Posted on 05/03/2002 1:47:40 PM PDT by Aliska
A postal worker that's mad that during the anthrax scare, postal workers died while government employees got immediate Cipro treatment and their place of work evacuated and cleaned at tax payers expense. The post office in CT that just this week was found to have more anthrax spores is still open and of course, officials are "monitoring the situation".
I remember several of the DC area postal workers very angry that they weren't given the same royal treatment as Daschle & Leahy's staff were.
That said, we've been here 15 years and we're still the newbies on the block ;)
Tom Daschle???
Seriously, this is an excellent analysis. You should forward it to the FBI anti-terror tipline.
Excellent!
Never mind on the postal worker thought now that I've read the letter.
I doubt if it was a carrier. They had to have been planted overnight. The first one was discovered about 6-7:30 AM timeframe in Eldridge IA when they went down to get their morning paper. It wasn't wired quite right. The people were suspicious and called police. It didn't go off until the bomb squad detonated it right in the mailbox. It took several hours before the others were discovered when they went off. Most of the injured were mail carriers who caused the bomb to explode when they opened the box to place the mail inside. Hope I got that straight.
Unless the guy is declared mentally incompetent, they will surely punish him severely.
Mighty fast entrepreneurial thinking there! But to answer RightWhale's question - no mailbox cams. Rather, Homeland security will hire a few million overnight mailbox painters. They will work for the same agency responsible for airport screeners now. Each day, your mailbox will have a new threat level color code so you can determine the liklihood that it will explode upon opening.
As you noted the attacks make a nearly perfect circle, but no one yet has commented on what is coincidentally in the center of that circle. The county and city of Clinton. Meaningless--(these Clintons were named for the NY Governor of Erie Canal fame--but some Freepers may find this ironic.
Thanks for the ping. My initial reaction is to agree that this looks like domestic terrorism (a crazy Unabomber-type left-wing "anti-globalist" anti-progress nut, acting alone or possibly as part of a very small group). This is just a guess based on an initial reading of the letter.
Here's this morning's coverage. The Quad City Times (qctimes.com) seems to have the best coverage of the Iowa papers:
Pipe bombs injure 6,
shut down Q-C mail service
By Tom Geyer/ QUAD-CITY TIMES/ May 4, 2002
Domestic terrorism hit the Upper Mississippi River Valley on Friday, shutting down postal service in at least eight counties as federal officials converged on a string of small Iowa and Illinois communities where a pipe-bomber left a trail of fear and injury.
A typewritten letter left with some of the bombs promised more.
"It seems killing a single famous person would get the same media attention as killing numerous un-famous humans," the letter read.
"We looked at this letter and we are reviewing this as a domestic terrorism incident," said James Bogner, an FBI spokesman.
Mail service is being halted from Cedar Rapids east through Dubuque, Iowa, into Whiteside County, Ill., and south through the Quad-Cities after at least eight pipe bombs were planted in mailboxes, postal authorities said.
Six people were injured by exploding devices. Four of the injured were postal carriers, one each in Asbury, Iowa, Morrison, Elizabeth and Mount Carroll, Ill. The other two people injured were postal customers, one each in Tipton and Anamosa, Iowa.
"For the safety of our employees, we’re curtailing service until we get a better handle on what we’re really dealing with here," said Joleen Baxa, the U.S. Postal Service district manager for the Hawkeye District, which includes eastern Iowa.
Postal authorities had not determined late Friday when mail service will resume, but they expect it will happen Monday.
Quad-City region Zip codes affected begin with the digits 527 and 528, which includes Bettendorf, Eldridge, Davenport, Blue Grass and Clinton, Iowa. In the Cedar Rapids area, the Zip codes affected will be those beginning with 522 and 524, while the affected Zip code in the Dubuque area beings with 520, Baxa said.
In Illinois, affected Zip codes will be those beginning with 610, 611 and 612, she said, which includes East Moline, Moline, Rock Island, Coal Valley and Milan.
Linda Jensen, a U.S. postal inspector based in Des Moines, said the bombs were accompanied by a clear plastic bag containing a typewritten letter full of anti-government propaganda.
"Most of the indications are that these were placed devices, not something that was sent through the mail," she said. "It’s certainly too early in the investigation to predict what the intent was or who did it. I can certainly assure you that we will be actively investigating this until someone is brought to justice."
Scott County sheriff’s Capt. Mike Brown said deputies were dispatched to the home of Darin and Shelli Ann Engelbrecht, 22624 130th Ave., in rural Scott County, about 6:50 a.m. It was Shelli Ann Engelbrecht who found the bomb.
The couple declined comment when contacted Friday by the Quad-City Times.
Deputies quickly called the Quad-City Bomb Squad, Brown added.
