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A madman ran amok all over San Francisco today, targeting pedestrians with his car and deliberately running them over:

As many as 14 people were injured this afternoon by a motorist who drove around San Francisco running them down before he was arrested, authorities said.

Seven of those injured were in critical condition, police and firefighters said.

Authorities have identified the man who was arrested as Omeed Aziz Popal, who has addresses in Ceres (Stanislaus County) and Fremont.

Authorities said they believe Popal was the same driver who ran over and killed a 55-year-old man walking in a bicycle lane in Fremont, at Fremont Boulevard near Ferry Lane, just after noon. That crash scene is just blocks from Popal’s Fremont address, where he had most recently been living.

Popal was arrested at a Walgreens at Spruce and California streets.

In San Francisco, the attacks began around 1 p.m., but it was unclear in what order:

• Two people, one of them a child, were critically injured around by a sport-utility vehicle on the 3500 block of California Street in Laurel Heights.

• Three people were hit at California and Fillmore streets. Witnesses said they included a man with a broken hip and a woman with a gashed head.

• Two people were seriously hurt at Bush and Pierce streets and one person was seriously injured at Bush and Buchanan streets, police said. One person suffered minor injuries in an incident at 1850 Fillmore Street.

• Two other people suffered minor injuries when they were hit at Pine at Divisadero streets, and another two were hit and suffered minor injuries at Divisadero and Bush Street.

There is, of course, a substantial likelihood that Popal is just a homicidal maniac of the type that crops up occasionally. On the other hand, it may not be a coincidence that Popal is, apparently, a fairly common Afghani name. (I leapt to this conclusion when a Google search on “Popal” led me to this website, and this one, and this one, and this one, all of which describe estimable and innocent Afghanis who are named “Popal”.) In other words, someone named “Omeed” (a variation on Ahmad?) Aziz Popal is, possibly, Muslim. I’m therefore wondering if we’re going to start hearing more about his motives in a few hours or days. I’ll try to keep on this story (with my memory, that’s more of a wish than a promise) and see if anything turns up.

UPDATE: This may not be Popal’s first run in with traffic problems. In March last year, in the Stanislaus County criminal courts, Popal was a defendant for an unidentified traffic infraction.

UPDATE II: According to SF mayor Gavin Newsom, Popal is a “relatively young man.” In other words, we have a young, probably Muslim, male, who killed one person and attempted to kill more than a dozen others. I know I’m leaping to conclusions, but I see a pattern developing here. I’ll do my mea culpas, of course, when it turns out that he’s a man with a history of mental illness utterly unrelated to religious principles.

UPDATE III: Fremont, which is one of Popal’s addresses, is home to America’s largest Afghan community. [Correction: Apparently since 2001, Fremont has had one of the largest, not the largest, Afghan community in America.]

UPDATE IV: An unidentified cousin claims that Popal, who is indeed Afghani, is delusional and on medications:

Court and property records list Popal’s age as 29 and he is a member of Fremont’s large Afghan community. A woman who identified herself as his cousin said he was having recurring nightmares about someone coming to kill him and had been taking medication.

“He thought the devil was coming to him,” said Zargona Ramish, who went to the family’s home Tuesday afternoon while Popal’s relatives were speaking with police. “He is a very good person. He is not like that. What’s wrong with him?”

UPDATE V: Apparently Popal “‘made some comments‘ to officers as he was arrested….” I wonder what they were? Were they delusional, along the lines of “I am she and she is me and we are both together and the Devil is behind it all and I saw the brilliant moon explode” or were they delusional along the lines of “I hate Israel, and I needed to kill all the Jews?” Incidentally, Little Green Footballs notes that one of the “hits” took place in front of San Francisco’s Jewish Community Center. I’m not ready yet to give too much meaning to that. It looks as if Popal was all over the Laurel Heights neighborhood, and the JCC victim could have been a random moment given the much larger scale of his attack.

UPDATE VI: Michelle Malkin also makes much of the neighborhood’s Jewish character. The fact is, though, while there’s definitely a Jewish block — the JCC, Jewish Family and Children’s Services, etc. — his rampage was wider. Also, the neighborhood is affluent and yuppified but, again, but for that one block, it’s never struck me as a particularly Jewish neighborhood. (Indeed, San Francisco as a whole is an exceptionally un-Jewish City, something I never understood growing up there, until I had the chance to visit Los Angeles and New York.) That doesn’t mean, of course, that Popal didn’t believe the whole area to be Jewish and, on that basis, cast a wide net.

UPDATE VII: Well, I’ve done my work here. The AP story by Juliana Barbassa now controls the wires and will set the tone at least until tomorrow morning. Since I’m living on West Coast time, the likelihood is that the East Coast bloggers will report on any breaking news about Popal’s statements or motivation long before I’ve had the chance to get to my computer.

UPDATE VIII: It’s okay. Everyone can stop worrying. The killer was, in fact, a kind and gentle man who was simply suffering from a bad case of wedding jitters. You doubt me? No, really, that’s what the latest report about him says:

Relatives of a Fremont man connected to Tuesday’s deadly driving rampage said he may have been distraught after returning recently from Afghanistan without his newlywed wife who iswaiting for a visa.

Omeed Aziz Popal, 29, who sources said was being held by the San Francisco police, was normally a kind and gentle person, said Hamid Nekrawesh, 43, a first cousin in Fremont.

But a recent trip to Afghanistan to participate in an arranged marriage could have caused him a lot of stress, Nekrawesh said.

“He was a very respectful, quiet, nice guy,’’ Nekrawesh said. “I’ve never seen him do anything violent.’’

Zarghona Ramish of San Jose, who also identified herself as Popal’s cousin, said he had been having strange dreams since returning a month ago from Afghanistan.

Some of us deal with our jitters with ice cream, some with therapy, some with alcohol, and some with attempted mass murder. It’s all clear to me now.

[Discuss with Bookworm]

Others blogging on this story:

• Michelle Malkin: San Fran car rampage ends at Jewish Community Center
• Wizbang: Hit and Run in San Francisco
• Point Five : “Melting Pot” Of Victims Shows Depth Of Muslim Integration
• Cozy Corner: Sudden Jihad Syndrome in SanFran?
• Diggers Realm: 14 Injured 1 Killed In San Francisco By SUV Driven By Ohmeed Aziz Popal
  
• Cobb: Omeed Popal: Terrorist?
• Page One Blog: Muslim man — not SUV — goes on rampage in San Francisco
• The Anchoress: Muslim kills Jews? “Road Rage…”
• FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog: Terrorist Attack Watch: Terror Attack Against San Francisco Jews

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