Suspicious Bottles Found at News Offices

A day after two plastic bottles of blue liquid with homemade labels with the words “Winter of Frozen Dreams” were found at the Times Union, Schenectady police said someone left five bottles outside the Daily Gazette this morning with the same words. In both cases, the liquid they contained was found to be harmless. Schenectady Fire Department Capt. Mike Denny said the bottles found around 11:30 a.m. in a plastic bin were marked “Winter of Frozen Dreams.”

A hazardous materials crew took samples and determined the liquid was a “nontoxic dye in water.” It was turned over to city police for further examination.

There were no injuries reported and the building at 2345 Maxon Road Extension was not evacuated, according to Sgt. Eric Clifford, a police spokesman.

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Backpack With 7 Pipe Bombs Leads To Evacuations

Santee California - A man who found seven pipe bombs in a backpack turned them in to the Sheriff’s Department substation Monday afternoon, prompting authorities to evacuate nearby businesses as they neutralized the explosive devices.

The man entered the station on Cuyamaca Street, near Buena Vista Avenue, around 2:15 p.m. and left the backpack in the lobby, Lt. Mike Munsey said. The man said he found the bag with the bombs the night before and one of them was leaking.

The sheriff’s bomb-arson unit inspected the backpack and neutralized each bomb individually, Munsey said.

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Sources Say Domestic Terrorist Arrested in Mobile Alabama

Mobile police sources say they’ve arrested a man believed to be a domestic terrorist. The investigation began January 5, when a local synagogue was spray painted with Nazi markings. Mobile Police are not making an official comment yet, but sources within the department say they got a very dangerous man off the streets, just in time.

Words of hate were spray-painted all over the Congregation Tree of Life synagogue three weeks ago. They are markings that shocked its congregation. Member Barbara Morgan couldn’t believe it.

“When we first came up to the building, it was ‘Oh my goodness, who could do this?’” Morgan said. “Who hates us so much that they would want to deface the building?”

Sources within the Mobile Police Department say the culprit was a domestic terrorist. They say the markings were not a joke.

Police sources tell us they when investigators arrested their man, they found bombs inside his home, and during questioning, he refused to talk.

Sources say his motives extended way beyond spray-painting Nazi markings.

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e-Guardian – FBI Shares Threat Info With Local Police Agencies

The FBI has launched a system to share tips about possible terror threats with local police agencies just in time for the presidential inauguration.

The program aims to get law enforcement at all levels sharing data quickly about suspicious activity and people, particularly in and around the nation’s capital in the week leading up to the historic ceremony.

Officials say they are getting as many as 1,000 tips a day from the public.

Called e-Guardian, the program had been delayed and underwent a smaller pilot project before launching New Year’s Eve as a system available to law enforcement agencies around the country.

Federal authorities hope the new system overcomes a drawback of another version, which lets police report their suspicions to the FBI but doesn’t allow officers to search the system for similar patterns in other jurisdictions.

The program “will allow all law enforcement to share threats and suspicious activity and hopefully prevent a terrorist attack,” said FBI supervisor Gerald Rogero, in Washington.

Of the 1,000 tips, a dozen might be worth noting in the new system.

With e-Guardian, Rogero said, those specific reports can be quickly checked by police in far-flung jurisdictions in case they have noticed something similar, such as a wave of uniform thefts or stolen military equipment.

Any law enforcement officer with an Internet connection and an account on the system can access e-Guardian.

via The Associated Press: FBI shares threat-tips with local police agencies.

An NYPD detective is e-mailed a photograph of two suspicious men who appear to be casing the Brooklyn Bridge. Her department uploads the picture and inputs details about the pair into a computerized, Internet-based system called eGuardian, looking for similar incidents. Lo and behold, there’s a match. Two men fitting the description had been spotted 48 hours earlier photographing the Washington Monument and are being sought for questioning. The NYPD report is sent via eGuardian to the state’s fusion center, which reviews it and then passes it along to our New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, which will in turn share it with D.C. investigators.

It’s purely a hypothetical, but it’s exactly the kind of dot-collecting and dot-connecting that will soon be possible between law enforcement and intelligence players at every level of government across the country—thanks to FBI technology.

The eGuardian system—which is being piloted by several agencies and will start being rolled out in phases nationwide by year’s end, complete with training—will enable near real-time sharing and tracking of terror information and suspicious activities with our local, state, tribal, and federal partners. It’s actually a spin-off of a similar but classified tool called Guardian that we’ve been using inside the Bureau—and sharing with vetted partners—for the past four years.

How Guardian works. FBI field offices and Legal Attaché offices overseas input suspicious activity reports, potential terrorism threats (like a phoned-in bomb threat), and terrorist incidents (like actual bombings). This information is tracked, triaged, searched, and analyzed by agents and analysts at FBI Headquarters, and—if appropriate—submitted to one of our 106 Joint Terrorism Task Forces around the country for further action.

How eGuardian works. In a very similar way, except it will be available through our secure Law Enforcement Online Internet portal to more than 18,000 agencies, which will be able to run searches and input their own reports. Their entries will be automatically sent to a state “fusion center” (or a similar intelligence-based hub) for vetting, where trained personnel will evaluate it and then either monitor it, close it, or refer it to the appropriate FBI terror task force. Ultimately, eGuardian will add additional capabilities like geo-spatial mapping, live chats, and link analysis.

Guardian and eGuardian will work together, feeding each other. eGuardian entries with a possible terrorism nexus will be pushed to Guardian and out to our task forces, and unclassified threat and suspicious activity information from the FBI housed in Guardian will be pushed to eGuardian and out to the entire law enforcement community. It’s an effective one-two punch.

