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.
...””We do not investigate movements or groups, we investigate individuals...”
That’s your problem right there!
“What? Why the hell isn’t it? “
Do you really believe anyone in government?
Probably because they have confidential informants and sources close to or inside various “Occupy” movements or (more likely) the anarchist and black flag types who are now attaching themselves to the Occupy movements.
More info:
“OHIO BOMB PLOTTERS Seen At #Occupy Cleveland Protests >>>VIDEO”
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/05/ohio-bomb-plotters-seen-at-occupy-cleveland-protests-video/
First mistake: Don’t believe everything you read. I have been a reporter/journalist for over 40 years, and have seen just about every type of pisspoor reporting from all sides, even being the subject of one libelous story (what I did to that newspaper is for another day, but it was fun).
I worked with the FBI and the two agents, during Hoover’s time, were extremely professional and knowledgeable in their field. I have known other FBI, CIA, and military intelligence agents, and have found them to be professionals, dedicated patriots, and very rational people.
If I mentioned some of their names, you would recognize them; others you wouldn’t but they probably prevented WW3 - my contacts went way up the food chain in spooksville, from Nam to Berlin, Latin America to the Weathermen.
I’ll just mention a couple who you will find at Google, etc. - Herb “I Led Three Lives” Philbrick; Larry Gratwohl - Weather Underground; Tom West and Irvin Bock, Chicago PD; Larry Sulc, CIA; Herb Romerstein, NY state investigator, HCUA, HISC, Senate Intelligence Committee, State Dept/USIA Soviet Propaganda section; Whittaker Chambers, KGB/GRU, CPUSA, etc.
Whatever is wrong with the FBI today is due to the politicization of it and the CIA by Obama, pure and simple. If you know where to look, you’ll see what I mean.
Most newspaper writers are NOT trained in intelligence and police matters. The few good ones, like Fred Reed, are retired and there are literally no “police beat” reporters anymore.
To often they write a story and miss half of it. Not always their fault but a rush to judgment and a lack of background fundamentals of the subjects (i.e. intelligence, police methodology, the criminal justice system, our enemies and their tactics, and media bias), provide the average reader with average to poor stories, aka “junk”.
I got a degree in Police Science specifically to enhance my writing on law enforcement, terrorism, and internal security. My classmates, all law enforcement people, provided real-time comments and information, and all my teachers were either criminal lawyers, judges, retired FBI (one was the man who helped capture the German saboteurs who landed in New Jersey during WW2), active duty police officers, etc.
You’d be amazed what you DON’T KNOW when you start to write about police matters and internal security affairs. It takes decades to really learn the basics and nuances of the subject and how to write accurately about it.
Oh, attend a Klan/Nazi rally if you really want an education. Those today are nothing like those of the past, but you can get a glimpse of their mentally ill state. Then attend a communist or related leftist extremist organization’s meeting/rally, and you will find the same thing. Been there, done that.
About an informant who operated an entire operation - so what. Some radical groups were so disorganized that it made surveillance easier of some kind of structural form was given to the group. Been there, done that.
It is the goal of that group that is important, and the hidden identity of those who really run it. That’s what opened my eyes, but the mainstream media totally refused to report it despite many congressional hearings and reports, including live inside witnesses testimony.
Be glad we have the FBI and not the KGB. Too many of my friends spent time in Soviet torture centers (Lubyanka prison), and the Gulags of the Trans-Siberian Railroad system ( i.e. Potma)or in Murmansk-Archangel salt mines such as Vorkutka.
Yarddog: You’ve got a lot to learn about the real world. Open the door and enter it, if you to “see”.
Now: About Vietnam and Cambodia. Been there, done that. but it’s another story for another day.
Well I am surprised that I actually agree with just about every thing you said. I used to watch “I led 3 lives” when I was a kid.
I certainly did not know any of the famous people you did but I have known and worked with some people who were about as deep into counter-intelligence as one gets tho of course they never gave me any details.
During the 60s, I spent a couple of weeks being around a bunch of FBI agents and they were not impressive at all. I personally had some dealings with an FBI supervisor and he was about as sorry as they get. I had grown up watching “The FBI, with Efrim Zimbalist Jr.” and thought they about walked on water.
I ended up seizing his ranch and as far as I know, he never suffered any repercussions for his misbehavior.
You just knew channeling Boy George was going to add up to no good.
These guys look just like some of my favorite meth heads on this site:
http://www.mappsd.org/Faces%20of%20Meth-Static2.htm
The media usually get’s 1/5th of the story correct if it’s more complicated than a hit and run or stop and rob incident.
Everyone is a talking head these days...... I rarely watch cable news but we were cooped up with inclement weather on the day of the Virginia Tech shooting incident. I was so disgusted with the news coverage and the comments made by “experts” on television.
