[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.
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