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Arrest warrant issued in suspected power towers sabotage
Associated Press ^
| 10-23-03
Posted on 10/23/2003 5:34:28 PM PDT by Brian S
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:44:31 AM PDT by Jim Robinson.
[history]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued an arrest warrant Thursday for a man who allegedly removed bolts from high voltage transmission towers near Redding and in Oregon. The bureau issued warnings to authorities in four western states.
Local and state officials are participating in the search for Michael Devlyn Poulin, 62, of Spokane, Wash., whom they said was seen tinkering with the leg of a large electrical tower near Anderson on Monday, then driving away in a pickup truck.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
TOPICS: Breaking News; Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ecoterror; enviralists; green; michaelpoulin; poulin; terrorism
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To: Brian S
To: Brian S
Green Party of Spokane county ---- Julie Smith, Susan Whaley, Marshall Peterson,>>>>> Michael Poulin,>>>>> Marianne Torres and Noah Skocilich plan to attend the State convention in Ellensburg this coming weekend.Good find. I'll bet this is the guy.
42
posted on
10/23/2003 8:50:23 PM PDT
by
concerned about politics
( Have you donated to the Salvation Army? Liberals HATE Christian organizations! Tax deductable, too)
To: Poohbah
To: Brian S
An earlier report:
Apparent power sabotage attempt
Authorities are seeking a man suspected of loosening or removing bolts from two transmission towers.
By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Thursday, October 23, 2003
The FBI was urging authorities across four Western states Wednesday to be on the lookout for an older, heavyset man who was seen removing bolts from high-voltage transmission towers in Oregon and near Redding.
Electric power officials said that even if the apparent sabotage try had succeeded, it would have been unlikely to cause blackouts because the grid is designed to respond instantly if a tower topples and a major power line fails.
Still, the Monday afternoon incidents left authorities edgy in the small town of Anderson along Interstate 5 and prompted an investigation by the FBI's domestic terror squad.
The FBI was not releasing the name of the man being sought for questioning, but the California Highway Patrol confirmed he was Michael Poulin, and Anderson police confirmed the Washington state license plate on his silver Toyota pickup truck is A36457P.
The truck is registered in Spokane Valley, a semi-rural suburb of Spokane, Wash., where Marianne Torres said she didn't know where her ex-husband has gone.
"We got divorced in September. Michael left in mid-October," she said in a telephone interview, crying and reading from a statement she had prepared for reporters. "I don't know where he is. ... That's all I can say."
Neither she nor the FBI would comment on reports that Poulin had an arrest record. The Los Angeles Times reported that he has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and arson.
Nothing about the California attack indicated sophisticated knowledge of the power grid, said Ross McFate, director of line maintenance at the Western Area Power Administration, or WAPA, the federal agency responsible for one of the targeted transmission towers.
"We think he chose it because of the accessibility, not because it was strategic to take the whole system down," said McFate.
The other tower, owned by PacificCorp., was targeted first, about 3 p.m. Monday, according to the FBI in Portland. A white man in his 60s was seen leaving the area just south of Klamath Falls, Ore., in a truck after tower bolts had been loosened.
About 2 1/2 hours later, workers for Sierra Pacific Lumber Co. were exiting I-5 when they saw a man in a white hard hat working at the base of a high-voltage tower near the freeway. They were troubled that his truck had no company logo, and they stopped to ask him what he was doing, said McFate.
The man threw his equipment into the truck and fled south on I-5, with the witnesses following him briefly, snapping pictures of his truck, the WAPA official said.
The FBI has described him as a white male in his early 60s, between 5 feet 7 inches and 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighing 225 to 240 pounds, with long salt-and-pepper hair, possibly a salt-and-pepper beard, and wearing wire-rimmed glasses.
He is wanted for questioning in connection with the federal crime of destruction of an energy facility, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years, FBI Special Agent Karen Ernst said in Sacramento.
All nine bolts had been pulled from one of the California tower's four legs, and six had been removed from a second leg, McFate said. The bolts were given to investigators as evidence, and the tower was stabilized by WAPA workers by about 9:30 that evening. Final repairs were completed Tuesday.
Even if all the bolts had been removed, the tower probably would have stood until a strong wind blew, and then toppled, taking down a 230-kilovolt line that shunts power from Shasta Dam to the Sacramento area, McFate said.
