fans watching the first half of an unexpected Sooner rebound, thus they can be forgiven for not paying much attention to the shaking of the stadium from the blast concussion. They were expecting the Sooners to "bomb" again, not the real thing.

According to the Daily Oklahoman:

Although the investigation is not complete, the medical examiner believes Joel Henry Hinrichs III, 21, of Colorado Springs, Colo., perished in the blast, said Salvador Hernandez, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oklahoma .

Hinrichs died about 8 p.m. when an explosive detonated near the Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

According to the university’s Web site, Hinrichs was a junior in the college of engineering.

There were no reports of any other injuries and university officials have said the spectators at the game were in no danger at any time.

What is raising eyebrows is a statement released by University president David Boren that says "Prior to the game, the entire stadium was swept by the expert bomb teams with the help of dogs."

Is this normal procedure before every home game, or was there a bomb threat?

Photoblogger Lan Lamphere was within a mile of the game (watching on TV) and isn't buying much of the official story.

UPDATE #1 -- Lan tells us: "Just thought you should know that I wasn't watching TV. I was editing the Dark Matters Radio show for my friend Don Ecker."

My family and I were sitting at home, roughly one mile away from the stadium as a bird flies, when we heard and felt an earth shattering explosion. I was monitoring my hand held amateur radio when the local repeater erupted with chatter about a explosion. It was so loud that people wanted to know if others had heard it. I called the Police who advised me that officers were on the scene and that a explosion had occurred but they would not give any other details. Our house literally shook. The ground vibrated with a deep rolling growling sound. This was a large explosion. Not some mere Pipe bomb put together by a pissed off student. But when I arrived at the stadium to shoot video for a local news station I regularly freelance for, already this was the spin on the story. This was serious business. This bomb was meant to kill not one person, but as many as could be reached in a crowd based on the size and power of the “device” alone.

He questions the discrepancy between initial reports that there were two devices, one later detonated by bomb experts, and the Sunday version that insists there was only one device.

The discrepancies are troubling but not totally unexpected given the nature of this type of event. A lot of rumors and speculation quickly become facts that have to be corrected or recanted later. And Lamphere is not without his own errors of fact when he says that OU's football team lost its first three games. Actually it had one win. That's okay. Things can get reported incorrectly in the heat of the moment.

We consider the possibility that for investigative reasons the FBI may not want to divulge everything they know right now, especially if more than the one student was involved.

Let's just hope that when all investigations are over the people of Oklahoma are told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

We are entitled to it.

UPDATE #2 -- Sports Illustrated has its own story with a few color details but nothing dramatically new.

UPDATE #3 -- Deserves it's own post. Will link shortly.