I've waited to post this until I got the go ahead from a friend who is a highway patrolman here in Rapid City. It is annecdotal and no, there is no link.
10 days ago, the patrolman, stopped a car for speeding on Interstate 90, near Ellsworth Air Force Base. In the car were five middle-easterners, four men and one woman. They had no luggage. According to their story they were travelling from Seattle to Chicago. Patrolman contacted authorities and gave their I.D.'s. There was a "hit" on three of the five. They were on the F.B.I "terror watch list".
Patrolman was advised to issue just a warning and let them go. (At this point of his story I was a bit appalled!)
However, F.B.I. agents started following them about 150 miles east of here. Rather than arrest them locally, they wanted to see where they would go and who they could lead them to. Still don't know the outcome, and probably never will, but I thought it was a bit interesting.
Point is.....this stuff is happening everywhere, not just in the big cities. And the F.B.I. is acting. We just don't always know about it.
I wanted to tell you guys about this sooner, but was advised to hold off until way after they reached their destination.
My friend is a 20 year veteran of the SDHP, former military, and I trust him not to "BS" me.
Interesting RR. Thanks for posting. I agree with you that it is not just the big cities. I'm sure there is much more going on that we will never hear about.
Thanks for the first hand report, RR.
Coming to Chicago, eh? Grrrrr.
~Chilling I remember when Pooper was seeing daily occurences not long ago on our highways
Considering I live near Seattle and often fly to Chicago for the company I'm with (and have many friends in the greater Chicago area) this story certainly does not give me a 'warm fuzzy' feeling. Everyone should be constantly vigilent.
To relate another story, about 6 weeks ago we had the local representative from the Joint Task Force on Terrorism visit our location. We are an industrial gases manufacturer in the Tacoma, WA. area. Apparently that morning (about 5 am)a local police officer approached a man (no description was given to us by the JTF or the Tacoma PD) whom was filming our trucks entering and leaving the facility, from an overpass on I-5. These are 18 wheelers with Liquefied Argon, Oxygen and Nitrogen trailers.
Though the officer had no grounds to apprehend the individual he did file a report and it must have caught someones attention. Less than 3 hours later the local representative of the JTF on Terrorism, a Pierce county sheriff's deputy and a Tacoma city police detective, came to our location to discuss site security, among other topics, with us.
To compound the matter, and set our nerves a little on edge, the day before an unmarked white panel van was seen outside the fenceline with two people photographing the site. One of our employees approached the van and it left 'in a hurry' according to the employee. The next day (same day as the filming incident above) a car was outside the fence line doing the same thing, it also left hurriedly when it was approached. Unfortunatley we do not have any type of ID as to the nationality of any of the idividuals involved in the incident.
One point has to be remembered, we are considered a chemical manufacturer and we do have a lot of eco terrorist freaks in this area. It could as easily have been Green Peace or Earth Liberation Front goons looking for an easy target, as it could have been islamofacists.
Since then we have had no further incidents