Wake up MISTER!
It may be that this neighbor should try a lil profiling.
Posted on 11/07/2002 12:04:13 AM PST by Abar
Feds raid homes in South County - Pacific, Federal Way residences searched for drugs and guns
2002-11-06 by Jamie Swift Journal Reporter
A 70-member federal task force raided two south King County homes early Tuesday morning searching for weapons and drugs.
FBI officials offered little information Tuesday afternoon about the raids conducted in Federal Way and Pacific. Ray Lauer, spokesman for the FBI, would not discuss what may have been seized or the individuals the investigation targets.
Agents from the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Secret Service knocked on the front door at 301 Third Ave. S.E. in Pacific just after 6 a.m.
A woman answered the door, said she was the only one home, then the federal agents stormed the house. They found the man they were looking for hiding under blankets in a closet, said Pacific Mayor Howard Erickson.
The man, who is in his 30s and manages the Pacific Heights apartment complex adjacent to his house, was taken into custody while his wife and children sat inside a police vehicle, Erickson said.
The man's arrest was not confirmed. A call to the home Tuesday night was answered by a man who declined to comment.
Erickson provided the details of what happened at the home because he watched part of the raid from the street. He said the Pacific Police Department had been working with the FBI for at least the past two weeks in preparation for Tuesday.
``The FBI has been watching this place for a considerable amount of time,'' Erickson said.
Pacific police has had Pacific Heights under video surveillance in the past due to drug problems in the neighborhood. Neighbors agreed the complex has a history of methamphetamine problems.
Neighbors of the man, who is a Muslim, said he associates with his next-door neighbor Ali Shahid Abdul-Raheem -- a Muslim extremist who has been investigated by the FBI.
According to reports last summer in the Seattle Times, Abdul-Raheem is an admirer of Osama bin Laden and a friend of al-Qaida recruiter Abu Hamza al-Masri. In fact, Abdul-Raheem visited Abu Hamza in England last year, he told the Times. Abdul-Raheem denied any relationship with terrorist groups.
The FBI on Tuesday would neither confirm nor deny the investigation has anything to do with a terrorist group or plot.
Neighbors said the house raided Tuesday is where the two men conduct ``teachings'' on Sundays for several people.
Erickson said Abdul-Raheem's home -- a small, run-down duplex unit -- was not a target of the raid, but agents talked to Abdul-Raheem in an attempt to keep him from calling to warn the people at the house in Federal Way, where agents were conducting the simultaneous raid.
Pacific Heights residents said they never suspected their building manager was caught up in any illegal activity. They said he has managed the complex for about a year and works for a Seattle nonprofit agency that helps people who have suspended driver's licenses to get their licenses back. He sometimes wears traditional Muslim dress.
``He's a nice guy,'' said Mary Smith. ``Slow and forgetful, but nice. He's hardly ever home.''
Still, Smith said the relationship between her apartment manager and her Muslim extremist neighbor raises questions in her mind -- especially now that she has seen dozens of federal agents storm his home looking for guns.
``It's kind of spooky,'' Smith said.
Another neighbor, who asked not to be named, said, ``I don't think there's any affiliation with terrorism. He doesn't seem like that type of guy. But everybody sees what's going on here. It's scary.''
Neighbors said federal agents surrounded the old two-story house at the corner of Butte Avenue and Third Avenue Southeast as the man's two pit bulls watched quietly from their cage in the back yard. Agents were on the roof and rifling through files in the house and taking a lot of pictures, witnesses said. They were gone by 9 a.m.
Erickson said the raid was a sign that even in an inconspicuous small town like Pacific, law enforcement is watching what residents are doing.
``People think because we're a small town with a small police department (eight officers), they can come in and take advantage of that,'' Erickson said. ``It's a mistake to think you can come here and get away with anything.''
Jamie Swift can be reached at jamie.swift@southcountyjournal.com or 253-872-6646.
GRAPHIC by Dan O'Brien/Journal: FBI search.
Just in time for ramadamadingdong
Sure looks that way ...
I wonder if he was able to get some bogus licenses for "friends" too?
The close succession of last night's conservative victories and the apprehension of muslim terrorists bent on killing Americans could be too much for them.
Let's hope so.
That combination doesn't fit the description of any other group.
Wake up MISTER!
It may be that this neighbor should try a lil profiling.
Why would anyone who is not guilty be hiding under blankets in a closet?!!!!
Just a little 'bible study' group.
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