Police Detain 3 Men in Florida

[ufcrusher]

Hey I just saw something on Fox News concerning them stopping three men on Alligator Alley on the way to Ft. Lauderdale on suspicion of terrorism. I dont know what they have found...anyone else hear about this?

[ufcrusher]

From CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/13/alligator.alley/index.html


MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Bomb squad investigators have finished searching and have cleared one of two cars that were stopped early Friday on a stretch of I-75, called Alligator Alley, in Florida after authorities received a report of a possible terror plot targeting Miami.

No explosives were found in the vehicle, the commander of the bomb squad told CNN. After the search, a man, who was not wearing protective gear, drove the vehicle out of the way.

Investigators are now searching the second vehicle.

Authorities closed a 20-mile stretch of Alligator Alley -- the main east-west road across south Florida -- around midnight Thursday after a Collier County sheriff's deputy pulled over one of the two cars because it matched the description of the cars identified in the warning.

The second car pulled up at the scene -- about eight miles east of the western toll booth at Naples, Collier County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Tina Osceola said. Three men were taken into custody.

A bomb-sniffing dog responded to both cars, and three men were taken into custody. Authorities said the dogs are trained to detect explosives and similar compounds, such as gunpowder in firecrackers or hunting gear, but they did not see anything to suggest why the dog responded.

Government sources say the men are U.S. citizens, two of whom are naturalized, and are of Middle Eastern heritage. Another government source said the men are medical students attending school on the Caribbean island of Dominica.

In addition, law enforcement officials said the men were apparently headed to a medical conference in Miami. No information linking them to terrorism has been found.

An FBI source told CNN that agents out of the Tampa field office are questioning the men and that their IDs were being run through various intelligence data bases. Sources say the three were being "extremely uncooperative" with authorities. The men have not been charged.

"We're in a period of time where we can't afford to ignore valid leads," said E.J. Picolo of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. "When we get solid information we need to follow up on it." Officials were acting on information from a woman who said she overheard three men in a Calhoun, Georgia, restaurant talking of an attack on Miami.

"They scared me," said Stone, who was sitting with her son at a table next to the men.

According to Stone, the men appeared to be in their mid-20s and spoke English without accents. She said one of the men had a long beard and wore the type of cap she said she had seen Muslims wear.

"'They think they were sad on 9/11, wait until 9/13,'" Stone said she heard the man with the beard say.

Stone said the men were talking about Miami and had noted that they were running about five hours behind.

She said she heard one of the men ask: "Do you think we have enough to bring it down?"

Another one of the men replied, "If we don't have enough to bring it down, I have contacts and we can get enough to bring it down."

The information Stone overheard, along with an Illinois license plate number, was passed along to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The two cars then went southbound on Interstate 75. Calhoun, Georgia, is about 683 miles north of Naples.


Eunice Stone, whose tip led to the questioning of three men in Florida, leaves her home in Cartersville, Georgia, Friday.
The FBI has traced the license plate number from one of the cars to a home in Hanover Park, Illinois, and have agents there. According to the agency, one person has come forward to authorities with information.

Federal and state law enforcement agencies have descended on the scene. In addition to the Collier County Sheriff's Department, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Florida Highway Patrol, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have joined the investigation. (Map)

Authorities have set up makeshift command post on the highway and investigators in protective suits could be seen walking back and forth between the two cars. A robot from Miami-Dade County police was also brought in to help with the search.

Earlier, bomb squad investigators saw wires sticking out of a package in one of the cars, and used a water cannon to blow it apart, an official said. The package turned out to be medical equipment.

The FAA has issued flight restrictions around the site to keep aircraft out of the area, but news helicopters have been able to fly overhead.

The White House was keeping tabs on developments.

"We are reviewing," said White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. "I don't know if it has risen yet to the president's level. It's not clear if it's connected to anything broader."

Alligator Alley is a major cross-Florida highway that runs between Naples on the west to Fort Lauderdale on the east. Fort Lauderdale is about 27 miles north of Miami.

