Posted on 05/01/2012 2:26:23 PM PDT by Las Vegas Dave
CLEVELAND, Ohio – FBI officials today said that while the members of a group arrested in an attempt to blow up a bridge over the Cuyahoga Valley National Park were also involved in the Occupy Cleveland movement, that organization is not under federal investigation.
"Let me be clear, the FBI and Department of Justice are not conducting an investigation of any specific group," said Steven M. Dettelbach, U.S Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio. "We do not investigate movements or groups, we investigate individuals."
The Occupy movement is never identified by name in the affidavit filed by federal officials today, but interviews have since indicated that the five arrested had been involved with – and somewhat dissatisfied with – the Occupy Cleveland movement in Public Square.
Still, that the five men arrested were connected with that movement – including attending an Oct. 21, 2011, event on Cleveland’s Public Square – had caused ripples throughout the day.
The group also issued a statement Monday, saying that “while the group arrested Monday evening by the FBI were associated with Occupy Cleveland, they were in no way representing or acting on behalf of Occupy Cleveland or the event that was planned for later today at the GE Lighting building."
The May Day event at GE was sponsored by Occupy Cleveland, the North Shore AFL-CIO, Cleveland Jobs with Justice, Fight for a Fair Economy and SEIU Local 1, the statement said. The event was cancelled, however, because of “the alleged actions of the autonomous group arrested (Monday) night,” the statement said, adding that “Occupy Cleveland has had affirmed principles of non-violence since its inception on October 6, 2011.”
"Today's event Occupy GE (General Electric) was canceled because there were rumors these guys were involved,” said Debbie Kline of Jobs with Justice. “They were NEVER at the table.
“It’s been over a month we've been planning this. We will do this in the future. We'll do this again. But it would have been in bad taste to do today."
Bomb plot suspect Brandon Baxter came to a Jobs with Justice “spring training” event this year to learn about non-violent action, she said.
"When you're in a movement, you can't kick people out when they are volunteers," Kline said. "These five were acting on their own, they didn't have any part of the greater movement."
"There are ‘fringey’ people all over the place."
View full sizeThomas Ondrey, The Plain DealerThe Ohio 82 bridge as it crosses the Cuyahoga River in Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Brecksville. The FBI arrested five men this week in connection with a plot to blow up the bridge today for May Day protests.
The FBI arrested Baxter and four others Monday evening, saying they had planted what were believed to be explosive devices under the Ohio 82 bridge over Cuyahoga Valley National Park as part of a May Day protest today.
The five men were “self-proclaimed anarchists,” who intended to detonate two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) under the bridge in Sagamore Hills, but had purchased the inert devices from undercover FBI agents, officials said
Also arrested by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and charged with conspiracy and attempted use of explosive materials were: Douglas Wright, 26 and Anthony Hayne, 35.
Wright had also talked about "getting a car that they can drive into the Federal Reserve Bank" in Cleveland to blow it up, according to an affidavit from FBI Special Agent Ryan Taylor. (See the affidavit in the DocumentCloud reader below.)
“Despite the defendants’ worst intentions and aims during the entire course of yesterday’s operation, the public was never in danger,” Dettelbach said. “The defendants never possessed at any time any really explosive materials and the arrests warrants were signed before they got in the car and went to the bridge.”
Also arrested, but not charged, were Connor Stevens, 20 and Joshua Stafford, 23. Anthony said Stevens and Stafford were currently being charged, officials said.
Meanwhile, the Cuyahoga Valley National Park issued a news release this afternoon saying that park rangers worked with FBI during the course of the investigation and that “park visitors were not at risk during the operation.”
“At no time were the Brecksville Station or the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad considered targets for the plot,” the news release said.
The national park encompasses 33,000 acres along the Cuyahoga River between Cleveland and Akron, Ohio.
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson also issued the following statement: “I would like to express my appreciation to FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Stephen D. Anthony and the Cleveland Office of the FBI for their diligence in identifying and exposing a potential threat to our community, and for keeping Cleveland's safety leadership informed on the progress of the investigation.”
Reporter Rachel Dissell contributed to this story.
