Posted on 09/14/2001 9:34:44 AM PDT by thesharkboy
In a Friday morning press conference, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik shot down widespread media reports from the night before that ten survivors had been discovered under the rubble of the World Trade Center last night -- with Kerik announcing that a hoaxer had been arrested.
"Reports, for example, that there are people that we've discovered and have been in contact with that aren't verified, aren't true," Giuliani told reporters.
"And there was a report like that yesterday evening that a woman was in communication with people and there were 10 or 15 people in a store underneath (Tower One). It was reported, it was reported rather widely and it led to lots of families becoming very, very hopeful and then finding out that it's just not plain true at all."
Commissioner Kerik detailed the hoax and subsequent arrest for reporters.
"Last night I was at the site when a woman in medical scrubs showed up in an RMP from the Sixth Precenct. She was hysterical. She was holding a cell phone. She said she was on the phone at the time, that she had just hung up the phone with her husband who was a Port Authority cop. She had a name, a shield number. She said that he was down in the hole under Building One, World Trade Center One. And he was with nine other people.
"She caused an extreme amount of panic at the site. I was there. I witnessed this. I saw it. And it was all fake. There was no husband. There was no phone call.
"And about fifteen minutes ago Sugheil Maheah, date of birth of Jan 20, 1977, was arrested for reckless endangerment, obstructing fire operations and false reports. We're also going to see if there's anything we can do to charge her federally for interfering with the operation."
"This is extremely dangerous," Kerik added. "We have thousands of people working at that site. They hear something of that nature, they get hopeful. They get aggressive in their working in the hole. The information travels extremely fast and it could cause someone to be hurt very, very badly."
The NYPD chief said any further false reports wouldn't be tolerated and would result in prosecution.
Mayor Giuliani also said that several individuals taken into custody at JFK airport late Thursday did not have box cutters and knives, as had been widely reported.
With Giuliani was Barry Marn, assistant director of the FBI in New York, who said investigators had detained and interviewed "approximately a dozen individuals" at New York airports late Thursday, but that all but one had been released.
Marn called reports that the detentions had interrupted yet another hijacking in progress "completely false and inaccurate."
damn, I just HAVE to stop that evil "racial profiling"! /sarcasm
What is her ethnicity/nationality? I don't want to jump to any conclusions but . . .
What a FINE American girl SEIG-HEIL is.
Can we check her citizenship status, please?
While that is not fun, for real effect, let the ATLA file massive numbers of Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress lawsuits against her. That would be a fate worse than death.
Well, we can forgive you, as it is certainly not as bad as the news networks reporting unverified information. The incorrect report of the car bombing of the State Department, faulty reporting in the case of the airport arrests, 800 dead in the Pentagon...
We're all desperate for information, but the news media need to slow down a little bit. Several times they've reported survivors being found, and those stories have turned out to be false. Every time they do that, victim families must go through a roller-coaster of emotions, all for nothing. It is cruel.
Some of the reporting is starting to take on the ghoulish aspects of the whole Princess Diana saga.
I think she needs an immediate one way ticket to Kabul. Let her spend the last hours of her life with her dear friends in the Talaban.
Oh, and while they're going there, they can drop off x42 and his wife, as well.
Has anyone verified what it was, if it wasn't a bomb at the State Dept?
Has anyone verified what it was, if it wasn't a bomb at the State Dept?
I have a sneaking suspicion that there are not that many drops of blood in that particular turnip. Still, gang-suing could make her credit history nasty, brutish, and short.
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