[Nija]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miami/4068519.htm



Three medical students of Middle Eastern descent who were stopped as suspected terrorists on Alligator Alley early Friday morning remained detained after they were overheard in a Georgia restaurant vowing to make America ``cry on 9/13.''

Federal sources involved in the investigation said they believe the three men - all U.S. citizens - were playing a stupid joke on another restaurant patron who gave them a suspicious look.

All three were on their way from Illinois to take medical training in Miami.

[Ladogaboy]

Hmm, yes... the medical art of terrorism. Scare them into submission by curing them. :heh:

[Nanotech9]

theres a joke around here...

we swear, that if Osama was driving a car down the highway next to a guy riding a wheelie, the cops would pull over the guy on the bike...

we joke about being "sport bike terrorists"... afterall all those wheelies are terrorizing everyone soo much we just must be that!

doh.

oh well, it sounds funnier irl.

[sbp]

Good to see potential threats like this are taken seriously and looked into.

[hapoo]

I'll make sure and not make any jokes in public anymore, cause you know with my skin tone one peep out of me and no one will hear from me again thanks to our patriot act.


on a side note, anyone notice today is friday the 13th?

[sbp]

Its Saturday the 14th here. :confused:

How are people supposed to know its a joke or not?

[nickel]

the lady who reported it did the right thing. we could only be so lucky that nothing came out of it.

[Cantacuzene]

I hope in thefuture, we have more people arrested on charges based on hearsay and conjecture. Evidence is hardly stuff Americans need concern themselves about.

Also, this is complete racism. If those boys had been white the lady wouldnt even have called the cops. Also, if they were white, they wouldnt have gotten dirty looks when they walked into a restuarant in Georgia.

I'm sure people being bigoted towards you gets old.

That said, I dont think it was in their best judgement to make those statements. If they really wanted to protest the dirty looks they should have got up and went to another establishment. I dont know what the appropriate punishment for them should be, but I'm guessing that the FBI interrogater they no doubt faced made them suffer enough mental anguish for a lifetime.

[sbp]

Someone around here got arrested for saying he would bring a gun into school. Guess that situation should not have been looked into and that was hearsay and conjecture?

If these were real terrorists who got away scot free, some would be sitting there complaining like usual. Its very easy to look at an incident after its over and say what should have been done.

[hapoo]

"Innocent until proven guilty"?
"Freedom of speach"?

I totally understand the country is paranoid right now but are we going to stop every dark skinned person who looks a little suspicious?


IN THE BEGINING:


1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

IN THE END:


ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL

BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS



I remember way back in high school our history teacher used to tell us this story of the time he went to russia. He was in his hotel when he ran into an old man who wanted to tell him something. After circling the hotel several times to make sure no one was around the man wispered into my teachers ear: "I like America".




I'll be the first to admit that they shouldn't have said what they said, and brought the arrest upon themselves though since they knew the state of things.

[Tommy Boomfiger]

as far as we know, they didnt make any such statements, they may have been made up or they may have been regarding something else. i heard something about "we shouldnt make any more stops like this, we are late". that couldnt be for anything else? maybe they were late for thier hotel reservations, to meet a friend. from the mouths of the students, to the so called witness to the police the exact wording could have changed twice. especially by people who were giving suspicious looks. obviously someone is lying, at this point only the people involved know who that was.

[Ladogaboy]

George Orwell was a genius. :D

[Tommy Boomfiger]

latest local news reports here say that the 3 students wont be able to complete thier nine week program at Larkin Community hospital due to safety concerns for the hospital. the family expects that the med school will make accomidations for thier situation.

[Grimm]

Originally posted by Cantacuzene
...
Also, this is complete racism. If those boys had been white the lady wouldnt even have called the cops. Also, if they were white, they wouldnt have gotten dirty looks when they walked into a restuarant in Georgia.

I'm sure people being bigoted towards you gets old.
...

Bull****.

If I had heard anyone talking like that I would have called the cops.

