[Ppnews] 5 'anarchists' arrested, charged with failed attempt to blow up the Ohio 82 bridge

Political Prisoner News ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Wed May 2 10:14:02 EDT 2012


<http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/05/5_suspects_arrested_charged_wi.html>http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/05/5_suspects_arrested_charged_wi.html 


Bridge bomb plot: 5 suspects arrested, charged with failed attempt to 
blow up the Ohio 82 bridge (video)

Published: Tuesday, May 01, 2012, 6:25 PM     Updated: Wednesday, May 
02, 2012, 8:17 AM
By James F. McCarty, The Plain Dealer

5 men arrested in Cleveland area bridge bomb plot Law enforcement 
officials arrested five men, Connor Stevens, Anthony Hayne, Brandon 
Baxter, Joshua Stafford, and Douglas Wright, for plotting to blow up 
the Ohio 82 bridge over the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The bridge 
also links Brecksville and Sagamore Hills.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Self-proclaimed anarchists text messaged a 
four-digit code into a cellular phone Monday night, expecting to 
detonate eight packs of plastic explosives strapped to a concrete 
abutment of a much-traveled bridge spanning the Cuyahoga River, 
federal officials charged Tuesday.

The five men waited at an unspecified location near the Ohio 82 
bridge between the suburban communities of Sagamore Hills and 
Brecksville, FBI agents said, hoping to hear the boom and watch the 
smoky collapse of the pillars.

But there was no explosion, no bridge collapse, and by Tuesday 
afternoon, the five men were in shackles and leg irons, appearing in 
U.S. District Court on federal terrorism charges that reference 
possible attacks on other landmarks, including Cleveland's Federal 
Reserve Bank.

At a news conference, U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach identified the 
men as members of a radical fringe of the Occupy Cleveland group, a 
national movement formed to protest corporate greed and home foreclosures.

Dettelbach said all evidence points to the five suspects acting 
alone, without the sanction of other mostly non-violent Occupy members.

"Let me be clear, the FBI and Department of Justice are not 
conducting an investigation of any specific group," he said. "We do 
not investigate movements or groups, we investigate individuals."

Here is how Dettelbach and the FBI say they foiled the plot.

For nearly seven months, a confidential informant who had penetrated 
the group's inner circle, secretly recorded meetings in which they 
plotted mayhem against symbols of corporate America in greater 
Cleveland. The unidentified informant reported back to the FBI. (Read

Douglas Wright, 26, of Indianapolis, took the lead from the start, 
according to a 21-page affidavit filed by the lead FBI agent on the 
case. The suspects started by thinking small, with plans to topple 
the signs of banks from atop downtown Cleveland skyscrapers. The plot 
included a diversionary tactic of smoke bombs exploded on the 
Veterans Memorial Bridge.

Wright, alias Cyco, and the confidential informant were later joined 
by Brandon Baxter, 20, of Lakewood, Anthony Hayne, 35, of Cleveland, 
Joshua Stafford, 23, of Cleveland, and Connor Stevens, 20, of Berea. 
They attended Occupy Cleveland protests in attempts to recruit 
like-minded anarchists, but were unsuccessful, according to the affidavit.

Their plots were willy-nilly, ranging from schemes to blow up the 
Cuyahoga County Justice Center, the Federal Reserve Bank of 
Cleveland, the I-480 bridge in Valley View, and a cargo ship before 
settling on the Ohio 82 bridge, according to federal documents. (See 
the DocumentCloud viewer below to read the documents in their entirety.)

Other potential targets included the abandoned streetcar tunnels 
beneath downtown Cleveland, a Cuyahoga County Homeland Security 
operation called the Northeast Ohio Regional Fusion Center, an 
unidentified Ku Klux Klan location in Ohio, and the new Horseshoe 
Casino on Public Square.

But all were eventually discounted for a variety of reasons.

The gang's bible, officials said, was the "Anarchist Cookbook," a 
1970 how-to book on building bombs using household items and dealing 
with police during riots. They also devised ways to cover their 
tracks electronically, and obtained computer programs they hoped 
would destroy their trail of Internet searches.

On March 22, the confidential informant met with Wright at an 
unidentified location.

"Tell me what all we need to make the bombs so that we can start 
gathering -" the informant is quoted in the affidavit as saying.

"Mainly bleach," Wright replied.

"Bleach?" the informant said.

"You can make plastic explosives with bleach."

Six days later, while driving across the I-480 bridge, Baxter asked, 
"How much do we need to take out a bridge?"

Rather than make their own bombs, the group eventually opted to buy 
C-4, a plastic explosive, plus bullet-proof vests and gas masks, for 
$800. What they didn't realize was that the seller was an undercover 
FBI agent and the two bombs were fakes - inert devices constructed to 
look like the real thing, with wires, switches, and detonators that 
could be triggered by a call from a cell phone.

"The defendants went to the bridge last night," Dettelbach said at a 
Tuesday morning news conference. "The defendants planted the 
explosives at the base of a busy bridge. The defendants went to an 
off site location to arm the explosives, and the defendants then 
entered a code they thought would blow that bridge up."

Dettelbach said the arrests show the evolving nature of terrorism the 
FBI is confronted with today.

"This case demonstrates that the threat we face is a diverse one," he 
said. "That terrorism can come in many hues and from many homelands."

At their court appearances, the suspects spoke in one- or two-word answers.

U.S. Magistrate Greg White found them all indigent and appointed them 
lawyers. They will be held without bond until at least Monday.

"Love you, Connor," shouted James Stevens, father of suspect Connor 
Stevens, as federal marshals led the group away. Stevens' sister 
cried in the back of the courtroom.

Debbie Kline, of Cleveland's Jobs with Justice, coordinated with the 
Occupy Cleveland on a number of protests and community actions. On 
Tuesday, she called the involvement of the five bombing suspects as "fringey"

Baxter, she said, had recently attended a training session on 
non-violent action. Kline said he seemed young and could have been 
impressionable.

"I wonder who else was pulling the strings of those in the group," she said.



Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20120502/fe92efff/attachment.htm>


More information about the PPnews mailing list