Catching the mysterious "Anthrax Guy"

OK, so somebody, somewhere has got themselves a batch of anthrax.

We know that two of the letters came from the same town in New Jersey. But actually tracking down the individual person who posted these letters is gonna be difficult.

So how bout we try this:

We seal off an area of 100 square miles around Trenton. No one comes in, no one goes out.

We search each and every square inch of that area.

We have three things to look for:

  • we have handwriting comparisons

  • we know they’ve got a batch of anthrax so we look for that

  • they will almost certainly be Arab, (or if not, they will certainly be muslim) so that narrows the search

Added to this, I’m sure the police investigation may have turned up a few things by now that we’re not hearing about.

Also we interrogate every person in that area.

I think the Arab population of this area would be more than willing to go along with it in order to catch the guy responsible.

Can dogs be used to sniff out anthrax?

I know it’s another one of my “big projects” but I say we go after this guy whatever it takes.

Its not just a matter of catching him, its also a matter of the intelligence he could provide if we caught him. Especially regarding possible future operations of this terrorist group.

We really need to catch this guy. And not just to stop him doing it again.

How do you know they’re still there? They’ve probably moved already.

How do we know they’ve got the anthrax in the same place they have the letters? They probably don’t.

I’m not so sure. It could be anyone with an ax to grind or some psychopath who thinks this is funny.

It’s the Arab population that should be worried if this happened. Not only illegal search and seizure here, but racial profiling. Also, consider the violence against Muslims/Arabs/people who vaguely resembled Arabs faced after 9/11. Now imagine what they’ll face after they are the ones getting searched and causing everyone else’s life to be inconvenienced by this.

Is it one guy? Is he really a terrorist? Is he with Al-Queda or another organization? Is he some lunatic who thought now would be a good time to be sending out letters? Has he picked up and moved? Is he a he? Is he singular or many hes? There’s too much stuff that you don’t know for this to be workable.

I’ve crossposted this to a couple of pertinent threads. I can’t believe that CNN hasn’t touched it and nobody seems to connect it:
It seems more credible to me that the anthrax scare is related to Larry W. Harris, a Christian Identity white supremacist who was charged with mail fraud after procuring bubonic plague bacilli by mail?

He later was found to have cultivated anthrax, and had talked about releasing plague in NYC and blaming it on Iraq.

(The article is from 1998.)

These people have been known to cultivate anthrax, and there have already been indications that they intended to attack New York and blame it on the muslim world. Ideologically, these people want a global armageddon, and the current situation would seem very attractive to them.

Horse dead, beating continues…

On the assumption that the OP is not some kind poorly-presented joke:

But others which apparently contained antrax spores didn’t.

Quarantine several million people? With what resources? On the basis of two letters?

We know no such thing.

If so, what is the need to make a concentration camp out of large portion of New Jersey?

Again, several million people? It’d take months, if not years. And a quarantine would be maintained during all that time? Oh yeah, of course, by that time, a large number of the quarantined would die of starvation, lessening the workload. After all, “no one comes in, no one goes out”.

Nonsense. And what do you think the (majority) population, also to be quarantined, would say about being imprisoned in this way?

I say…Oh, sorry, this isn’t the Pit. Let’s just say that a certain country’s army did something similar with a certain ethnic minority in Warsaw, Poland back in the early '40’s, which is whty I suspect the OP may be a clumsy attempt at satire.

Antrax in the mail produces fear, but is a ridiculously inefficient means of mass murder. The perpetrators can likely be found through normal law enforcement means.

Er, anthrax, dammit, anthrax. I even previewed…

Two words: Food…drops…

Interesting story, Larry Mudd. I have also been wondering about an angle like that (although I didn’t know anything about that particular guy). These messages with “pro Muslim”, “anti-Israeli” rhetoric…It all seems a little too “pat” to me. I don’t get the impression that this has been the Al Queda (?sp) style.

I also find it interesting that the government has not been jumping to the conclusion that it is them. There must be some reasons holding them back.

Maybe time will tell.

If so, what is the need to make a concentration camp out of large portion of New Jersey?**
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Ever been there?

Sorry.

Anyway…I’d guess most of the muslim and/or Arab Americans living in NJ would like to see the perp caught just as much as anyone else.

Hmmm…yes, and maybe some leaflets, saying something like “The partnership of nations is here to help.”

You do realize this is the United States of America don’t you?

We do have a little thing called civil rights.

Are you ready to give those up?

I’m not, but I’m perfectly willing to force the people of New Jersey to. Only in the interest of peace though.

Neurotik…

I do love great sarcasm…:slight_smile:

Arrgh. Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis. You know with the woman who married Warren, yeah, Annette Benning. With the Arab dudes. That’s it. The Seige.

You forgot torture. We will need to torture somebody. Oh, and camps, lots of camps.

How 'bout we just go into everybody’s house (Arabs first, of course) and look through their drawers. The ones in the dressers, silly.

I think it’s Robert Durst. Nobody knows where this nutjob is.

I think Gary Condit did it :slight_smile:

Naw, he’d never kill more than one person at a time. I don’t see how there can be any doubt that this is the second wave of Islamic terrorism.

they will almost certainly be Arab, (or if not, they will certainly be muslim) so that narrows the search

What a horrible, politically incorrect thing to say. Shame be upon you. Hey, what do you mean by “Arab” anyway? What if they’re from Pakistan? Oh gosh. And surely you mean Arab-American, if nothing else… after all, new jersey is part of america last time I checked, and that’s where they were.

[sarcasm off]

I’m sure whoever they are, they are far, far away from wherever the letters were mailed from.

[QUOTE]

Not so much “politically incorrect” as possibly inaccurate. It still remains to be proven that the anthrax attacks are not the work of domestic rather than foreign terrorists. (See Larry Mudd’s post on the subject.)

Actually, most if not all of the 19 men believed to be responsible for the September 11 attacks were Arabs. Osama bin Laden is also an Arab; he just lives in (the Muslim but non-Arab country of) Afghanistan.

AFAIK none of the attackers were American citizens, so “Arab-American” would not be correct. (I am reminded of possibly apocryphal stories of memos being amended by overly PC spell-checking programs to say things like “With the increase in orders, we hope to be back in the African-American by the end of this fiscal quarter.”)

MEBuckner, I was expecting a much more bitter and hostile response from you… but touché, I respect your reply immensely. :slight_smile:

How about cross checking against a list of people getting Cipro prescriptions in large amounts in the 3 or 4 months prior to the first mailing? Especially those with “arab” names.

I don’t know about you, but it struck me that the handwriting on the letters looked like that of someone copying the text as if it were pictures (i.e. they were not familiar with the Roman alphabet), or is that much so obvious that nobody has said it yet?

The problem is that you don’t need Cipro to treat anthrax. Just about any antibiotic will do. So looking for large orders of Cipro might not be an accurate method.

The only thing is that Cipro is the only one to be FDA approved specifically for use with anthrax. Most other antibiotics, while useful against anthrax, never bothered to get the formal approval done for it because they figured that there’s not much of a market for anthrax treatments. So why go through the expense and time?

All this leads me to believe that Bayer is behind the attacks. They are the ones who own Cipro. Why would they bother to get approval for an antibiotic against anthrax when no one else felt it was worth it unless they knew something?

I’m joking of course. But that would make a nice conspiracy thread, IMHO.