Suspect In Seattle Officer Slaying Lone Domestic Terrorist

For the past week, we’ve been following the disturbing story of the apparent random killing of Seattle city police officer Tim Brenton. Today, the suspect is in custody after being shot by officers investigating the case, and according to at least one report has been labeled a ‘lone domestic terrorist’ by Seattle Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel.

Here’s the update:

On the afternoon of November 6^th , 2009, Seattle Police Homicide detectives received a tip about a Datsun 210 matching the description of a possible suspect vehicle used in the slaying of Officer Tim Brenton. Detectives responded to a parking lot in the 13700 block of 56^th Avenue South in Tukwila. While detectives were investigating the scene further an adult male suspect emerged and pointed a gun at them. Detectives fired on the suspect in self defense, striking him at least once. The suspect was taken into custody and transported to Harborview Medical Center with life-threatening injuries. No detectives were injured.

The Tukwila Police Department is handling the crime scene investigation and the King County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit is conducting the officer-involved shooting investigation.

SPD detectives obtained search warrants to further examine the crime scene. Evidence located inside the suspect’s apartment included improvised explosive devices (IEDs), a rifle, and various other items of evidence.  Detectives now believe that this individual is responsible for both the murder of Officer Brenton,  the attempted murder of Officer Sweeney, and the arson attack on October 22^nd at the Charles Street facility. Detectives are asking the Prosecutor’s Office for formal charges. The Datsun that detectives were looking for is registered to the suspect.  Our investigation into the murder of Officer Tim Brenton and attempted murder of Officer Britt Sweeney continues and we are still receiving and following up on tips.  We have received numerous tips from the public and we encourage everyone to continue to call us with any information they may have regarding this investigation.

From CNN
A suspect in the shooting of a Seattle, Washington, police officer is also believed to be behind the bombing of four police cars, Seattle Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel said at a press conference Saturday.

Christopher Monfort, 41, remained hospitalized in serious condition after being shot by officers during a confrontation Friday.

“This man, from everything that we can tell, appears to be a lone domestic terrorist,” Pugel said.

Monfort was in custody at the hospital, but no charges had yet been filed, a Seattle police spokeswoman told CNN. Charges could be filed as early as Monday, she said.

Police named Monfort as a suspect in the Halloween night killing of Officer Tim Brenton, who was shot while sitting in his patrol car. A student officer was injured in the attack.

Investigators also suspect Monfort in the October 22 arson of four police vehicles with homemade explosives, Pugel said.

On Friday, a tipster alerted police to the owner of a Datsun 210 who covered his car shortly after the shooting, Pugel said.

Seattle PI has a Complete Multi-media Recap Of The Entire Story
via Source.

Newark Citizen Patrol Part of Crime-fighting Tactic

As we’ve cited in previous articles, New Jersey continues to lead the way in utilizing new, innovative approaches to community safety, emergency preparedness and citizen involvement.

New Jersey Alert A Preparedness Role Model

NJ Law Would Require Homeland Security Drills In Schools.

The latest involves convoys of vans led by Newark’s mayor and filled with more than 100 of its employees and residents, flooding the city’s neighborhoods in the middle of the night as a way to reduce crime. It’s a great idea that probably should also be looked at as part of the city’s contingency planning to to utilize during a crisis or emergency.

As part of Community Caravan Night Patrols, more than 120 volunteers have patrolled city streets with Mayor Cory Booker and a crew of off-duty police officers since Sept. 29. Each weekend and a few nights each week, they pile into long caravans of glaring white vans, which weave through the city’s wards, focusing on areas where 85 percent of the city’s shootings have been recorded.

The program’s goal is to disrupt normal crime patterns during typical high-volume hours, gather intelligence for police, and engage residents in the process of crime prevention, said Anthony Campos, the city’s director of public safety.

“You have this whole collage of people coming together for a common cause,” Campos said of the program. “They’re self actualizing by getting out there. They’re no longer spectators.”

Some of the largest caravans will be out this Halloween weekend, which has long been associated with mayhem in Newark. The patrols will start earlier and end later those nights, Booker said.

The initiative is similar to Operation Impact, a law enforcement technique designed by Police Director Garry McCarthy that saturates volatile areas with police to disrupt criminal trends. The essential difference with the caravans is that volunteers are doing the saturating, and the vans and radios are donated by Newark Now, a local non-profit founded by Booker.

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Pakistan Terror Attack Prompts Warning From Homeland Security, FBI

The attack on Sri Lanka’s cricket team in Pakistan this week has prompted US intelligence officials to caution local authorities to be on the lookout for possible similar assaults at American sports events.