Their race made no difference. They made terrorist threats. They were reported. They were pulled over, detained and searched. If they were white, black, asian, whatever, the same thing would have happened. I know better than to say things like that. Educated men (medical students) should have enough intelegence, common sense, and restraint to avoid doing something so stupid.

I a white, I have all sorts of people bigoted against me. It's not a one way street.

I am not saying that the south doesn't have a lot of racists. But you assumed that they were getting dirty look because of their race, what if it was their behavior? How many of you would think to open the door for a woman, even a stranger, and wait for her to go first? There are a lot of places in the south where that will get you a LOT of dirty looks, or worse. Were they being loud? Some local restraunts are quiet places where a low volume is expected, disturbing people's peace will get you dirty looks. After traveling a long distance in a car, they could be quite "ripe", that will get them dirty looks... why do you decide that other people are guilty before even hearing the evidence?

[Cantacuzene]

Assuming someone is a terrorist is a much bigger jump than assuming and old woman in the deep south is a racist. Less than 1/10oth of 1% of people are terrorists whereas like 50%+ people in the deep south are racist. The odds are with me.

[chrissy]

Originally posted by Grimm


Bull****.

If I had heard anyone talking like that I would have called the cops.

Their race made no difference. They made terrorist threats. They were reported. They were pulled over, detained and searched. If they were white, black, asian, whatever, the same thing would have happened. I know better than to say things like that. Educated men (medical students) should have enough intelegence, common sense, and restraint to avoid doing something so stupid.

I a white, I have all sorts of people bigoted against me. It's not a one way street.

I am not saying that the south doesn't have a lot of racists. But you assumed that they were getting dirty look because of their race, what if it was their behavior? How many of you would think to open the door for a woman, even a stranger, and wait for her to go first? There are a lot of places in the south where that will get you a LOT of dirty looks, or worse. Were they being loud? Some local restraunts are quiet places where a low volume is expected, disturbing people's peace will get you dirty looks. After traveling a long distance in a car, they could be quite "ripe", that will get them dirty looks... why do you decide that other people are guilty before even hearing the evidence?


Well said.

[Cantacuzene]

Originally posted by Grimm

If I had heard anyone talking like that I would have called the cops.

Their race made no difference. They made terrorist threats. They were reported. They were pulled over, detained and searched. If they were white, black, asian, whatever, the same thing would have happened. I know better than to say things like that.

I disagree. I hear white people in my classes and around town making joking terrorist threats all the time.

"I'm gonna blow up wal mart."
"Lets bomb 7-11."
"Lets go hijack a plane and land it (insert humorous location)"

Stuff like that. I've never once thought to call the cops on them, and no one else would either. The only reason they got any attention was that they were arab kids in southern Georgia. When white people joke about terrorism, its a joke, when arab people do it they go to jail. You know I'm right, admit it.

All that said, they are some dumb kids if they actually said what they said. Like I mentioned in another thread. 'ignorance of the law is no excuse.' They should have known where they were and kept their mouths shut. Then again, its starting to come out that they said much less than what was accused of them...

[molecularfire]

I've actually used many of these same quotes, for slightly different reasons.

if Americans "were sad on 9/11, wait until 9/13."
I used this, to show how a lot of americans have very short memories unless they are primed by the media. Of course... I am generally very careful around who I say this to. Not so much that I fear retribution (I'm southeast asian, so i'm not anywhere near the top of the FBI's list of possible terrorists) but while IMO most people are just jumping on the bandwagon in regards to 9-11, there are also a lot of people who were seriously traumatized by the attack (some even with good reason)and so I don't want to insult their beliefs.



"Do you think we have enough to bring it down?"

Trying to calculate whether they have enough alcohol or weed for a party.


"If we don't have enough to bring it down, I have contacts and we can get enough to bring it down."
Ok... definitely weed. :bandit:

[Merlin]

It is dishartening to see what passes for "probable cause" nowadays. :disa: Now it seems three people can be detained and have their life turned upside down because some hick waitress (kiss my grits :bandit:) overheard some fragments of a conversation and jumped to a conclusion. Hell watching all those episodes of "Threes Company" taught me better then that.