Rock Island County sheriff’s Lt. Gerry Bustos, the commander of the bomb squad, said they were able to defuse the device.
The bomb squad was called about 7:15 a.m., he added, with the first member arriving on the scene at 7:40 a.m.
"We got the whole bomb and are getting some good evidence off of it," he said.
Bustos said he could not speculate on why the device did not detonate when the mailbox was opened. "God was looking after those who opened the mailbox," he added.
While the bomb was of a basic design, its construction and components showed some sophistication, he said. "But that information is not hard to get, what with the Internet and the number of radical publications on the market." he added.
About 10 a.m., Brown said, calls started coming in to the Scott County Sheriff’s Department from other counties with information about additional bombs being found.
"They were all calling us," he said. "It sounds as if we talked to the postal service first or were one of the first ones to talk to postal authorities. The postal service started fielding the calls and telling the others what we had found."
At 11 a.m., one detonated near Farley, in Dubuque County, injuring a mail carrier. At 12:26 a second Dubuque County bomb injured another carrier near Asbury.
About the same time., another carrier was hurt in Whiteside County, about three miles east of Morrison, on Lyndon Road a mile south of U.S. 30 at the home of Bob and Marge Zuidema.
Marge Zuidema said she and her husband heard something that sounded "like a bird hitting a window, but a lot louder," when their mailbox exploded Friday afternoon.
By the time she discovered what had happened, "the police and FBI, postal inspectors, just about everybody" were at the end of their driveway.
Judy Temple, a neighbor, said she looked out her living room window just as mail carrier Marilyn Dolieslager was pulling up.
"As soon as I saw her lean over in the mailbox, all of a sudden, ‘Boom!’ and everything went straight up in the air like a mushroom," Temple said. "I yelled for my husband, ‘Something’s wrong with Marilyn!’ "
Temple and her husband called 911 and helped Dolieslager to their yard. Dolieslager’s face and left arm were injured, and part of her thumb was blown off in the blast, her daughter, Jodi Camper, said.
"I always get the mail," Bob Zuidema said Friday night. "A lot of times, I drive up. It could have been me."
"I can’t say what the world is coming to, you know?" he said. "Something like this in a small town?"
About two hours later, the fifth bomb detonated near Elizabeth, Ill., in Carroll County. Another postal carrier received minor injuries there.
Steve Ertmer was delivering mail near Elizabeth when a pipe bomb detonated about 2:30 p.m. He suffered cuts to his hands that required stitches, and the door of his vehicle was damaged. But Ertmer said he probably was saved from more serious injuries because he was driving a four-door Blazer and sitting up high.
"I’m OK. I got lucky," he said Friday night. "I thank God it was me who opened it up and not my customer standing in front of it."
And Delores Werling’s family members said a change in her daily routine probably saved her from being critically injured when a pipe bomb exploded in her mailbox in rural Cedar County, about two miles northeast of Tipton.
Werling was treated for injuries and released from University Hospitals in Iowa City.
Brown added, and Jensen confirmed, that it appears all of the bombs were placed in rural areas.
It is assumed they were placed in mailboxes during the nighttime hours, he said.
FBI Special Agent Frank Bochte, the agency’s spokesman in Chicago, said the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or BATF, and the postal service are working jointly on the investigation.
Also, the Chicago FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force, comprised of FBI agents, Chicago police, BATF, postal service, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Secret Service and Illinois State Police are assisting the Jo Daviess, Whiteside and Carroll counties sheriff’s departments in the investigation.
"We have specially trained agents, known as evidence response technicians, on the scenes to recover evidence," Bochte said.
"It is still far too early to tell if this is the work of an individual or group of individuals or where they are from," he added. "We’d like to advise all individuals to, at least for the time being, use caution when opening a mailbox. If there is a strange package, contact local law enforcement and keep a safe distance."
Jensen said she is not aware of any tips received from citizens at this point, but she added that investigators are conducting extensive interviews in the affected areas.
Ken Runde, the chief deputy of Dubuque County, said local law enforcement agencies cannot check every mailbox in the area for a possible bomb.
"We probably have 30,000 mailboxes," he said. "If they notice something suspicious or foreign, then we will respond."
(Times reporters Kay Luna, Barb Ickes, Rachelle Treiber, Marc Chase, Ann McGlynn, Todd Dorman and Kathie Obradovich, as well as The Associated Press, contributed to this article.)
Contact the city desk at (563) 383-2245 or newsroom@qctimes.com.
A city-by-city account of explosions and injuries
QUAD-CITY TIMES/ May 4, 2002
POSTAL CARRIERS HURT
Mt. Carroll, Ill – 11:15 a.m. An explosion leaves a carrier with lacerations on the face and right hands and hearing damage.
