It was just before Christmas when authorities received a call from an unknown man saying he had accidentally spilled some mercury in an LA subway station. The man then disappeared and has yet to be found. Then authorities took more than 8 hours before sending out a HAZMAT team to clean it up.
Not a big deal you say? Congratulations! You can now get a job as an LA County Terrorism expert. That agency’s spokesman said they didn’t think there was any real danger since the man had called in to report the incident. And, after all, mercury is not toxic unless ingested into the body.
But according to surveillance video obtained by CNN (which you can view by clicking the link in the referenced post), the actions of the unknown man hardly look accidental. In fact, they appear to show the man deliberately kneeling down to pour the mercury on the platform, then calmly getting up and walking away. And according to a joint FBI and DHS intelligence bulletin released in 2005, calling the authorities could be just the kind of thing a would-be terrorist may do in a dry run to gather information about how authorities will react.
CNN analyst Pat D’Amuro, a former top FBI counterterrorism agent, says it’s premature to rule out terror.
“I’m not saying that in this video these people are terrorists, but there’s some very strange activity that needs to be identified here.”
EIGHT FRICKING HOURS TO RESPOND??? What the hell kind of security response is that? And yet the government and security organizations keep telling us that they are doing all they can to keep us safe? If this was indeed some kind of ‘dry run,’ the response of the authorities couldn’t be worse for us, nor could they be more promising for a terrorist group. We’re spending billions of dollars on homeland security, yet we can’t even count on the ‘experts’ to do their job in a timely manner? Imagine if a real toxic substance had been released…would they just nail boards up over the subway entries and run away? Or would they sit blithely by for hours while the potential chemical or biological agents worked their way through the subway tunnels or up into the streets while the culprits simply faded away?
I tell you folks…it’s bad enough to have a president who enrages our enemies at every turn, who taunts them with bravado and sneers, who practically dares them to ‘bring it on.” It is completely unacceptable for our homeland responders to sit on their asses while a potential toxic disaster sits untended on a subway platform.
Keeping us safe, huh? Not bloody likely.
(cross posted at Bring It On!)
This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at 5:52 pm and is filed under Government, national security, Terrorism.
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January 20th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
THERE IS NOTHING COMMON ABOUT “SENSE”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:56 pm
It’s a good job I am a nice citizen and not a terrorist with a criminal mind, because I can always think up nasty things they could do. Causing terror wouldn’t be that hard if you really thought about it.
Yes, 8 hours is a long time. What if Mercury was only the half of it? How did they know it was only mercury? Lots of questions, obviously..
I don’t think we’ll ever be prepared for any possible next thing, but the least you can do is deal with it a bit quicker than 8 hours later.. Wow.
I think the most effective way to deal with possible terrorism is to stop pissing the potential terrorists off by stealing their resources first, but what would I know? 😉
January 27th, 2007 at 4:40 am
OTOH, if this were a dry run for a terrorist act, with the intention of learning what the emergency response would be, I think I’d rather not give them any more information than necessary.
Not that I think that’s what the logic was.