Posted on 07/12/2004 3:59:33 AM PDT by kattracks
Fringe elements are hoping to spark major disruptions at the Republican National Convention with a series of sneaky tricks - including fooling bomb-sniffing dogs on trains bound for Penn Station, the Daily News has learned.
Internet-using anarchists are telling would-be troublemakers to decoy specially trained Labrador retrievers with gunpowder or ammonium nitrate-laced tablets in a bid to halt trains or even spur the evacuation of Madison Square Garden.
Top cops are girding against the attempt to foil strong anti-terrorist strategies aimed at protecting conventiongoers - including President Bush - as well as peaceful protesters during the Aug. 30 to Sept. 2 GOP fete.
"Where is the legitimate protest in trying to endanger the public?" an angry Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told The News.
"It is the height of irresponsibility," he added. "These hard-core groups are looking to take us on. ... They have increased their level of sophistication and violence."
So in addition to guarding against the most vile, organized and destructive of terrorists, Kelly and company have to combat a shadowy, loose-knit band of traveling troublemakers who spread their guides to disruption over the Internet.
The dog decoy ploy is the among most insidious in the fringe groups' bag of tricks - which includes throwing marbles under the hooves of police horses and using slingshots to pelt the animals.
"They're trying to use up our resources with false alarms. ... The sensitive dogs would become burned out with too many alerts," said a police source.
Preliminary plans call for state and city cops with the dogs and hand-held chemical detection devices to board commuter and subway trains one stop before they reach Penn Station, under the Garden.
The trains will be swept for suspicious packages and terror suspects before being allowed to continue into the station - the country's busiest, with about 600,000 passengers on a regular workday.
"We're going to make certain there is absolutely no disruption of the train," Kelly said in announcing the procedures on April 28.
Two days later, an Internet posting detailed how to stoke disorder by miscuing the bomb dogs.
The posting instructed people to "go to a rifle, pistol or skeet shooting range, spend an hour shooting to saturate clothing with smell of gunpowder, go directly to a New Jersey Transit, LIRR or subway train headed for Penn Station.
"Try to have at least two people on a train in different locations, sit or stand near the doors as the train approaches the station, try to get near police and dogs, loiter as long as possible around the dog, try to pet it if possible.
"If the dog alerts on your scent, do not leave or resist; the situation will cause a major disruption of the train schedule. ... If there is more than one person on the train that causes a dog to alert, you can bet that the train will not be going anywhere for a long time ... neither will any trains behind it."
The message instructs to "Play dumb for as long as possible" before telling the police you unwittingly got the gunpowder on your clothes at a shooting range. "It is important that the police call in all possible resources to investigate the situation. ... With any luck, Madison Square Garden will be evacuated."
"Rush hours are ideal, the final night of the convention, very good, too," the posting said.
After being alerted to the gunpowder posting, investigators uncovered Internet mentions of dispersing traces of ammonium nitrate on the trains.
Ammonium nitrate is one of the most common farm fertilizers in the world. The dogs are trained to detect the fertilizer because it has been used in major bombings, from the 1993 World Trade Center attack to Oklahoma City to Bali, Indonesia.
The NYPD also is preparing for possible "Black Bloc" tactics by small groups of anarchists, in which demonstrators wear black clothing and bandannas over their faces - and wield pipes, bottles and commit acts of vandalism against corporate "enemies" such as the Gap, Starbucks and McDonald's.
Cops have been trained to isolate violent individuals among peaceful protesters, and will employ an 1845 law that prohibits people from wearing masks in street gatherings, except for masquerades.
The NYPD has sent cops to Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Miami, sites of previous political conventions, and to Boston, which will host the Democratic convention this month, to collect intelligence.
"There is the same hard-core element that we have seen move from city to city where violence has marred protests," another police source said.
Trail of global mayhemHere's a look at major events in recent years that were disrupted:
- SEATTLE, December 1999: Tens of thousands of protesters storm into the usually laid-back city to protest global economic policies at meeting of the World Trade Organization. The ragtag group of anarchists, students and labor organizers takes cops by surprise, fights pitched battles with riot police and derails the opening ceremony.
- QUEBEC CITY, April 2001: Riot police fire water cannons and rubber bullets to keep 25,000 demonstrators at bay during the Summit of the Americas aimed at creating the world's largest free trade area. The leaders of 34 nations meet behind a 2.3-mile fence as protesters besiege summit site, but fail to derail meeting.