It is pointless to debate about these topics when so few facts are known. An affidavit to support these arrests is sealed by the court. It is probably hundreds of pages long (single spaced) and spans all kinds of investigative procedures and techniques. Too often, including on this forum, you get people who seem to think the arresting document is contained within the news article written by some young hack. Too many people form an opinion based on the initial coverage and rarely change it when new facts come to light.
Law enforcement in America at every level suffers from diarrhea of the mouth in the quest for good publicity. It’s not necessary to tell the media a GPS tracker was put on the burglars car and detectives used that to follow him/her and catch them red-handed. The wiser men of yesteryear would simply say “we had him under surveillance”. Trackers are expensive. This is why affidavits like this should be sealed, these are extremely comprehensive investigations that will be critically reviewed throughout the process. Conspiracy minded folks neglect the FACT that the defense attorney, his defense colleagues, defense investigators, and any other expert they wish to employ are all free to scrutinize the facts contained within the four corners of the affidavit. The Judge and the appeals court are not an easy audience either!
You sound like you would be an interesting man at choir practice.
They don't? What about militias in the 90's, as just one example?
I was hiking the towpath and metro parks yesterday, CREEPY!
I bet it would be easier to train 4 kittens to walk in formation than it would be to organize 4 occupiers.
Re choir practice. My voice is so bad people pay me NOT to sing.
Also, I don’t like to preach to the choir. I like raw audiences of any persuasion since it will be a test of my presentation and knowledge to wake them up if they are asleep at the wheel, to provide them with new information so that they can begin to see the dimensions of a problem, and to bring them over to our side if they like and understand what I am saying.
However, I have a policy, “if you feed me, I will come”. Even the reds once gave me a cookie (my food tester said it was ok).
Re your comments. Yes, most reporters on criminal issues aren’t worth a damned. To lazy to do their homework. SOme of the TV shows on cable that deal with Cold Case Files, Disappeared persons, cold-blooded killings, etc. actually have investigators and authors who DO read everything relating to a case. It often gives them more of an insight into the case, the people, potential motives, and often overlooked leads or evidence.
I have found that in reading captured communist and PLO documents from Vietnam/Cambodia, Grenada, Lebanon, etc., often there is ONE LINE that changes the whole tenor of it. You just have to be on the look-out for such a sentence, name, etc.
I had to do this type of searching in FBI wiretap transcripts, newspaper articles, etc. when I worked on an organized crime task force. It was that one name that provided the link for asset seizures.
However, you must know what you are looking for, and also something about the context in which it appeared.
Too many reporters didn’t learn this in journalism school. I learned mine from those names I previously mentioned, plus from a couple of Pulitzer Prize writers I used to have lunch with. You just sit and listen to the pros talk. Then you ask questions. Much better than journalism school (to which I never went).
Also, you learn on the street, usually from the policemen on the beat, or CIDs who are friends of yours.
It also is nice to how a police officer in the family. He cleaned up my garden yesterday. I trained him well, as did the Army and the Albuquerque PD.
Because that would be illegal?
Startled yet? Scared even a little? Worried?
Good thing they caught this amateur group.
Too bad their advertising the ‘how’ they caught this group though. Buying devices? Well guess we will see some homemade stuff later as they learn from this mistake.
It is going to be a long hot summer...
As far as them not investigating the OWS Cleveland group...yeah that is disinformantion. But...is yesterday’s take down also just a distraction for a larger investigation too.
You see the democrats can control the OWS group to a certain point, but they cannot control the contemporary Anarchists. I think it is important to understand this contemporary Anarchist has evolved and is not what we normally define or understand as an anarchist.
I posted a link yesterday for a FReeper to a socialist website explaining the evolution of the American-style Anarchist in the Marxist movement. Interesting, but heavy reading. Anarchists are usually linked to the far fringe right, but it is clear that the socialist/marx movement is claiming them as their own. I think this acknowlegement is important, http://www.isreview.org/issues/72/feat-anarchism.shtml, they admit the anarchist is a left centered creature.
Social Basis for Anarchism:
“Anarchism began its life as a philosophical reaction to the oppressive growth of early capitalism. Essentially rooted in liberal, enlightenment thought, anarchism’s social basis lay in the small craft and artisanal classes—what Marx called the petty bourgeoisie, then being eradicated with the growth of industrialism. The anarchist Albert Metzler agrees with Marx’s assessment of anarchism’s birth.”
The problem, as they even acknowledge, is they can’t control them. Which if they are claiming to be anarchists...they cannot be truly linked to OWS.
Well the OWS folks have handed to Romney the 2012 Presidential elections by “default!”
Sounds like you have a book to write some day - good reading, too...
You’re not reading between the lines. Dettelbach said that they don’t investigate groups, they investigate people—like, for instance, members of Occupy Cleveland.
This group was infiltrated by an undercover FBI agent. Where do you think the FBI agent met these guys, at the Piggy Wiggly? Maybe—just maybe—he ran into these fellows at the Occupy Cleveland protests. Just sayin.
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