I sure hope the dem dickwads who run Cleveland coddle these occupy losers and let them camp and sleep in the Public Square this year. Just clear them out and keep them out.
I sure hope the dem dickwads who run Cleveland coddle these occupy losers and let them camp and sleep in the Public Square this year. Just clear them out and keep them out.
Route 82 is a major road and there would have been deaths had they managed to blow this bridge. I hope they charge these a-holes with attempted murder and put them away forever.
Kind of crucify them, to use an EPA analogy.
Freeloaders aren't very bright.
One of the stories I read said they had a whole list of potential targets including hospitals, schools, klan gatherings etc.
IF heavy dem and union city THEN Occupy Group.
Klan meetings in Cleveland? What neighborhood, I wonder.
“There is no credible evidence so far that this attack was more than at least one person, the driver,” said Mayor Mike Bloomberg. “After that there is no evidence that anyone else was involved. It may be, but we can’t say that it is.”…
“If I had to guess, twenty five cents, this would be exactly that,” Bloomberg said. “Homegrown maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.”
I made a meme out of that. The “OccupyPrison” part might fly, but the part about what’s now getting “occupied” there would be zot-bait.
This story lists law enforcement, oil wells, cargo ships, and a casino.
http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-5-men-charged-ohio-bridge-bomb-plot-193737490.html
Sounds like an Obama appointee. Can anyone in government or the media go a day without using that phrase?
Pretty ambitious list for a bunch who are likely baffled by the technical intricacies of the “flaming bag of dog poop” prank.
Their brilliant plan included throwing tacks out of the car if police chased them. lol
“To prevent capture, he suggested getting tacks that they could throw out of the back of the car if they get caught in a chase.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2878557/posts
You keep remembering and reading basically WRONG stuff.
The total number of FBI agents in the US ranged between 3,000-5,000 (which included non-field agents). The KKK and related groups had many thousands of members at any one time (say 1960-70s when it went into decline, due, in part to the 1965 hearings by the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities which exposed the Klan as the violent, hate group that it is).
The FBI couldn’t assign 3,000 agents to monitor the Klan, etc. That’s not how surveillance/intelligence investigations work. Been there, done that. Most agents worked on organized crime, interstate crimes, esp. kidnappings, bank robberies, hijackings, Soviet and Soviet Bloc and Red Chinese espionage, white collar crime, and aid local police at times.
THere was one radical organization that actually did have several FBI agents or informants in it but that was an anomaly (depended on the possible threat that the group posed and its size). Sometimes the police ran their own intell ops when they perceived a local threat. Been there, done that, only it was another private group that did the infiltrating on its own. The ENTIRE OPERATION, in both cases, consisted of about 12 people, and in my case, consisted of several very violent SDSers.
AND they were not supposed to know what the others were doing. Independently sourced intelligence is much better than single-source intelligence. Been there, done that.
Since you know and remember so much, here’s a story you can add to your repetoire. I was working for a govt agency (ies) and testified about a person who later turned out to be a local police officer in another city. He later testified before Congress about what he had learned, about 6-12 months after my cover was broken so that I could testify before Congress (about radicals/violence/communist domination of key national groups/KGB ties, etc).
This officer provided inside information on a very important Chicago group that I could not have provided since I didn’t operate there. He also provided information which expanded on what I had said about several organizations.
Two independent sources are much better than one.
Remember that, if you will.
“God bless them for their spontaneity,It’s young, it’s spontaneous, it’s focused and it’s going to be effective.”
I have no idea how many people were in the KKK but I am sure I read that from a normal source. It could have been wrong but I am not wrong about it being reported.
Now the one about the FBI having informants who operated an entire operation from within some radical group by accident, I am certain was widely reported.
I don’t care if you are J. Edgar himself, I just repeated what I read. At one time I would have trusted the FBI to an extreme degree and that trust was probably justified.
Now I think they are a bunch of clowns. Well actually there probably are lots of good ones left however I personally witnessed a bunch of FBI agents behaving like trash during the 60’s.
> “We do not investigate movements or groups
Unless they are the Tea Party, the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, or any other anti-Abortion-murder, anti-unnatural-marriage, anti-tax, anti-democrat, or anti-0bamao group.
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