Asbury, Iowa - 12:26 p.m. An explosion causes shrapnel wounds, head injuries and hearing damage for a carrier. A piece of metal goes through the forearm of a carrier. More shrapnel was removed from the upper arm.
Morrison, Ill – 12:30 p.m. Postal carrier Marilyn Dolieslager’s face and arm are struck by a bomb blast about three miles east of Morrison, on Lyndon Road a mile south of U.S. 30, at the home of Bob and Marge Zuidema. She suffered powder burns and received stitches to her left upper arm and left thumbs.
Elizabeth, Ill. - 2:30 p.m. bomb detonates. Postal carrier Steve Ertmer suffered cuts to his hands that required stitches, and the door of his vehicle was damaged.
OTHERS HURT
Anamosa, Iowa - 1 p.m. A woman living in rural Jones County near Anamosa suffers abrasions after a pipe bomb goes off while she is attempting to retrieve her mail from her mailbox.
Tipton, Iowa – Delores Werling suffers facial injuries in a bomb blast and is treated and released from University Hospitals.
NO INJURIES
Scott County -- 6:49 a.m. Scott County Sheriff’s deputies are dispatched to the rural home of Darin Engelbrecht, 22624 130th Ave. Within 25 minutes, deputies notify the Quad-City Bomb Squad.
Farley, Iowa -- 10:49 a.m. A mail carrier in Farley in rural Dubuque County opens a mailbox and finds a small section of pipe with a 9-volt battery attached. When Dubuque County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Ken Rundy responds to the home, he determines the device is an active bomb. The device is taken into evidence by bomb experts.
Q-C region flinches from dawn to dusk:
A narrative of a day of bombings
By Barb Ickes / QUAD-CITY TIMES/ May 4, 2002
The first hint that Friday was not going to be like most other days was too subtle.
Between the rural, pre-dawn darkness and the shadowy hollow of a roadside mailbox, the Quad-City Times newspaper carrier was not sure what she was seeing.
At 6 a.m., the odd-looking device inside the mailbox at 22624 130th Ave. looked to her like a tractor part that had been left there by a thoughtful neighbor. She simply slid the newspaper behind the device and closed the mailbox door.
But 49 minutes later, when Shelli Ann Engelbrecht went to retrieve her newspaper, it was apparent the device inside the mailbox was no tractor part.
Within a half-hour of the call to Scott County sheriff’s deputies, the Quad-City Bomb Squad was about to begin a very long day.
By 7:40 a.m., the first members of the bomb squad arrived at the Engelbrecht home. As they began to carefully disable the pipe bomb, the scope of the situation began to explode.
By 10 a.m., the Scott County Sheriff’s Department was hearing from other counties where similar pipe bombs were showing up in mailboxes across the rural landscape.
Police feared someone would get hurt. Within an hour-and-a-half, someone did.
At 10:49 a.m., a mail carrier in Farley, Iowa, which is in rural Dubuque County, opened a mailbox and found a small section of pipe with a 9-volt battery attached. When Ken Rundy, the chief deputy of the Dubuque County Sheriff’s Department, arrived at the home, he knew instantly what he was dealing with.
That carrier was lucky. The next one was not.
At 12:26 p.m., an explosion tore through another Dubuque County mailbox, this time in Asbury, exploding against the hands and face of another mail carrier. Rundy described the injuries as non-life-threatening.
About the same time, yet another one exploded, this time cutting into the arms and face of a mail carrier in rural Whiteside County on Lyndon Road, two miles east of Morrison and a mile south of U.S. 30.
Now the word was on the move.
At 2 p.m., Bettendorf police Capt. Greg Adamson was in a Homeland Security meeting at Arsenal Island with other area law enforcement officials, a ritual that began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
A note was delivered to Major Gen. Wade McManus Jr., the commander of the U.S. Army Operations Support Command.
McManus read the note and announced that two pipe bombs had been reported. Only one member of the group was missing Friday: Scott County Sheriff Dennis Conard. He already knew.
As the Homeland Security meeting continued, a rural Elizabeth, Ill., mail carrier called the Jo Daviess County Sheriff’s Department to report that he had been injured in a mailbox explosion. He was transported by ambulance to Galena’s Strauss Hospital, where he was treated and released.
As more and more reports poured in, a dark thought came over police: Children would be arriving home in school buses and would no doubt be tempted to open the boxes and grab the mail inside.
Shortly before 3:30 p.m., Carroll County Sheriff Rod Herrick hastily answered his office phone. He was typing an important news release and could not take time to talk.
"I want to get this out," he said. "I don’t want kids getting off the bus and opening the mailbox or people coming home from work and opening their mailbox.