"Not too much would have happened ... just a big nuisance," he said. "We have a lot of redundancy built into the system." The power would have been routed to other lines, and there almost certainly would have been no blackouts, he added.
Several towers would have to fall simultaneously on several transmission lines to pose any risk of cascading power outages, said Stephanie McCorkle of the state Independent System Operator, based in Folsom.
WAPA and other transmission line owners staged extra patrols to check on other towers easily accessible from the freeway, said McFate, and other utilities will be doing their own checks, said McCorkle.
"This shows that no area, whether it be rural, small or large, is immune from the tentacles of domestic terrorists," said Anderson Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr.
Purcell said he believed the incident had "radical overtones," although there was no specific evidence pointing to any organized group.
No one has claimed responsibility for the incident.
Poulin's next-door neighbor, Gary Haynes, said Paulin did not discuss politics much, although the household posted "no blood for oil" and "no war" signs during the height of the Iraq war.
Torres confirmed that she and Poulin had run the Mother Goose Progressive Coffeehouse in Spokane until it closed earlier this year.
Haynes said Poulin also ran small businesses out of his home, including a skateboard repair shop. He described Poulin and Torres as friendly, sharing corn and other vegetables from their garden, but also "flighty," without longtime, stable jobs.
Source
To: Lijahsbubbe
FR actually BROKE the Challenger tragedy as FReepers from CA to TX viewed the re-entry live. The Wall Street Journal reported that we'd broken the story.
We be awesome!
45
posted on
10/23/2003 9:16:37 PM PDT
by
Humidston
(Do not remove this tag under penalty of law.)
To: arthurus
Oh, fercryinoutloud, can't someone ever come up with an original villain? It's ALWAYS the Jews.
Why can't it be Zoroastrians?
46
posted on
10/23/2003 9:19:12 PM PDT
by
Poohbah
("Would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons?" -- Major Vic Deakins, USAF)
To: Brian S
By the way, the wind was blowing pretty good today. It does about this time of year and was on the weather report. Suppose he counted on it?
LL
To: Poohbah
You'd think they'd mix it up a bit. Maybe have a scapegoat of the month...
To: Lijahsbubbe
W
We actually got this one two days ago!! I cannot believe that I see nothing on our local news though...
LL
To: Brian S
Here's a letter the Greenie wrote to Rep. Barbara Lee:
Representative Barbara Lee
1301 Clay Street, Suite 1000N
Oakland, CA 94612
Phone:(510) 763-0370
Fax:(510) 763-6538
Barbara &endash; The moment we heard the news report of the 420-1 House vote giving war powers to this terrifying, moronic administration, we knew that one vote had to be yours, and it was confirmed in the paper this morning.
I have always been proud of having had you for my MSW supervisor while I did an internship with Ron Dellums, and was thrilled to see you in State and then Federal government, as you probably know. But never have I been prouder of you and of my association with you than when I heard that you were the one and only voice of reason in the House on Friday.
Thank you, Barbara. I can only imagine how difficult it was for you to cast the lone vote. The jingo-ism and knee-jerk reaction of otherwise thinking people is so very frightening and can only lead to awful results, compounding our multitude of tragic mistakes in the world. How sorely missed is Dr. ML King at this moment. He is one of the few who would have the courage to stand with you.
Please ask your aides to put me on your office's mailing list. We want to be able to help get you re-elected even though we're now living in Spokane WA. Am sending this to both Washington and Oakland in order to cover all the bases.