For everyone here who feels "safe" that this happened, ask yourself how you would like it if you were talking about a video game or something and got arrested for talking about "blowing stuff up?" Farfetched? Maybe, but pretty close to what happened here.

[chrissy]

Originally posted by Merlin
It is dishartening to see what passes for "probable cause" nowadays. :disa: Now it seems three people can be detained and have their life turned upside down because some hick waitress (kiss my grits :bandit:) overheard some fragments of a conversation and jumped to a conclusion. Hell watching all those episodes of "Threes Company" taught me better then that.


it wasn't a waitress that overheard anything. It was a nurse sitting across the aisle from them that heard their conversation.

[Jenny]

About it being racist (directed towards canta)...

If it had been ME sitting there and had heard that from white men, you betcha I would have reported it. Maybe you are too young to remember, but in 1995, the Oklahoma City bombing was done by a WHITE AMERICAN...

[Cantacuzene]

I remember 1995, I was 15. McVeigh also fit a description. He was an anti-government militia wacko.

Also, I dont think you would have reported it if they were white. You might say now you would, but you wouldnt. What if I typed in the IRC chat, "I feel like tommorow I'm going to bomb the post office because I hate the government."

Would you report that? I doubt it. Like other people said, I could be talking about Grand Theft Auto 3 and old people could easily mistake that for something else. The only thing that would save me is my style of dress and my white skin. If I was an arab I wouldnt be so lucky.

To think that race had NOTHING to do with those kids situation is outrageous. They were obviously taken more seriously because of their race.

[Dave_7]

Originally posted by Cantacuzene
... 50%+ people in the deep south are racist. The odds are with me.


From where did you get these statistics?




Dave.

[sbp]

Originally posted by Dave_7



From where did you get these statistics?




Dave. the answer (http://www.makeyourownstatisticsup.com)

[Cantacuzene]

Dont be jerks. I wasnt trying to claim that those were the actual numbers. I was simply making a point with a hyperbole. Ofcourse I made up the number, did you actually think I seriously thought that was the actual number?

You cant see the forest through the trees. The point is racism is prevelent still in the south and racism played a role in this episode.

[Tommy Boomfiger]

Originally posted by Cantacuzene
The point is racism is prevelent still in the south and racism played a role in this episode. i dont agree with you completely. in these days after 9-11 this isnt really limited to the south, racial profiling is happening everywhere.

[ufcrusher]

I read an article in the paper today, which dealt with the fact that the hospital was not allowing them to complete the program that they were coming down for. The stated reason was for the safety of the patients, staff, and public around the hospital, including the 3 men themselves. Apparently they had been getting hate mail and death threats concerning the men. Now the thing that I found intersting was this...one man's fathers stated that after the man had just spent 2 years studying to be denied his residency was unfair.

2 years? Every doctor that I know takes 4 years to go through med school and then begins their residency. Something seems even more fishy after reading that statement.

[Tommy Boomfiger]

Originally posted by ufcrusher
2 years? Every doctor that I know takes 4 years to go through med school and then begins their residency. Something seems even more fishy after reading that statement. they may have been enrolled in an accellerated program. i know someone in a 5 year bachelors/med school program at washington univ. in st. louis. im not sure of the details but i know its an accelerated <edit>med program.

[ufcrusher]

There can be 5 or 6 year programs, but its the undergrad that is cut short rather than the med training. In fact, most schools have gotten rid of the 5 year programs all together (from what a doctor told me) because the administrators felt that the students werent gaining learning enough. So it still doesnt make sense to me.

