Posted on 09/30/2004 5:12:44 PM PDT by Robert_Paulson2
No threat seen to district; children are safe, police say By Kelly Thornton UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
A man arrested by U.S. authorities in Iraq had a computer disk in his possession containing a public report downloaded from a U.S. Department of Education Web site on crisis planning in school districts, including San Diego Unified.
The man was described as an Iraqi national with connections to terrorism and the insurgency that is fighting U.S. forces in Iraq. Officials in San Diego said the man's intentions were unknown.
San Diego law enforcement officials said there was no indication of any terrorist plot against schools in San Diego or elsewhere in the country. They did not publicly release the information because there appeared to be no threat. The information was relayed to the San Diego FBI office last week and then to the school district Friday.
"The children are absolutely safe," said San Diego Police Chief Bill Lansdowne. "If there was a threat, we, the San Diego Police Department, would be first to notify (parents). This is not a threat."
The disk contained a document entitled "Practical Information on Crisis Planning, A Guide for Schools and Communities." The 50-plus page document, published in May 2003 by the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, is available to the public on the U.S. Department of Education's Web site, said San Diego District spokeswoman Peri Lynn Turnbull.
FBI officials visited the office of district Superintendent Alan Bersin Friday to inform him, Turnbull said. Because there was no indication that terrorists were targeting any schools, in San Diego or elsewhere, the district informed the school police department, but decided not to notify schools and parents.
"We certainly did not want to create any unnecessary panic in our community," Turnbull said. The FBI said because there was no specific threat, that was the appropriate response.
"The superintendent was alerted by the FBI that there were no direct threats to the district or any San Diego school and that by our maintaining our same level of care and concern that our schools would be safe," Turnbull said.
Dan Dzwilewski, head of the FBI office in San Diego, said there is no reason for alarm.
"We don't know the intention of the person that had this material," Dzwilewski said. "But the disk contained absolutely no threat information. It's only out of an abundance of caution – because it was discovered in Iraq
– that we shared this with another public agency."
Some counterterrorism officials said they were concerned that the information would be misinterpreted and would alarm people unnecessarily. They said the information was withheld from the public because there was no specific threat, and the public may become inured to repeated general warnings of vague possibilities of attacks.
"There is no threat here," said a San Diego police lieutenant who spoke on condition of confidentiality because of the sensitive nature of such investigations. "When you've put out information month after month after month, the public thinks we're crying wolf.
"The context here is, a public source document put out by the U.S. Department of Education was found on a computer. Period. My concern would be if a particular school district, or a particular school, or a particular institution was targeted, which it has not been."
Lansdowne said the situation shows that the federal government is sharing information with local agencies in an efficient manner.
"I think it's a good indication of how quickly we're notified and the thoroughness of the information we receive," the chief said. "They give us all the information now and allow local jurisdictions to do with it what they think they should."
Lansdowne said the report on the disk lauds the district as an example of good planning.
The document mentions other school districts and gives information about evacuations, lockdowns and other emergency procedures in the event of a disaster, such as an earthquake or terrorist attack.
"If somebody read the article, they would say we're not going to pick San Diego because they have a very good plan in place," Lansdowne said. "It's probably more good news than bad news."
Kelly Thornton: (619) 542-4571;
kelly.thornton@uniontrib.com
Public schools ping
No problem, really. I might not have checked this out if it hadn't seemed quite so close to home. I think I'll start carrying one of my tackdrivers with me in the field, though. Never know when there might be a need for something accurate.
each of those deserve their own threads.
you should post them.
very interesting approaches to school security, and I don't think WE should wait till OBL and his walking army of pig humpers try it here, to incorporate a plan of defense like the Israelis have.
they are seeking targets of opportunity where we are lax.
we are lax in keeping the perimeters of protection around our kids. wake up call. they are (it seems from this disk report in the paper) even now, working on their operational plan for an american Beslan incident. Or several dozen of them. We need to up our action plans. I am afraid however we won't until ...
you ought to repost those as articles on homeland defense.
I pray that those dreams DON'T come true.
Kerry is so full of it. That debate, made him LOOK slick last night. His words, every one of them, really painted him as a lying sack of crap, however. It was a gift from God that he shot his mouth off, and all I could think of was 'this guy really is a mcgovernish deaniac'.
I have come to believe that Americans don't like slickness as much as they do plain spoken facts. Facts like W brought up last night. Facts like this threat to our schools coming from operatives in Iraq. Yup... nail in coffin. AMERICA KNOWS that Iraq was a big part of the terrorist infrastructure, a state sponsor of it, to put a fine point on it. And in that, they were treated just like the terrorists they harbored. And we are taking action against those folks in Iraq EVERY DAY.
this guy with the disk, if he were not fighting there, he would be planning an operation here... or would have already carried it out. is that such a stretch for folks to grasp?
they do think we are stupid.
but with statements like "nothing to see here folks, move along, our kids are perfectly safe..." from leos... I actually think WE are the smart ones, and they are either stupid, or disingenous or both.
unbelievable.
You make good points and I agree, but I look at how the anti-gun left would view uniformed, armed personnel, civilian or otherwise, on elementary school campuses. It would frighten them and touch-off their anti-gun psychosis.
All of my kids/grandkid have been given the gift of firearms and know how to use them.
I use every opportunity I can to encourage women to go to the range and allow themselves to experience the joys of target shooting and the satisfaction of knowing they can defend themselves. There are no women in my family afraid of firearms. And I personally like the idea that the folks who live next door are armed, decent, law abiding people!
Thanks for the reply and let's hope that the threats we face will be taken seriously by ALL Americans, instead of a few.
Thanks!
John Kerry WILL protect us...
as soon as he gets the proper permission from France and the UN... so we don't offend his muslim constituency.
Of course, their solution would be to placate the islamists by beheading a few jews each week, just to let the islamists know we are on their side... you know. fair and balanced?
Kerry is an ass. and he is in the ass party. He and is "global test' foreign policy and national security plan make me want to vomit.
no...
thank YOU!
Your remarks re Kerry'this guy really is a mcgovernish deaniac' .
Now for my slight editing: 'this guy really is a mcgovernish deaniac' trained by Kennedy and Dukakis.
Another BTTT
Thanks for the post.
"I forced myself to wake up." (from the nightmare)
yes... those laws do so much for the safety of our kids right?
kleibold and harris would have not done 'columbine' if only those kind of laws were in place...
yup. terrorists are rational folks, all they need is for us to pass some laws... and they will be sure and obey.
are we idiots or what?
Besides your excellent points.
How did this Islamofascist/Kazi get that information?
I suspect that a Islamofascist in the San Diego school system gave to another Islamofascist and it got to al Qaeda.
This could have been like what happened in Russia.
Maybe we*ve been thinking too much about mass destruction re: a dirty bomb and the next attack on us is going to be a huge hostage-taking nightmare instead?
Unfortunatly, if they decide to hit your sister's children's school, there won't be any 'weirdness' detectable until the bad guys show up fully armed. Then there won't be a hting she can do about it.
Are there any Catholic or Lutheran schools in the neighborhood that may be smaller and therefore less desirable targets?
"We" aren't, but unfortunately a lot of politicians that "we" didn't vote for, but who got elected anyway, are idiots and think that the solution to terrorists with plans to kill kids at schools whether in Beslan Russia or San Diego California, is to pass more laws. But you knew that anyway due to your participation in FreeRepublic.
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