[be-baw]

There was a thread running on this all night long (over 750 posts), but this is the first extended print article that I know of.

[atafak]

Last we heard from those monitoring scanners was that they had arrested someone from a ryder van. Suspect had attempted to flee on foot.

[Mr. Mulliner]

Thanks for posting this, be-baw. When I first saw that other thread, it was 600 posts long already and I couldn't take the time to wade through it to get whatever details people were providing.

I was hoping to find out whether the security guard had a gun and if he did why it seems he didn't use it. It's very possible that in Cambridge, MA -- Berkeley East -- that the guard wasn't allowed to carry a gun, but even there it seems impossible to believe.

[NautiNurse]

The van had a Florida license plate attached, but a law enforcement official and a Ryder employee said that it appeared to be a false plate.

A false plate? Maybe they mean a stolen plate? Wrong type of plate for a rental truck? Granted, we have not less than 30 different types of tags here--and some and quite colorful.

I heard awhile back that LEO in other states have a difficult time with ID due to the extraordinary number of different themes/types of FL license tags.

[Jim Noble]

>>The Bay State, the official said, was not mentioned as a target in the renewed alerts that officials in Washington and California had announced in recent days<<

Yes, and I have heard it is official Al Qaeda policy to announce their targets several days in advance.

[Ann Archy]

What nationality were the men??

[rebel]

I can't believe there us not a description of the drivers in this report. (1)The drivers were seen and spoken to, (2)under conditions that indicated they were suspected of planting a bomb (3) and if there is a stateide search for the vehicle a description of the drivers would have been a vital piece of information. Why was there no description of the drivers given?

[SamAdams76]

There are lots of underground garages in the Boston area in which a car bomb could cause mass destruction. I'm glad the security has been ramped up. I drove into the Park Plaza underground garage last week and they were checking every vehicle thoroughly. They made me pop my trunk.

[snorkeler]

Do you have a url for that thred? I forgot to mark it.

[dhfnc]

Thanks - infomation good -
I can't believe that they did not catch the van. I was in that thread last night, there was a link to the Boston police scanner where you could listen. It was interesting, however that van is probably a long way from Boston now, probably completely out of New England. I certainly hope they find it SOON!

[TXnMA]

What size "Ryder rental van" was it?

Ryder's current "consumer rental" ("Yellow") fleet consists consists of a very limited set of (3) truck/van sizes:

       

Notice that they no longer offer the infamous 20-foot model the McVeigh supposedly used in OKC. I recently drove a Ryder 24-foot from MA to TX; you'd have to be a pretty good driver to maneuver that beast around in a parking garage -- if you could even get it in the entrance...

Also note that the article mentions "blacked out windows". None of the Ryder "Yellow fleet" trucks has windows in the cargo compartment. Could it have been a passenger van from the Ryder LTS ("White") commercial leasing fleet? If so, I would expect their lease records to be rather thorough.

BTW, wonder if the driver had a VA driver's license...

Does anyone know what color and size the "Ryder Rental van" was? That would narrow the search considerably...

[TheOtherOne]

This article is also on the wire.

USA: UPDATE 1-"False alarm" over rental trucks near Washington.

10/07/2001
Reuters English News Service
(C) Reuters Limited 2001.

(Recasts with false alarm, previous WASHINGTON

ROCKVILLE, Md., Oct 7 (Reuters) - Authorities said two rented trucks that were stopped on Sunday while heading toward Washington on a major interstate highway in Maryland did not contain explosives and the incident was called a "false alarm."

Interstate 270 was closed for about an hour while a bomb-sniffing dog checked out the contents of two Ryder rental trucks, said Cpl. Rob Moroney of the Maryland State Police Office of Public Affairs.

No explosives were found and it turned out the drivers had been hauling stage and sound equipment used earlier in the day during a memorial for fallen firefighters attended by President George W. Bush in Emmitsburg, Maryland, north of Washington, Moroney added.

"We were erring more on the side of caution just in case," Moroney said. "Obviously, the officers and troopers did not want to rush over and pop the door open and have it booby-trapped and blow up."

Sgt. Randy Roberts of the Maryland State Police , added: "There's nothing to it. There were no explosives found - a false alarm."

Both trucks were driven by Hispanic men who did not speak English, Moroney said. Suspicions were raised since state police officers initially could not understand what the drivers were saying about the contents of the trucks, he added.

The trucks were stopped in the late afternoon near Rockville, about 15 miles (24 km) outside of Washington.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks by hijackers that leveled the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and damaged the Pentagon outside Washington, many U.S. law enforcement officials have taken extra security precautions.

Sunday's military strikes by the United States and Britain against targets in Afghanistan increased security concerns.

[TRY ONE]

First things first...did the truck have a safety sticker?....was the driver smoking?.....did the driver have an open can of beer in the truck?....

[fnord]

Story seems to have disappeared from the national wires, hmmm. If this is as it appears, shouldn't everybody be on the lookout for this truck? And do they think that this is just an "isolated case", and there are not other suspects in other trucks around the country?

[VRWC_minion]

Police seek van with suspicious cargo

Police seek van with Unsuspicious cargo ?

Dog bites man, news at eleven.

[Publius6961]

one law enforcement official said the van sighting did not fit into any specific threat recently made against Massachusetts targets.

Well, at least one law enforcement official needs to be doing something else.
What a twit, if he's doing his job based solely on the statements made by the terrorists as to their intentions.
Where do we get these geniuses? And what are they doing "protecting" us?

[TheOtherOne]

FBI Searches for Ryder Rental Truck Carrying Suspicious Cargo

BOSTON – The FBI is searching for a rented Ryder truck that sped away from security at the Cambridge Galleria Mall after personnel there found drums and gasoline cans duct taped to the floor and walls.

The FBI is asking law enforcement to stop and detail the driver and van of the rental truck.

Officials say the possible license plate number is 4789H7.

The incident occurred around 7 p.m. tonight.

©WHDH 7News

[dogbyte12]

This is another perfect example of us not knowing exactly what is going on because the government doesn't think we are prepared for it. CNN, FOX, and MSNBC should be running constant tickers of this story. First things first. The top FBI polygraph expert in Boston should immediately put the security guard on the machine, verify the story. This should take 45 minutes at most. Then, it becomes a nationwide search. Law Enforcement should just profile large trucks driven by middle eastern men and yank them over.

We still don't know if this story is true or not. I guarantee that 95% of the people in the locations this truck could be right now, if it's still out there over 12 hours later, have no clue about it's existence. Somebody has seen it, but only because the media and the feds don't want to alarm us, it has not been stopped.

[RaceBannon]

DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY LINKS TO ARTICLES OF ARABS TAKING PICTURES OF DAMS, BLDS, CHEMICAL PLANTS, ETC?