The notice, along with details of the attack in Lahore, Pakistan, is part of an intelligence assessment that points out no plots are known to exist against sports events in the United States. Read more

Threat of Mexican Drug Cartels Near Crisis

Two of Mexico’s deadliest drug cartels have reached a combined force of 100,000 foot soldiers, wreaking havoc across the country and threatening U.S. border states, the U.S. Defense Department told The Washington Times.

The cartels rival the Mexican army in size and have both Mexico and the U.S. in crisis mode as they deal with what they fear is a coming insurgency along the border.

“It’s moving to crisis proportions,” an unidentified defense official told The Times. The official also said the cartels have reached a size where they are on par with Mexico’s army of 130,000.

About 7,000 people have died in the last year — more than 1,000 in January alone — at the hands of Mexico’s increasingly violent drug cartels. Murders often involve beheadings or bodies dissolved in vats of acid.

The two most dangerous cartels are the Sinaloa cartel, nicknamed the “Federation” or “Golden Triangle” by law enforcement agencies, and “Los Zetas” (the Gulf Cartel). They have been growing and are reportedly discussing a truce or merger to better withstand government forces, The Times reported.

Mexico is now only behind Pakistan and Iran as a U.S. national security concern, coming in ahead of Afghanistan and Iraq, the defense official told The Times.

Source

Mexico Send In Military To Restore Order

The Mexican government will deploy 1,000 more federal police officers as part of a wider effort to restore order in Ciudad Juarez, the nation’s most violent city, officials said Monday.

Some of those uniformed federal officers began arriving in the border city Monday, two days after about 2,000 soldiers landed there in a related military buildup. Those soldiers were the first of an expected 5,000 additional troops who will be sent to help perform basic police functions.

The military reinforcements will bring to more than 7,000 the number of soldiers in Ciudad Juarez.

The nation’s public safety chief, Genaro Garcia Luna, said that along with the soldiers, he planned to dispatch the additional 1,000 federal police officers, Notimex news agency reported.

About 425 federal officers already had been posted in Ciudad Juarez, where the death toll last year exceeded 1,600, the highest in a country racked by drug-related violence.

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Sri Lanka Cricket Team Attacked By Terrorists 8 Dead

A deadly attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Tuesday was likely the work of “well-trained terrorists,” its police chief said.

“There were 12 masked gunmen,” Habib-ur Rehman told reporters, adding that police battled against the assailants for about 25 minutes.

“They appeared to be well-trained terrorists. They came on rickshaws. They were armed with rockets, hand grenades, kalashnikovs.”

He said five policemen were killed in the gun attack which also wounded at least three Sri Lankan players.

“Five policemen who were providing protection to the team sacrificed their lives,” he added.

Masked gunman opened fire on the Sri Lankan cricket team’s bus in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore Tuesday, killing at least eight people and wounding six players, officials said.

Lahore police chief Habib-ur Rehman said 12 gunmen attacked the convoy near Lahore’s Gaddafi stadium with rockets, hand grenades and automatic weapons and were involved in a 25-minute shoot-out with the security forces.

“They appeared to be well-trained terrorists. They came on rickshaws,” he told reporters.

A police official said two civilians and six police officers who were guarding the players were killed in the attack which happened as the team was heading for the third day’s play in the second Test against Pakistan.

Source

Drug Gangs Threaten Tijuana Cops On Radio, Then Kill Them

The situation along the border continues to deteriorate.

Mexican drug gangs are breaking into Tijuana police radio frequencies to issue chilling death threats to cops which they then carry out, demoralizing security forces in a worsening drug war.

“You’re next, bastard … We’re going to get you,” an unidentified drug gang member said over the police radio in the city of Tijuana after naming a policeman.

The man also threatened a second cop by name and played foot-stomping “narcocorrido” music, popular with drug cartels, over the airwaves.

“No one can help them,” an officer named Jorge said of his threatened colleagues as he heard the threats in his patrol car.

Sure enough, two hours later the dead bodies of the two named policemen were found dumped on the edge of the city, their hands tied and bullet wounds in their heads.

Cartels killed some 530 police in Mexico last year, some of them corrupt officers who were working for rival gangs. Others were killed in shoot-outs or murdered for working against the gangs or refusing to turn a blind eye to drug shipments.

Violence has hit shocking levels in Tijuana, over the border from San Diego, since President Felipe Calderon launched an army crackdown on traffickers in late 2006, stirring up new wars between rival cartels over smuggling routes.

The drug war is scaring tourists and investors away from northern Mexico, forcing some businesses to shutter just as the country heads into recession this year.

