Amtraker: Well, now I know what happened to my original cache here and why the new one is now archived...
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez17jul17,1,4691177,full.column
STEVE LOPEZ/POINTS WEST
Good Day for Bomb Squad Is No Blast
Steve Lopez
Points West
July 17, 2005
I got the call just after 7 p.m. Thursday. Lt. Justin Eisenberg from the LAPD bomb squad told me to meet him near Los Angeles International Airport.
"We've got a report of a pipe bomb," he said. I fumbled for my keys and notebook, then raced down the Harbor Freeway to the 105 West.
But before I take you there:
I had spent the earlier part of that day with the bomb squad, which has been run ragged since the London bombings. People are more vigilant about abandoned knapsacks, calling in reports of anything the least bit suspicious. And that's kept the bomb gang scrambling.
It got particularly hairy last Monday.
"We went from one call to another to another," said anti-terrorism chief John Miller, who interviewed Osama bin Laden back in his TV reporting days.
Several of the calls were clustered in the vicinity of the federal building on Wilshire.
"I turned to [LAPD Chief William] Bratton and said, 'I don't want to be paranoid, but it looks like someone is trying to draw all the bomb squad resources to the far end of the city, which makes me nervous about transit stuff and the downtown civic area.' "
Over the course of a few hours, Miller said, the bomb squad had been called to a bomb threat at a bank on Sunset Boulevard, a suspicious package at Wilshire and Westwood, a knapsack in a park near the federal building, another abandoned backpack near a BMW in the federal employee parking lot, and a suspicious bus rider who gingerly handled a white box and then left it at a bus stop near Pico and Sawtelle, backing away slowly.
"It was someone who clearly wanted the bomb squad" to roll, Miller said of the bus rider, who is still being sought. "He was described as a Middle Eastern man with a package that had a handle on it, and he looked at all the passengers and made eye contact with them and didn't let anyone near him. When he got off, he waited for everyone else to get off first, then picked up the package gingerly, as if it contained a bomb."
The package was empty, but Miller would still like to find the guy who left it there. The concern is that the unidentified man had accomplices who were observing the response of the bomb squad or testing a diversionary tactic.
The next potential crisis was the unattended knapsack found near the federal building. Sgt. Ron Capra of the bomb squad was concerned enough to order a 300-foot evacuation and send the unit's robot in to inspect the sack.
The robot, a four-wheeled contraption, sent its findings back to the truck, where everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Miller said the bag contained CO2 canisters, wires and other electronic gear, and food stamps.
None of the other packages contained explosives, either, but with calls running 50% above average since London, I decided to spend Thursday with the bomb squad.
Very few of the bomb squad's calls have any connection to terrorism, Capra said. But with a cluster of calls like those ones on the Westside, he can't help thinking about London, Madrid and New York. Capra, in fact,
is scheduled to leave this
weekend for London to learn what he can about the explosions that killed more than 50 people.
(continued in next note)
[This entry was edited by Amtraker on Sunday, July 17, 2005 at 4:09:16 PM.]