- GENOA, ITALY, July 2001: A protester is shot dead as more than 100,000 rock-throwing demonstrators battle cops at the G8 summit of wealthy nations. Heavily armed cops even mount predawn raids on the media center and protest organizers, arresting dozen of leaders.
- MIAMI, November 2003: Cops use tear gas and overwhelming force to break up throngs of hundreds of labor activists gathered at a free-trade summit. The police keep a lid on protests with mass arrests, but critics say they fueled anger by overreacting.
The cost of security
- The security tab for the Police Department is about $76 million, most of which will be reimbursed.
- Nearly $50 million will go toward overtime for the 10,000 officers around Madison Square Garden, and the cops who fill in for them.
- Almost $12 million is being spent on training in counterterrorism, as well as in First Amendment rights of protesters and media.
- Some $17.5 million is being spent on equipment, such as the construction of Delta barriers - metal lift plates - around the Garden area to stop trucks for inspections.
The words on Web that incite hatred
Here are excerpts from an Internet posting advising how to trick bomb-sniffing dogs:
- "Go to a rifle, pistol or skeet shooting range, spend an hour shooting to saturate clothing with smell of gunpowder, go directly to a New Jersey Transit, LIRR or subway train headed for Penn Station.
- "Try to have at least two people on a train in different locations, sit or stand near the doors as the train approaches the station, try to get near police and dogs, loiter as long as possible around the dog, try to pet it if possible.
- "If the dog alerts on your scent, do not leave or resist; the situation will cause a major disruption of the train schedule. ... If there is more than one person on the train that causes a dog to alert, you can bet that the train will not be going anywhere for a long time ... neither will any trains behind it.
- "It is important that the police call in all possible resources to investigate the situation. ... This will result in the maximum disruption. ... With any luck, Madison Square Garden will be evacuated.
- "Rush hours are ideal, the final night of the convention, very good, too."
Originally published on July 11, 2004
Most lefties follow the Alligator Mouth/Canary Ass model,but not all of them.
"Club em all,let triage sort em out."
Well put.
Notice my tag line - I added it some months ago:
All DemocRATS are either relativists, libertines or ANARCHISTS
Call it, "pulling a Spain without detonating a single bomb".
Anyone advising or practicing these kinds of things are aiding and abetting our enemies and putting our lives in jeopardy at the very least.
I think "shoot on sight" is the proper response.
I wonder why they didn't use the term "telephone-using anarchists" or "automobile-using anarchists"...
"That because they will be the convention"
You're right! See #24.
If you did something beside pray, maybe decide to fight these j@ckasses, we wouldn't be a "dying nation". Just a thought.
I'm not so optimistic. The news coverage will end up being of the "police brutality" and "violations of civil rights" that the NYPD and other LE organizations "commit" in trying to secure the Convention, and break these anarchist tactics.
The mainstream presstitutes will show pictures of five anti-abortion protestors at the DNC and scream that they are "disruptors"...there could be five thousand violent anarchists at the RNC and they will be labeled "peaceful protestors" being "oppressed" by the NYPD.
}:-)4
If they'd tone it down(yeah,I know,keep dreaming...)I'd tone it down too.If we allow what amounts to outright sedition pass for free speech we do their dirty work for them.If America is going down the tubes I don't want to tell my grandchildren that I just watched it happen.
This was used by the War Protestors (including Bubba Clinton)in London in the 60s.A good friend went from rising horse patrolman to disabled solicitor because of it.
Some of the articles had pictures of Black Muslims meeting with the neo-Nazis.
Their mutual wish for separation of the races had them considering ways to split our Nation into smaller "racial" countries by working together.
.
The same Nazi was into Animal Rights,Green,Odinism,Wicca;and thought the Anarchists would be very useful to the "cause".
I'm sure that not all people in these groups want the downfall of our Nation but our enemies are many and interconnected.
These people are idiots. They aren't making trouble for their causes--their adopting causes as a guise to make trouble.
It isn't enough to look with suspicion on Middle East types. We also need to pay attention to the Black Muslims, the anarchists, PETA, ELF, and assorted nut cases.
Grrrrrr!
No. They need to be charged with aiding and abetting terrorists. Trying to confuse, disrupt and over burden anti-terror security resources is a direct act of support for terrorism.
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