Urgent matters and investigative issues, however, will continue to be worked with state and local law enforcement through existing FBI channels.

What happens if an incident has no probable link to terrorism? The report is deleted to ensure personal data is not being needlessly stored. If the information is deemed “inconclusive,” it will remain in eGuardian for up to five years, in accordance with federal regulations.

eGuardian is yet another FBI technology that is enabling information to flow and dots to be connected in powerful new ways. By making the jobs of law enforcement easier, it will help make our communities safer.
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Heightened Awareness Recommended For Railways Operating Along The US-Mexico Borde

GlobalIncidentMap.com Recommends Heightened Awareness For Railways Operating Along The US-Mexico Border

“Based on information from trusted Law Enforcement sources, we are recommending a heightened state of awareness for all railway operations along the USA-Mexico border, based on recent threats and observed activity”

No news links or additional information is available at this time.

via Global Incident Map.

Tulsa State Trooper Honored For Subduing Man With A Gun

At first glance you might ask why we posted this story. In fact, even if you read most of it, you may ask the same question. It’s what is at the very end of this story that caught our attention. The State Trooper is quoted as saying:

“It was one of those deals of being in the right place at the right time,” Robinson said. “I believe he would have loaded up that gun and gone to town because he was praying for Allah to help him carry out his mission.”

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All Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Sheldon Robinson was looking for was a burger and an oil change on his day off.

But Thursday he got a standing ovation from members of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority for his heroic actions in between.

On Sept. 5, Robinson dropped his wife and two children off at the Burger King restaurant at 41st Street and Memorial Drive and was pulling into an auto dealership across the street for an oil change when his cell phone rang.

“My spouse told me there was a man inside with a gun, saying he was going to kill everybody,” said Robinson, an 11-year veteran of the highway patrol who is assigned to the Creek and Muskogee turnpikes.

Robinson turned around in time to see people fleeing the building, including his wife, who grabbed the couple’s two children and hid in a nearby trash container area, closing the doors behind her.

It was only an instant, but Robinson said it seemed like hours before he got his truck turned around and pointed for the Burger King.

“I was relieved to see them in the Dumpster area, but I knew I had to go in there and see what was going on,” he said.

Robinson, wearing his trooper badge around his neck and carrying his weapon, parked his truck and peered in the window of the Burger King.

Inside was a man dressed in black. A Glock .40-caliber handgun and a full box of ammunition sat on the tabletop next to him.

Three other people were looking for a way out when Robinson passed

them as he entered the restaurant.

When the man briefly removed his hand from his gun, Robinson, who had approached from the man’s blind side, grabbed his arm.

Now alone in the restaurant, the two men wrestled on the floor before Robinson got one of his handcuffs around the man’s arm.

“The second one didn’t lock in place, so we went down again,” Robinson said. “He was a pretty stout guy.”

Robinson had the man fully cuffed by the time Tulsa police officers arrived.

“It was one of those deals of being in the right place at the right time,” Robinson said. “I believe he would have loaded up that gun and gone to town because he was praying for Allah to help him carry out his mission.”

Jerome Norvell Denson, 24, of Tulsa was arrested on charges of attempting to perform an act of violence and possession of a firearm while in the commission of a felony. He remains in jail awaiting a preliminary hearing.

For his actions, Robinson, 40, was named Trooper of the Month.

“He was off-duty and in my opinion he prevented a very serious loss of life or injury from happening,” said Maj. Dennis Gann, who is in charge of law enforcement and emergency services on the turnpike system. “He had to make a very quick decision and put his own personal safety aside to subdue the assailant. Obviously, that was a good thing.”

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Southcenter Mall – Shots Fired In Shopping Mall – Tukwila Washington

UPDATE: The gunman remains at large and police are searching for him, police said.

The mall, located off Southcenter Parkway, is being locked down, officials said. It will remain closed for the rest of the night.

An off-duty sergeant with the Washington State Patrol at the scene said one victim underwent CPR after being hit. At least two victims later were rushed to the hospital.

Two people were put in handcuffs by officers at the scene, the trooper said, but it is not known what connection – if any – they had with the shooting.

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UPDATE from KOMO: At least one person was hit by gunfire in a shooting Saturday afternoon inside Southcenter Mall as it was filled with pre-Thanksgiving shoppers, witnesses said.

An off-duty sergeant with the Washington State Patrol at the scene said the victim is undergoing CPR after being hit.

Two people were put in handcuffs by officers at the scene, the trooper said.

Other witnesses told KOMO News they heard at least three shots fired just after 3:30 p.m. in front of the Forever 21 store near the mall’s food court.

The gunfire sparked immediate panic, and people started running for the exits.

Police raced to the scene in their patrol cars, lights flashing.

Shoppers are being evacuated from the mall, and officers are trying to determine exactly what happened and whether a shooter remains at large.

KOMO

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A spokesperson with the Tukwila Police Department confirms that there have been multiple shots fired at Southcenter Mall this evening.

There are eyewitness accounts of several shots fired within the mall and shoppers running for safety.

Tukwila Police have also confirmed they are on the scene, but have so far given no details on any possible injuries or suspects.

New crews are on their way to the mall right now.

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Possible Pipe Bomb in Sparks Detonated, Road Closed

Minutes before the noon hour Tuesday, local law enforcement detonated a device that could have been a bomb.

Discovered on Stanford Way and Greg St. in Sparks, a device that looked like “a pipe with two caps” on the ends was exploded by a member of the Consolidated Bomb Squad, according to News 4 crews on the scene.

Law enforcement told News 4 they closed the surrounding roadways because of the discovery of the device.

Officials utilized a specialized robot to help deal with the object.

A civilian notified authorities of the presence of the device.

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