Inappropriate or Terrorist? You Decide

Daughter says pilot in Texas IRS crash was a hero
AP

AUSTIN, Texas – The daughter of a man who crashed his small plane into a building housing offices of the Internal Revenue Service called her father a hero for his anti-government views but said his actions, which killed an IRS employee, were "inappropriate."

Joe Stack's adult daughter, Samantha Bell, spoke to ABC's "Good Morning America" from her home in Norway. Asked during a phone interview broadcast Monday if she considered her father a hero, she said: "Yes. Because now maybe people will listen."

Authorities say Stack, 53, targeted the IRS office building in Austin on Thursday, killing employee Vernon Hunter and himself, after posting a ranting manifesto against the agency and the government. He apparently set fire to his home before flying his plane into the office building.

Hunter's son, Ken Hunter, said he's alarmed by comments that the pilot was a hero.

"How can you call someone a hero who after he burns down his house, he gets into his plane ... and flies it into a building to kill people?" Hunter told ABC." "My dad Vernon did two tours of duty in Vietnam. My dad's a hero."

Bell said she offered her deepest condolences to Hunter's family. She said her father's last actions were wrong.

"But if nobody comes out and speaks up on behalf of injustice, then nothing will ever be accomplished," she told ABC. "But I do not agree with his last action with what he did. But I do agree about the government."

I kind of wanted to get to the IRS plane crash yesterday but between the bull mascot dancing in Jay Z's face and Boner going missing I just couldn't squeeze it in. When I first heard about this Friday it seemed like some nut job down on his luck just lost it and freaked out. It wasn't terrorism. But what is terrorism? This was obviously planned out and though he had no direction, he certainly had a target which he had philosophical differences with.

I feel like the only reason we're not calling him a terrorist was because he was white and lived in America. At his core he's exactly like a suicide bomber in the Middle East. He felt like he had to make some statement or strike against the U.S. government ruining his way of life and to make that statement it became acceptable to kill innocent people. Who does that sound like? And his daughter can just cut the crap that any military service makes you a hero. Timothy McVeigh and Charles Whitman served in the Armed Forces too. I'm not going to start calling them heroes.