Badly-paid Tijuana municipal police, often accused of collaborating with rival wings of the local Arellano Felix cartel, are badly demoralized, senior officers say.

“These death threats are part of the psychological warfare that organized crime is using against officers,” said Tijuana police chief Gustavo Huerta.

“Before, the gangs began infiltrating the radio after a police execution, which was bad enough, but now they are doing it beforehand and the force feels terrorized,” he said.

Source

Border Terror – Violence and Brutality Spreads In Mexico

Violence in Mexico continues to grow in both brutality and the  number of dead.  Here’s just a few of the many stories to come from the border cities over the past week.

Mystery Man Blamed As Body Count Grows

He is said to love the ladies, fast horses and dissolving enemies in lye.

Teodoro Garcia Simental is among the best known but least identifiable villains in Mexico’s drug war, blamed for a trail of terror across Baja California.

His heavily armed hit men, authorities say, have been leaving the gruesome displays of charred and decapitated bodies across the city, signed with the moniker “Tres Letras,” for the three letters in “Teo.” And authorities believe he runs a network of hide-outs where kidnap victims are held in cages.

Yet thousands of police officers, soldiers, state and federal agents can’t seem to find him.

Billboards showing Tijuana’s most wanted kidnappers don’t include Garcia’s image, even though he is believed to be behind most of the gang war that has claimed more than 400 lives here since late September.

“That tells you that you don’t want to be the one responsible for putting Teo’s picture in public,” said one U.S. law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity. “There’s no future in it.”

[...]

Garcia is said to be in his mid-30s — even his date of birth is not known. He reportedly bets big on clandestine horse races at isolated ranches outside Ensenada. He hires people at $400 per week to guard kidnapping victims and to weld together the barrels of caustic chemicals used to dispose of some of his victims, according to documents and interviews. One Mexican law enforcement official said Garcia has killed people at parties, laughing at their stunned reactions.

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A Week In Tijuana

The teenage nephew of the army general leading the local fight against drug traffickers was killed this weekend in Baja California’s continuing violence.

A municipal police department spokesman said gunmen shot the boy, Carlos Alfonso Ortiz Davila, 16, about 8:30 p.m. Friday while he was in front of a high school known as CECYTE on the southside of Tijuana, the spokesman said.

He said the teen was the nephew of Gen. Alfonso Duarte Mujica, commander of the Second Military Zone and a leading figure in the fight against drug cartels in northwest Mexico.

A state police officer also was killed during the weekend. Around 6 p.m. Sunday, a battle broke out on city streets between gunmen and state police officers. The officer was wounded and died soon after the fight, said the Baja California State Attorney General’s Office.

The boy and the officer were among seven people killed this weekend in the state.

In Tijuana, police around 2 a.m. Saturday found the body of man who had been burned to death on the the east side of the city, the Attorney General’s Ofice said.

About 3:30 that afternoon, two men were shot, also in eastern Tijuana. One of them died three hours later, the Attorney General’s Office said.

About 8 p.m., municipal police found two decapitated bodies in an empty lot in in far eastern Tijuana near the Tecate city limits. The bodies had a message signed by “La Maña,” a nickname used by a drug trafficking leader, the state agency said.

The violence extended to Rosarito Beach, when a man was shot to death around 11 a.m. Sunday as he drove his car, the state agency reported.

About 800 have been killed in Tijuana this year. Most of the deaths have been blamed on rival drug gangs battling for supremacy.

Source – Read More

Four Police Officers Killed in Ciudad Juarez

Gunmen staged four attacks on police within a half-hour period, killing four officers in a Mexican border city overrun by drug violence, an official said Monday.

Authorities are investigating whether the attacks Sunday night were coordinated, municipal police spokesman Jaime Torres said.

Dozens of Ciudad Juarez police have been killed this year in attacks blamed on drug gangs trying to consolidate territory. Many officers have quit out of fear for their lives, often after their names have appeared on hit lists left in public.

Another such list naming 26 officers was found early Monday at a dog racing track above the bodies of four civilian men gunned down at the track, Torres said. One of the four had been decapitated, and a Santa Claus hat had been placed on his head. A fifth man who survived was left bound and gagged next to the bodies.

At Least 9 Soldiers Found Decapitated

Mexican police on Sunday found nine decapitated bodies and the army identified eight soldiers who had died fighting powerful drug gangs and whose murders were seen as a brazen challenge to the government.

The bodies showed signs of torture. They were left on the side of a highway about an hour north of the tourist resort of Acapulco in the southern state of Guerrero, state police said.

Their heads were stuffed in a plastic bag and left outside a shopping center.

