"Man suspected of firing at White House arrested" November 17, 2011|By Brett Zongker and Jessica Gresko, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Law enforcement authorities arrested a 21-year-old Idaho man yesterday who is suspected of shooting with a semiautomatic rifle at the White House on Friday night, as the Secret Service reported finding that at least one bullet had struck the presidential residence.
The Secret Service said one of the bullets apparently cracked a window on the level of the president’s living quarters, while Obama and his wife, Michelle, were on a trip to California and Hawaii. The president has since traveled on to Australia, the second stop on a nine-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region.
He shot at the place when they were not there?
The White House had no immediate comment on the shooting report or arrest or whether the Obamas’ daughters were home at the time.
The discovery of bullet holes followed reports of gunfire near the White House on Friday night, although the bullets have not been conclusively connected with that shooting, authorities said. On Friday, authorities found an abandoned vehicle with an assault rifle inside, which led authorities to disclose they had linked Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez to the reported gunfire.
Given the long history of lone gunmen this absolutely reeks of planted evidence.
A US Park Police crime bulletin issued before Ortega’s arrest said he is known to have mental health issues....
There are also indications he had become obsessed with Obama and the White House, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
Ortega, 21, was arrested yesterday afternoon by Pennsylvania authorities at a hotel near Indiana, Pa., a community about 55 miles east of Pittsburgh, the Secret Service said. He was in Pennsylvania State Police custody. A tip from someone who saw and identified Ortega led to his arrest, Secret Service spokesman George Ogilvie said.
Ortega did not resist arrest, said State Police Lieutenant Brad Shields. Troopers said Ortega had visited the hotel in recent days, and investigators believed he was back in the area. The Secret Service passed out photographs, and a desk clerk recognized his picture and stalled him while notifying police....
Ortega, from Idaho Falls, was reported missing Oct. 31 by his family. On Friday morning, he was stopped by police in the Washington suburb of Arlington, Va., after officers were called for a report of a suspicious person. Police took photos of him but did not have any reason to arrest him, said Arlington police Lieutenant Joe Kantor.
Ortega has arrest records in three states but has not been linked to any radical organizations, US Park Police have said.
Witnesses on Friday reported hearing shots and seeing two speeding vehicles in the area.
Obviously one contained his case handler (and the reference to a second vehicle will soon disappear).
The assault rifle was recovered nearby and the abandoned car that authorities linked to Ortega was found near the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, which crosses the Potomac River to Virginia....
I thought the rifle was found inside the car?
"White House shooting suspect charged" Associated Press, November 17, 2011
BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho man accused of firing an assault rifle at the White House believed he was Jesus and thought President Barack Obama was the Antichrist, according to court documents and those who knew him. At one point, he even suggested to an acquaintance the president was planning to implant computer tracking chips into children.
Would Jesus use an assault rifle?
And I already gave the AC distinction to Bush for obvious reasons. I wouldn't dismiss the computer tracking chips so easily, though; good propaganda always mixes in truth in an attempt to discredit it.
Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, 21, was charged Thursday with attempting to assassinate the president or his staff. He is accused of firing nine rounds at the White House on Friday night – one of them cracking a window of the first family’s living quarters – when Obama and the first lady were away. If convicted, Ortega faces up to life in prison.
Ortega was arrested Wednesday at the Hampton Inn in White Township, Indiana County. A desk clerk at the hotel recognized him and called police.
Ortega’s public defender, Christopher Brown, declined comment after his first court hearing in Pennsylvania. Ortega’s mother has said he has no history of mental illness, though when authorities were looking for him, they reported he had “mental health issues.”
Translation: we were ONCE AGAIN LIED TO by authorities!
In Idaho Falls, where Ortega is from, a computer consultant told The Associated Press that the two met July 8 after Ortega asked for help editing a 30-minute infomercial. Monte McCall said that during the meeting at Ortega’s family’s Mexican restaurant, Ortega pulled out worn sheets of yellow paper with handwritten notes and started to talk about his predictions that the world would end in 2012....
He's been watching too much History Channel.
Kimberly Allen, the mother of Ortega’s former fiancee, said he had been well-mannered and kind in the four years she had known him. But he recently began making statements to her daughter that were out of character, including that he believed he was Jesus. Allen said the family was worried when he recently went to Utah, where he said he had business, and didn’t come back. Ortega’s family reported him missing Oct. 31.
Allen said they were flabbergasted to hear he was wanted in Washington. “I believe that the boy needs help,” said Allen, of Shelley, Idaho.
Her daughter, Jessica Galbraith, was engaged to Ortega and is the mother of their 2-year-old son. She declined to comment Thursday except to say: “I love him, and I’m here for him.”
Ortega’s mother said she didn’t have anything to say. She earlier told the Post Register in Idaho Falls her son has no history of mental illness.
“He has different ideas than other people, just like everyone, but he was perfectly fine the last time I saw him,” Maria Hernandez told the newspaper.
I'm wondering who got to him.