[Tommy Boomfiger]

these guys are 27 and 28 according to wgn chicago news. and like i said, i know someone who is in a 5 year program right now. 2 years sounds short, but we dont know what school they are attending or when they actually started. that could have been a misquote or taken out of context.

right now there doesnt seem to be any reason to not believe they are not in med school but what happened at that restaurant. it would really suck to see someone just accuse you of something and your whole life is turned upside down. imagine if these guys dont get to finish med school and they didnt really say anything like what they were accused of, that would mean that the last 10 years of thier education were pretty much wasted, not even considering the costs. now if they did say it, they should be punished accordingly. dont know what it should be though. if thier accuser is the wrong one, thats probably a defamation or libel suit from each of the 3 students and probably something from the law enforcement agencies involved.

[hapoo]

I don't give a rats ass what they said, there was no evidence linking them to anything hence no punishment. Since when do we punish people for speaking??

[sbp]

No, what would really suck is seeing more innocents killed by terrorists all because the the situation wasn't checked out like it should have been.

Are people allowed to shout fire in a movie theatre?

What punishment?

[Tommy Boomfiger]

Originally posted by hapoo
I don't give a rats ass what they said, there was no evidence linking them to anything hence no punishment. Since when do we punish people for speaking?? you get punished for speaking when it infringes on the rights of others. that includes terrorist threats, hoax or real, and false accusations.

on a side note, i love how in every news report ive seen or read says that the 3 men were "uncooperative" or "extremely uncooperative" with police. i dont see why not letting police search thier cars or remainging silent is uncooperative. everyone, except police, say not to ever let police search anything without a warrent. they didnt resist arrest or run. if this was anyone else tha would not have been commented on. whether you are guilty or not, you shouldnt say anything because anybody can twist your words and make something sound wrong.

[p3rsian]

right on tommy :bandit:

[Merlin]

Originally posted by Tommy Boomfiger
whether you are guilty or not, you shouldnt say anything because anybody can twist your words and make something sound wrong.

It was also much safer keeping your mouth shut in Nazi Germany as well. :rolleyes:

[Cantacuzene]

Originally posted by Merlin


It was also much safer keeping your mouth shut in Nazi Germany as well. :rolleyes:

They didn't have Miranda rights in Nazi Germany. :P BAck then they could just beat the confession out of you if kept your mouth shut.

We civilized Americans arent allowed to be beaten by interrogators... unless they choose to label you as a terrorist.

[Ladogaboy]

Originally posted by Cantacuzene
We civilized Americans arent allowed to be beaten by interrogators... unless they choose to label you as a terrorist.

:heh: Careful there Cantacuzene. Your WORDS can get you in some serious trouble.


The thing that bothers me is this: they are now being refused entry to their medical program for THEIR OWN SAFETY? Come on, what kind of bullsh1t is that? So, are they now going to close down all abortion clinics and send their doctors to the unemployment line because there have been a few death threats? Maybe we should tell Bush to head back to Texas because his current position puts him in too much danger.

All this sounds like is sugar-coated racism perpetuated by fear and ignorance. Sometimes I just feel like certain Americans don't deserve the rights they were born with, but then again, it's not my place to take those rights away. :rolleyes:

[attgig]

btw, doesn't seem like it's been mentioned, so just in case you all missed it:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/15/fla.terror.students/index.html


Brett Newkirk, a lawyer representing the students, said there was a legitimate explanation for what Stone overheard.

"Omer had a car that he wanted to have shipped down so that he could use it in Florida, to have it brought down -- 'Do you think we could bring the car down?' -- and he has some contacts that might get the car down," he said.

[molecularfire]

The way Ross (and I think most carribean med. schools) works is that you go down there for around two years to study your basic sciences. Then, you go back to the states and do your rotations with U.S. hospitals. I think the father misspoke and said residency instead of rotations. That's my guess. :)

[whitak24]

Originally posted by molecularfire
The way Ross (and I think most carribean med. schools) works is that you go down there for around two years to study your basic sciences. Then, you go back to the states and do your rotations with U.S. hospitals. I think the father misspoke and said residency instead of rotations. That's my guess. :)
yeah, i have a friend who is at some med school in the islands, and that is how it works for him too.