In sorrow in these terrible times,
Marianne Torres
mtorres@icehouse.net
To: Brian S
She's the force behind the suspenders Michael used to sell, apparently:
| Present: Craftsmen Suspenders from Suspender Store |
| Price: $13.95 |
enlargement |
| Item Description: Electrician, Carpenter, Plumber, Painter, Tape Measure, Mechanic, Firemen pick their favorite suspender. Comes in 42 and 48 inch lengths. Sold individually. |
| Comment: Practical and great fun for a weekend craftsmen or the professional. The Firemen suspenders are also a great support fashion statements. |
| Company: Suspender Store |
| Address: 14819 E. Fourth Avenue, Spokane WA 99216 |
| Phone: 800-393-4508 |
| URL: http://Suspenderstore.com |
| Email: mtorres@icehouse.net |
| Overnight: Yes |
| International: Yes |
To: Humidston
| Name: |
Marianne Torres |
| E-mail address: |
mtorres@icehouse.net |
| Homepage URL: |
http://www.suspenderstore.com |
| Comments: |
Have a stick-figure Dove of Peace I want to make into an afghan (or the center of one), need to translate it to a graph so I can single-crochet/filet crochet it. Don't know where to start - have been looking for instructions for WEEKS! Can anyone help? What size graph paper to I need? etc? Thanks much
tanks for this site!! |
Tuesday, August 12th 2003 - 11:36:36 AM
Source
To: Brian S
PALESTINE PAPERS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Marianne Torres and Michael Poulin are the authors of Palestine Papers, a bi-monthly column in the Sonoma County Free Press. Both spent many years working in the San Francisco Bay Area with Palestinian solidarity groups. The Sonoma County Free Press offered them a place for regular publication of their reflections on their work and the situation in Palestine. Marianne was a social worker and community organizer in Alameda and Marin Counties in California, working primarily with the homeless, and Michael is a small-business owner. They were two of the primary organizers of 1988's "Measure J" in Berkeley (the ballot measure that would have declared Jabaliya, Gaza, a sister city to Berkeley - see Jabiliya - a Stone's Throw Away) and a number of other educational and/or material aid campaigns for Palestine. They now live and work in the Pacific Northwest, and can be reached at mtorres@icehouse.net .
Michael worked in the Bay Area with solidarity groups supporting the democracy movement in El Salvador in the early '80's, and during that time learned how skillful was the American Left at compartmentalizing its work for struggling peoples. Most of the people with whom he worked to bring freedom and independence to El Salvador and Nicaragua specifically refused to speak out against Israel's murderous policy of making war on women and children when they killed more than 20,000 civilians in three months during their invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
Marianne was an organizer for the "BART Ad Campaign", in which a coalition of Arab, Jewish, ecumenical and grass roots organizations paid for and placed large, graphic ads in Bay Area (California) Rapid Transit stations from Fremont to Oakland, San Francisco to Hayward. The ads called for a suspension of aid to Israel until Israel agreed to end the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Most of the ads, which were to have remained in place for 30 days, were "mysteriously" removed after two days. The ensuing two-month struggle to have them replaced (assisted in great measure by the American Civil Liberties Union) provided an excellent opportunity to educate the community about the Middle East issue and about the way relevant information is controlled in the American media, as the struggle garnered regular and vociferous press over the following month. All the ads were ultimately replaced, and ran in the stations for yet another month.
A number of people in the Bay Area worked tirelessly to change this country's policy of supporting Israel, both financially and politically, at the expense of peace in the region and of the integrity of the greatest government money can buy - the U.S. Congress. First among those people is Jeffrey Blankfort, author of Desert Storm at Home and Abroad. Mr. Blankfort is the Editor of the Middle East Labor Bulletin, which published crucial labor-related information about the condition of Labor in the Middle East between 1985 and 1995. We hope, in time, to place that invaluable resource on the World Wide Web, as well.
Marianne and Jeffrey Blankfort are two of 19 named plaintiffs in the successful class action suit against the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith and the San Francisco Police Department for illegal spying on political groups and individuals.
Both Marianne and Michael have spent considerable time educating themselves on the situation, its background and context. We think that effort is reflected in these articles.
Cached from the Yahoo!group: "vnspok" ...
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 10:04:48 -0700
To: vnspok@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Support for Barbara Lee
From: "M. Torres"
Morton, thanks for forwarding this call for assistance with an ad in
support of Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California.
Barbara was my MSW supervisor when I did an internship with Congressman Ron
Dellums in Oakland, and she was even then a voice of integrity and
strength. Dellums himself became "unavailable" on nearly every social
justice issue from 1991 on, but Barbara has always had the strength to
struggle and to speak out and act for what she knows is right. She stands
nearly alone today in Congress as "unbought and unbossed".
In addition to supporting her through this public ad (address in message
below mine), it would help greatly if we all would send her a letter of
support, with a cc to our own Representatives and Senators.
Representative Barbara Lee 1-202-225-2661 1-202-225-9817
426 Cannon Building, Washington, D.C. 20510
Washington Senators:
Murray, Patty 1-202-224-2621 1-202-224-0238
United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510
Cantwell, Maria 1-202-224-3441 1-202-228-0514
United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510
Representative
Nethercutt, George (R) 1-202-225-2006 1-202-225-3392
United States House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515
Marianne Torres
SNIP
>>Received from VoterMarch- California
An ad is planned to be placed in the S.F. Chronicle next week. See message
for more details. If you are interested in contributing, send a check made
out to the National Lawyers Guild (they are not the official sponsor but
are facilitating/organizing the effort) with the notation "B. Lee ad"
>>
>>Mail to: National Lawyers Guild
>> 558 Capp St.
