[piasa]

The investigation began on Sept. 29, 2001, when a sheriff's deputy in Washington state, responding to a noise complaint, discovered some people in "Middle Eastern attire" firing weapons at a gravel pit.

The deputy made no arrests, since they were breaking no laws.

But the clothing and foreign accent of one man, a Lebanese citizen named Ali Khaled Steitiye, stuck in his mind. After Steitiye was arrested in Portland last October for having an illegal weapons cache, the deputy contacted the FBI.

Steitiye, a Hamas sympathizer who circled the date Sept. 11 in red on his calendar, was sentenced to 21/2 years in prison last month.

[Travis McGee]

Profiling!