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Home Front
My Brush With Suspicious Middle Easterners
2004-02-02
Rantburg has a story about an FBI investigation into the shooting of an unarmed Security Guard in Texas. I should have talked about this beforehand, but I had my own encounter with Islamists look-alike.

I was working last July as a security guard in a construction site (would-be Four Seasons Hotel) near Florida’s US1. It was around 7 P.M. when two middle eastern men (dark complexions, European-like faces) men in a Ford SUV drove by me, promptly parking about 150 ft away. The man in the passenger seat promplty began to take pictures of the construction site with a large camera, rapidly flashing away.

I inmediately thought the worst, and got off my car to confront them. I advanced a few feet, but being unarmed, I reconsidered and went back to my car to inform the other guard and the police, hoping to block the SUV’s path until police arrived. They were too quick. Once they saw me going back to the car they sped away, passing by me before I could make it back. To make things worse, when I tried to get the plate number the sun hit me right on the eyes (Four Seasons will be located right on the ocean, so they speed away almost directly away from the East, the Sun was setting right at that time.)

My heroic moment gone, I took my car and went around the hotel loop, and I informed one of the managers of the construction project, who told me he would call police, at which point I went back to my post, trying to forget about it.

This incident took place six months ago, and I’m not yet sure the FBI has that data, and I’m less sure they’ll take me seriously, with all the less-than-kind things I’ve said about them. So, should I call them?
Posted by:Sorge

#5  anon2u - interesting observation.
Posted by: B   2004-2-3 7:39:42 AM  

#4  G-7's this weekend, kind of makes me wonder.

Hope Cheney's ticker's ok. Cheney-Rice? Cheney-Guiliani?
Posted by: Anonymous2U   2004-2-2 10:05:44 PM  

#3  Sorge, if I had been in law enforcement, I would have looked for an efficient way to translate your sghting into actional information. For example, does the hotel have a surveilence camera that would have recorded the licence plate number? Without a way to further identify the men, there would be little to follow-up on.
Posted by: Super Hose   2004-2-2 5:48:31 PM  

#2  Note: I forgot to mention this on the article, but the Four Seasons Hotel would be one of the tallest buildings in Florida.

Anon;

I wonder how many more people have to get killed before the Bureau (and the Agency) get a shakeup. Remember, nobody was fired after 9/11, the same people who failed are still running the show.
Posted by: Sorge   2004-2-2 4:44:35 PM  

#1  I have twice called the FBI with very suspicious and specific information only to be completely ignored or scoffed at. Once regarding a man who claimed in front of several witnesses that he had a bomb on a train - and another time re: a specific individual who although he may not have been a terrorist, certainly fit the profile of one. Muslim, under 40, very polite, religious, and had a vague source of income for a years worth of expensive, intense, computer classes that required no prerequisites, no exams and he showed no real motivation to pass a test that would be required to get a job. However, he was very interested in how to access the back door of computers.

At the time I reported it, the papers were talking about the fear of terrorists using the back door to access financial and military computers, but no one even bothered to call me back. How many other people have the FBI ignored??
Posted by: anon   2004-2-2 3:52:45 PM  

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