>> San Francicsco, CA 94110.
>>
>>Needs to be received by 9/25.
>>Donors of at least $100 may be listed as supporters, if they choose.
>>
>>Please see below the message that was forwarded to me, in reference to
>>someone's question about what to do:
>>
>>We have all been asking this question. One possibility is to
>>demonstrate our support for Congresswoman Barbara Lee's courageous
>>refusal to join the stampede towards war.
>>
>>If enough money is raised, an ad is going to be placed in the SF
>>Chronicle for Sunday, September 30. The cost for a half-page is
>>$20,000, but we would like to make it a full page ad. People who donate
>>a minimum of $100 will have their names listed, along with their
>>profession if they wish.
>>
>>If you want to join, send your check made out to National Lawyers Guild
>>(which is facilitating the effort but not formally sponsoring the ad)
>>with the notation "B.Lee ad." and mail it to National Lawyers Guild, 558
>>Capp Street, San Francisco, CA 94110. The deadline for the money's
>>receipt is Tuesday, September 25.
>>
>>I *believe* the ad will say:
>>"We condemn the violent acts perpetrated against innocent people in New
>>York and Washington, DC. We grieve the loss of human life and the
>>horrific human suffering. Now is the time for careful consideration of
>>an appropriate response. We salute Congresswoman Barbara Lee for her
>>courage in casting the one vote in Congress against war. Her vote was a
>>recognition that war will only worsen the crisis. Thank you
>>Congresswoman Barbara Lee for voting your conscience and being an
>>inspiring leader of peace-loving people everywhere."
>>
>>*As far as I know, this is the final text, but I can't assure you that
>>minor changes won't be made.
>>
>>
>>
Yak Research
www.yakresearch.com
Wheels, bearings, Ebola Stickers
14819 E. 4th Avenue
Spokane, WA 99216
509-928-2128
To: Cultural Jihad; MeeknMing
24/7 AMW
55
posted on
10/23/2003 10:26:18 PM PDT
by
autoresponder
("DROP-IN" email & annoy your lib friends & relatives - "Cut & Paste" BLUE linkable Template above)
To: Brian S; AK2KX; archy; backhoe; Badray; Jack Black; Joe Brower; Cannoneer No. 4; cgk; ...
Civil War II ping: Anything similar elsewhere?
We've got a couple of snipers running loose around 30 miles north of Memphis. Most likely unrelated, but watch for other incidents.
Anyone know of any notable anniversaries or *terrorist holidays* this time of the month or around this weekend?
-archy-/-
56
posted on
10/23/2003 10:46:48 PM PDT
by
archy
(Angiloj! Mia kusenveturilo estas plena da angiloj!)
To: archy
To: archy
Beruit ,USMC Barracks ........The Mogadishu Mile in Somilia..........
Stay Safe !
58
posted on
10/23/2003 11:17:17 PM PDT
by
Squantos
("Ubi non accusator, ibi non judex.")
To: All; archy
Wow - awesome research on this thread! Way to go guys! Definetly looks like organized domestic terrorist activity.
Archy, I don't think terrorists are usually too hot on the anniversary thing, as they know that's when the police would be on the lookout.
What I do wonder is if it has anything to do with the coming solar storm that's due to hit tomorrow. Maybe they think the double whammy of downing some towers while the solar storm hits would make us especially vulnerable? I wouldn't be surprised if they try something tomorrow.
BTW, the sunflare I'm talking about? They're saying it's going to be the biggest magnetic storm since 1859.
The direct link to the source for that is on Drudge, right at the top of the page.
Qwinn
59
posted on
10/24/2003 12:48:50 AM PDT
by
Qwinn
To: Cultural Jihad
October 23rd was the day 146 Marines and 27 French servicemen were killed in Beirut (1983). Well, let's see if there are any sudden loud noises....
“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” --Auric Goldfinger in Goldfinger, by Ian L. Fleming
60
posted on
10/24/2003 1:00:18 AM PDT
by
archy
(Angiloj! Mia kusenveturilo estas plena da angiloj!)
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