CNN: Alert issued for teddy bear bombs

Alert issued for potential teddy bear bombs

February 14, 2002 Posted: 4:47 AM EST (0947 GMT)

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — The FBI has issued an alert to 350 law enforcement agencies in the southwest and Salt Lake City for potential Valentine teddy bear bombs after a suspicious transaction at a Wal-Mart last month.

Law enforcement sources said authorities also were on the alert at airports in case the suspected bear-bombs might be carried onto airplanes on Valentine’s Day.

The FBI said a clean-shaven male, possibly of Middle Eastern descent, purchased nine Valentine teddy bears, 20 inches tall, and 14 canisters of propane, 9 inches tall, small enough to fit inside the teddy bears. The man also bought 12 packets of BBs — small, round projectiles usually fired from air guns.

He paid in cash on January 15 at the Wal-Mart in Stevenson Ranch, California, about 25 miles north of Los Angeles. He left in a white GMC or Chevrolet delivery truck.

“After September 11, that purchase warrants that we take a closer look,” FBI spokesman Matthew McLaughlin said. Authorities were notified February 4, McLaughlin said.

Authorities emphasized that the man has committed no crime, but the purchase has raised suspicions and authorities want to question him about it.

At the same time, authorities want Americans to be on the lookout for suspicious packages on Valentine’s Day due to the level of concern over the purchase.

The man was captured on surveillance tape and his picture was included in the alert to law enforcement agencies.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

3 Replies to “CNN: Alert issued for teddy bear bombs”

  1. The trial of Geert Wilders will end up being a good thing. For one, he will be able to put up´a defense using the Koran itself and excerpts from religious scholars of Islam. How can he lose this case if allowed to defend himself? Secondly, the world is becoming aware of this trial and they see it for what it is and will not stand for a guilty verdict. It will cause the biggest uproar. Wilders actually has them by the balls.

  2. I very much want you to be correct but I need to quote you here to make my case.
    “if allowed to defend himself?”
    This is where I see the problem. If the prosecution frames the issue a certain way, they can prevent him from making his case as irrelevant. Specifically, if he is charged under some section of hate thought/speech laws, any attempt to justify it will be disallowed as not relevant to whether or not he did something illegal, which they clearly feel he did. He will only be allowed to attempt to prove he did not say these things or, that he did not mean them in the context he did, which of course he will lose. My money is on this kind of a tactic. In fact, I don’t think the charges would have been made at all had they not planned this in the first place. If you and I know what you posted, then the Dutch Government does, and Ill go farther here, that they know the cost of letting him state a case as you and I see it, would be that the Muslim population of Holland would go on a violent car burning Jew killing gay smashing rampage far in excess of what they have there already, then why would they even consider allowing him to make such a case? Chances are the prosecution will interrupt any such attempt as irrelevant and the judge will agree. Now I do not know Dutch trial law whatsoever. But the internal logic of this is sound as I see it. Let’s hope Im way out to lunch and nothing like this could happen in a free state like Holland or England where as Im sure you know, he was arrested and sent back to Holland before he could leave the airport.