Mexico’s President Feline Calderon has deployed tens of thousands of troops and police since 2006 to take on drug cartels. The defense ministry vowed not to back down despite its latest losses.

“They are trying to scare the military. Regardless, the ministry promises to continue fighting,” it said in a statement.

The ministry released the names of eight decapitated soldiers but said one of them was recovered on December 9.

Drug killings throughout Mexico have more than doubled to over 5,300 this year, scaring off investment and tourists. The United States has sent hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to help its southern neighbor fight the cartels.

The Mexican army has made some prominent captures, but the cartels seem able to quickly replace their losses. Meanwhile, a growing number of police have been gruesomely murdered.

A note left with the severed heads warned of more decapitations, the state police said.

Source

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.”

—–

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.”

Source

Terror At The Border – Mexico Drug Cartels Send Message of Torture and Death

The death squads of the drug cartels are killing in spectacularly gruesome ways, using the violence as a language to deliver a message to society.

Increasingly, bodies show unmistakable signs of torture. Videos of executions are posted on the Internet, as taunts, as warnings. Corpses are dumped on playgrounds, with neatly printed notes beside them. And very often, the heads have been removed.

When someone rolled five heads onto the dance floor in a cantina in Michoacan state two years ago, even the most hardened Mexicans were shocked. Now ritual mutilations are routine. In the border city of Tijuana, 37 people were slain over the weekend, including four children. Nine of the adults were decapitated, including three police officers whose badges were stuffed in their mouths.

“There is a new and different violence in this war,” said Victor Clark Alfaro, the founder of the Binational Center for Human Rights, who moves around Tijuana accompanied by bodyguards. “Each method is now more brutal, more extreme than the last. To cut off the heads? That is now what they like. They are going to the edge of what is possible for a human being to do.”

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Over 38 Murders In Tijuana Over The Weekend

At least 38 people have been killed in Tijuana since Saturday, nine of them decapitated, in escalating drug-related violence that appears to have left in tatters a Mexican military offensive launched two weeks ago.

The killing spree marked the end of the tenure of the city’s top law enforcement official. Secretary of Public Security Alberto Capella Ibarra was removed from his post Monday evening after a year marked by upheaval in the police ranks and increasing violence.

Dozens of soldiers and federal agents patrolling the eastern part of the city have failed to stop the killings between rival drug cartels, which continue brazen and brutal attacks across Tijuana.

Three of the nine decapitated bodies discovered in an empty lot Sunday were those of police officers, according to the Baja California attorney general’s office. On Saturday night, two brothers, 4 and 13 years old, were gunned down along with their father outside a grocery store, authorities said.

The nephew of Baja California’s tourism secretary, Angel Escobedo, was found fatally shot inside his car Saturday morning. In nearby Rosarito Beach, police over the weekend discovered a dismembered body in a car outside a taco stand, and another outside a small church.

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UK – al-Qaeda Buying Ambulances and Other Emergency Vehicles on Online

MI5 have warned Britain’s cash-strapped National Health Services that dozens of ambulances–along with old police cars and fire engines past their sell-by date–are being snapped up by al-Qaeda operatives in the United Kingdom to mount suicide bomb attacks.

So serious is the problem that counter-terrorism officials at the Home Office have written to eBay, the Internet auctioneer, asking them to stop selling emergency service vehicles, equipment and uniforms.

But eBay has insisted it can only halt the sales if a new law is passed by Parliament. That could take many months to enact.

The use of ambulances is of particular concern to Britain’s terrorist chiefs. They say the tactic has already been used in Iraq with devastating effects.

A report by Lord Carlisle–the government terrorist czar who last month warned about the possibility of private planes being used for an attack on London–has been issued to all of Britain’s 48 police forces warning of the danger of selling-off emergency service vehicles.

Lord Carlisle, who works closely with the Terrorism Analysis Centre in London set up since the 9/11 attacks, said ambulances were the ideal weapon of choice for terrorists.

“It is almost rare that police will stop such vehicles on suspicious grounds. An ambulance rigged with high explosives could drive into any ultra-sensitive target like a nuclear power station or even Whitehall”, said a senior MI5 source.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has warned that the risk could be “highly significant” if the law is not tightened.

Every year dozens of police cars, ambulances and even fire engines are sold on eBay for as little as £1,500 ($2,230).

Many are still in working order. Those that need repair can be easily fixed to pass as genuine emergency service vehicles.

“An ambulance could carry half a ton of explosives. A rigged police car could carry half that amount. So could a fire engine”, states the MI5 report.

MI5 counter-terrorism officers say such attacks have been successfully carried out in Iraq and Israel.

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