At his first appearance in court in Pennsylvania, Ortega sat quietly, his hands free but his feet shackled. He said only, “Yes, ma’am” when he was asked if he understood that he would be going back to Washington to face the charge.
According to a court document released after the hearing, authorities recovered nine spent shell casings from Ortega’s car, which was found abandoned near the White House shortly after the shooting. An assault rifle with a scope was found inside.
Okay. Glad the AmeriKan media cleared that up.
A person who knows him subsequently told investigators that he had become increasingly agitated with the federal government and was convinced it was conspiring against him, the document said.
That's where my printed Globe cut it.
Others told investigators that Ortega had reportedly said Obama was the Antichrist and the “devil.” Ortega also apparently said he “needed to kill” the president.
Authorities said Ortega was clad in black when he pulled his car within view of the White House on Friday night, fired shots and then sped away....
Ortega was questioned by police on Friday morning, before the shootings, just across the Potomac River from Washington in Arlington, Va. Police said they stopped him after a report of suspicious behavior, but let him go after photographing him because they had no reason to make an arrest.
Ortega has an arrest record in three states but has not been linked to any radical organizations, U.S. Park Police have said.
This is not the first time the White House has come under attack.
In the last 40 years, the landmark has faced threats ranging from a stolen helicopter that landed on the grounds in 1974 to a man who wielded a sawed-off shotgun on a sidewalk outside in 1984. In 1994 alone, there were five threats including a plane crash on the lawn and a suspected drive-by shooting.
Another man fired at least 29 rounds from a semiautomatic weapon, with 11 striking the White House.
My feeling is some of those incidents were warnings to a president possibly veering from the plan.
Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who served on the presidential details for Obama and President George W. Bush, said Friday’s shooting would likely mean tighter security and coordination....
--more--"
"Lawyer gets 50 years in failed plot" November 10, 2011|Associated Press
COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho - An attorney who had represented the white supremacist Aryan Nations group was sentenced yesterday to 50 years in federal prison in the failed plot to kill his wife and mother-in-law.
Edgar J. Steele wanted the women dead so he could collect on an uninsured motorist insurance policy and be free to pursue a relationship with a woman from Ukraine, prosecutors said.
He paid $10,000 in silver to another Idaho man who agreed to kill the women, authorities said.
The would-be hit man, Larry Fairfax, testified during Steele’s trial that he accepted the silver because he was desperate for money but never intended to carry out the plan.
Steele, 66, was convicted in May.
He had represented Aryan Nations and founder Richard Butler during the 2000 trial that bankrupted the hate group.
Steele denied trying to kill his wife, Cyndi Steele, and she supports him. He told the court he was the victim of a government conspiracy because of his political views.
The truth is the government is behind the remnants of racism. Governments need enemies, and domestically it is the right-wing radicals that must be maintained.
--more--"
"Idaho professor said to have talked about shooting students" October 28, 2011|By Jessie L. Bonner, Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho - A University of Idaho professor who committed suicide after killing a graduate student he had dated previously talked about shooting students in his classroom and was targeted in a complaint alleging he was engaging in “sex orgies’’ with students, according to newly released documents....
Assistant psychology professor Ernesto Bustamante resigned his position effective Aug. 19, and three days later, police said he shot graduate student Katy Benoit, 22, nearly a dozen times outside her home. Bustamante committed suicide in a hotel room shortly after shooting Benoit and was found with six guns and medications for bipolar disorder and severe anxiety, police said....
--more--"
"Workers exposed to radiation go home" November 10, 2011|Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho - All 16 workers exposed to radiation in an accident at the Idaho National Laboratory were allowed to go home following the incident, which officials said yesterday likely resulted from decades-old plutonium powder that escaped its damaged stainless-steel shell.
US Department of Energy officials and private contractors are closely monitoring two workers at the eastern Idaho lab who tested positive for radioactive material in their lungs. Another employee also is being monitored, but doctors believe uranium detected in his lungs was a false positive.
The remaining 13 workers will also undergo weeks of testing to evaluate their exposure.
Lab health director Sharon Dossett said none of the exposed workers were exhibiting outward symptoms of radiological exposure. They were allowed to go home because they posed no threat to others, she said.
“These isotopes are internal hazards; they’re not external hazards,’’ Dossett said at a news conference yesterday. “There’s no hazard to their family members or anybody they would come into contact with.’’
Lung scans showed the two workers with radioactive material in their lungs had breathed in Americium-241, an isotope commonly found in nuclear waste. While these scans are not sensitive enough to detect plutonium, the presence of Americium-241 proves plutonium is there, too.
According to lab officials, it may be weeks before the extent of exposure is known.
Idaho National Laboratory officials said filters meant to keep radioactive material from being released from exhaust systems inside the facility functioned properly. There was no risk to the public or environment, the lab said.
The lab has designed and constructed 52 reactors since its founding in 1949 in the desert west of Idaho Falls.
One of those reactors, the Zero Power Physics Reactor, was dismantled last year, but plutonium fuel plates that date back to research done in the 1970s remain inside the building.
--more--"