"Don’t touch your mailbox until further notice," he muttered before hanging up.
At the same time, U.S. Postal Inspector Linda Jensen, based in Des Moines, was receiving an e-mail indicating the locations of eight pipe bombs. Information was arriving from everywhere — and fast.
Authorities were bracing themselves for more.
At 3:45 p.m., Lt. Gerry Bustos, the commander of the Quad-City Bomb Squad and a member of the Rock Island County Sheriff’s Department, reported from his cell phone that he was aware of seven pipe bombs.
"We’ve been in contact with (the Bureau of) Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and we are on standby — for areas other than the Quad-Cities if need be," he said.
Others were not sure what to do.
At 4 p.m., the parking lot of the U.S. Postal Service office on West 2nd Street in Davenport was filled with letter carriers who had been notified earlier in the afternoon that they were to abandon their routes.
One by one, they climbed in their cars and went home.
As they headed home, FBI agents swooped into Whiteside County, taking over the investigation from sheriff’s deputies there.
A half-hour later, Dubuque County Sheriff Leo Kennedy issued a news release by fax. The final sentence read, "If there is anything suspicious found, contact the sheriff’s office immediately!"
An hour after most Fridays have wound down, Joleen Baxa, the U.S. Postal Service district manager for the Hawkeye District, was still in the reception area of her Urbandale, Iowa, office.
As Des Moines TV reporters delivered live coverage from the parking lot, Baxa speculated on what the weekend might bring and said she could not predict whether postal delivery will be interrupted after today.
"We’ll make another call tomorrow," she said.
For many police officers, the hours of the day would soon begin blending together.
At nearly 6 p.m., a brainstorming session was under way inside the Scott County Sheriff’s Department office, where a dozen investigators were sharing notes with local and federal authorities and investigating a handful of tips that had come into the office.
They could not break for the night. And they are not the only ones who would have trouble sleeping.
Shortly before darkness came, a few television news trucks were camped outside the Engelbrecht home where it all started.
Two miles down the road and on the same mail route, neighbor Arnold Kundel, 44, shook his head at the day’s events.
"I never even lock the door around here," he said. "I know every neighbor around here. Usually, you don’t have to worry about these weird things out here," he continued. "But I guess now you do."
Two hours later at another farmhouse, a dozen cars carrying federal agents sped down Lyndon Road, back to U.S. 30, just east of Morrison and away from the home where the second postal carrier was injured shortly after noon.
Rockford, Ill.-based FBI agent Mike Zemites referred questions to the bureau’s Chicago office, but not much evidence remained, he said.
"The mailbox itself is in little pieces," he added.
More than mailboxes were reduced to fragments Friday.
At 9:15 p.m., three reporters made their way into the home of Marge and Bob Zuidema in rural Morrison where the second carrier was injured.
Bob Zuidema was telling the visitors how he is always the one to pick up the mail and how it could have been him who was hurt. He told how he came in from the fields and found pieces of his mailbox in his driveway, which is all the way across the road.
As he escorted the group to the room where his wife was waiting to do one more interview from her wheelchair, another shock came. Marge was lying on the floor. She had fallen out of the chair while her husband was answering the door.
The reporters scooped Marge off the floor as Bob went for a glass of water. But the day had been too much.
The woman dropped her head to her hands and cried.
Kay Luna, Barb Ickes, Rachelle Treiber, Marc Chase, Ann McGlynn, Todd Dorman and Kathie Obradovich contributed to this story.
Contact the city desk at (563) 383-2245 or newsroom@qctimes.com.
Eastern Iowa postal service cancelled
Complete list of cancelled zip codes
By Todd Dorman/ QUAD-CITY TIMES/ May 3, 2002
Des Moines, Iowa -- Postal authorities cancelled Saturday delivery across Eastern Iowa until further notice in the following areas with zip codes beginning with these three numbers: 520, 522, 524, 527, 528, 610, 611, 612.
Would likely have to be done late at night when people are in bed to avoid the risk of being seen on the road. Starts getting light at around 5:30 am now, dark at 8:30pm. You'd really be pushing the window to be able to do it under the cover of darkness, it would nearly be impossible to do in a normal 7-8 hours sleep most people get plus in the dark. If it is one person, they were very lucky not to be seen, and happened to choose people who don't go to work too early, didn't have letters to mail, and mostly get their mail in the late afternoon.
The ELF has also been active in that area. That ring of counties is right next to Johnson county, which Iowa City is in.
Five minutes work with a drill and jigsaw, a 5 x 5 inch piece of Lexan, some caulking and some self-tapping screws....viola! rear of mailbox is now see-through. Also a handy way to see what's in the mailbox without having to walk out to it to check if any mail arrived.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.