EmergencyNet News Analysis
05/27/98 - 10:00CDT
Police in Southeast on Alert For Additional Domestic Violence
By Paul Anderson, Analyst/Metro Correspondent
Miami, FL (Emergencynet News) -- According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement
(FDLE), police officers have been alerted to the possibility of additional abortion-clinic
violence in the coming week. Fred Hobbs, FDLE spokesperson, said that they had feared that
extremists may try to take advantage of the Memorial Day holiday weekend to undertake
additional acts against Women's health/Family planning facilities.
The alert comes in the wake of at least ten separate attacks on abortion clinics/family
planning facilities throughout Central and Southern Florida, and follows a deadly January 29th, 1998 abortion clinic bombing in
Birmingham, AL (that claimed the life of an off-duty police officer. All of the most
recent attacks in Florida involved the use of "butyric acid," an industrial
chemical that has a sickening smell like "vomit" and can be dangerous if inhaled
in higher concentrations.
On Saturday, 05/23/98, police fears came to fruition as workers at the Women's Health
Centre in St. Petersburg and National Woman's Health Service in Clearwater, FL reported
attacks using the acid, all using a similar "M.O." (method of operation). In
each attack, a hole was drilled in a door or window frame and the acid was injected into
the building. Saturday's attacks follow similar five (5) similar attacks in the Miami
area, two in Daytona Beach, and at least one in the Orlando area, during the past week.
Federal agents are working closely with Florida law enforcement agencies to determine if
the incidents are related. Local, state, and federal officers have reportedly been
questioning numerous people in regard to the widely separated acid-related incidents. Ray
Velboom, intelligence supervisor for the FDLE, was quoted by Rueter's as saying,
"There is a good chance they [the acid attacks] are all related, but we have not been
able to prove that forensically." Velboom confirmed that they have "some
leads" regarding the acid attacks, but purposefully refused to discuss them for
security reasons. Police are believed to have confiscated and are searching a rental car
that may have had traces of butyric acid in it.
A veteran law enforcement analyst from one of the country's larger sheriff's offices told
EmergencyNet News that what concerned him most was the fact the this latest string of
incidents "demonstrated a convergence between domestic terrorist groups and the use
of chemical agents as instruments of fear." The Deputy went on to say that he feared
this may only be the demonstration of future events involving more toxic chemicals or
biological agents.
Although possibly only coincidence, Florida law enforcement agencies have also found
themselves under increasing assault this year. On January 29th, concurrent with the
Birmingham clinic bombing, four letter bombs were delivered to Florida law enforcement
agencies. The first package was discovered at the Gainesville office of the Florida
Highway Patrol. In the course of the next three hours, three packages were found -- two
inside the Gainesville Police Department headquarters and one in a mailbox outside the
Alachua County Sheriff's Office.
In that same story, reported by EmergencyNet News on January 31, 1998 (ESR-Vol. 2, No.
031), this author reported; "In a related story, Clark Staten, Emergency Response
& Research Institute Executive Director and Senior Analyst, on Friday issued a
statement of concern in regard to the possibility of an on-going increase in domestic
extremist activity. Faced with the killing of an off-duty police officer in an abortion
clinic bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, and now letter bombs in Gainesville, Staten noted
that a historical perspective would reveal that there has been an upsurge in paramilitary
and abortion-related violence in Spring of the past two years. Staten urged family
planning facilities and emergency agencies to undertake additional awareness and consider
additional preventive measures in the coming days." (Click here to see the full story)
On Saturday, May 9, 1998 (ESR-Vol. 2, No.129), EmergencyNet News reported on the
convictions of four alleged "white supremacists" in a plot where 14 bombs were
to be planted along two major routes in Orlando, including the major access highway to
Walt Disney World. The bombs were to act as a diversion for two bank robberies. A search
of a storage unit rented by the suspects turned up weapons, ammunition, bomb-making
manuals, Nazi memorabilia and correspondence stating membership fees were due for the
National Alliance, a racist, neo-Nazi organization. Although not directly related to the
acid attacks on abortion facilities, Staten said that the bombing arrests are probably
indicative of what ERRI sees as an emerging trend of domestic extremist violence in the
Southeastern part of the United States. (Click
here to see the full story)
Staten, who has been studying and reporting on both international and domestic terrorism
issues for more than 12 years, says that he has shared an ERRI assessment of increasing
levels of domestic terrorism with a number of law enforcement and emergency service
agencies in past two months. He says that the recent events in southeastern states such as
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and even a church bombing in Illinois that occurred this
weekend, have further reinforced his concerns about a higher than normal number of
domestic terrorism incidents, particularly in the Southeast, in the near term.
(C) Copyright, EmergencyNet News service, 1998. All rights reserved.
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