Tuesday, March 08, 2005

 

Brahma Returns

I've been noticing on the sitemeter that various people have been returning here despite the fact that nothing new has been added for close to two months. One can only assume that another entry would be welcomed. Unfortunately other obligations prevent me from composing original thought today, so I offer this story from New York City:

Shops sell dangerous material to undercovers

He tried hard to look suspicious.

But five of eight shopkeepers allowed an undercover detective to buy 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate - a farm fertilizer that can be used to make deadly explosives.

The attempted buys last week were part of an effort by the Suffolk Police Department, the Suffolk district attorney's office and the state office of homeland security to determine whether shopkeepers are vigilant about buyers of this unregulated product.

When mixed with diesel fuel and a few other easily obtainable ingredients, ammonium nitrate forms an explosive with more than half the force of dynamite. It was used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people, and the 2002 bombing of a nightclub in Bali that killed 192. "We have to get the word out to the public and to the people who sell this dangerous product," Suffolk Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said.

The shopkeepers who didn't report the sale do not face charges because there are no laws regulating the sale of ammonium nitrate, District Attorney Tom Spota said.

The prosecutor called on state lawmakers to enforce "some sort of legislation, to at least, at a bare minimum, have some sort of registration" requirement for ammonium nitrate sales. Ammonium nitrate purchases are already tightly restricted in Europe.

This is how authorities say the undercover cop tried to appear suspicious while "shopping" at the eight landscaping and agricultural stores: He would park a van right in front, and give a list to the shopkeeper that included 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate - enough for 10 acres of farmland. The list included a Brooklyn home address, where not too much farmland exists. The undercover also acted as if he was "not a native-born American," Spota said.

Two shopkeepers - in Riverhead and East Hampton - notified authorities. And at another store, a customer who witnessed the attempted sale called the FBI with the van's license plate number.

But the five other attempts apparently raised few eyebrows. In one case, the shopkeeper later told detectives that he was suspicious - but didn't contact law enforcement because the customer did not appear "Middle Eastern."

"If anything, Timothy McVeigh [convicted and executed in the Oklahoma City bombing] didn't look like he was from the Middle East," Spota said. "Anybody could do this."
Detectives had earlier visited each of these stores, giving them a list of warning signs, and urged them to call authorities if they had any suspicions.


~*~ Well....at least we're protected from foul language being broadcast over our airwaves...!
~B*

posted by ~Brahma 11:24 AM