Does the story of the Rockford man planning an attack on a local shopping mall with hand grenades:
A 22-year-old man’s alleged plot to stage a deadly terrorist attack in Rockford days before Christmas was marked by violent intentions but no chance of success, according to federal charges released Friday.
A Muslim convert intent on “jihad,” Derrick Shareef plotted to use hand grenades and a pistol to kill shoppers at the CherryVale Shopping Center outside of Rockford, authorities charged.
But federal agents and an undercover informant followed him from the plot’s outset, U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald said Friday. Authorities didn’t specify how they originally learned of Shareef.
strike anyone else the same way it does me?
Here are the facts as we know them: young man, “convert to Islamâ€, no mention of ties to any group, plans more aspirational than operational, multiple federal agents and a U. S. attorney involved.
Why the federal involvement?
Presumably, it’s because of the classification of the activity as terrorism and the far-fetched characterization of a cluster of hand grenades as a weapon of mass destruction. If any instrument capable of causing multiple deaths may be classed as a weapon of mass destruction, what crime doesn’t fall under federal jurisidiction?
FBI agents make considerably more than Rockford cops; I suspect that the lawyers working for the district attorney’s office in Rockford make considerably less than those working for the U. S. Attorney’s office.
This is a lousy use of resources. We need the FBI to go after terrorist conspiracies, especially those with overseas ties or support from foreign governments. This is the federal equivalent of concentrating on routine traffic violations rather than violent crime on the part of local police.
If the feds are to chase after every nutcase or guy with a grudge, it’s going to be prohibitively expensive and will require a much larger and more dispersed federal police force than I suspect any of us want to see.
This is a matter that clearly could have and should have been handled by local authorities. Unpalatable as it is to these jurisdictions they’re going to need to come to terms with the idea that they need to learn to pay for this kind of operation themselves.
Note
I see that Bill Quick may have had a reaction similar to mine.
Pretty much exactly your reaction. The not unexpected domestic results of the Great War on Something Or Other is the federalizing of street crime, the vast expansion of police power at every level, especially the highest, and the regimentation and criminalization of everyday life – strip for your life at the airline checkin!
Wanna bet they took down this doofus with a full SWAT team and maybe even armored backup?
We’ll know when these jumped up cops finally run into the real deal. We’ll have a whole bunch of dead cops, some escaped jihadis, and police folk suddenly deciding that the apprehension of Islamist terrorists is the business of either the National Guard or the Regular Army.
I’m not impressed.
As I’ve seen it the problem with a change at the FBI from counter-terrorism being a dead-end ticket to nowhere and drug enforcement the path to advancement to the reverse is that, naturally enough, ambitious agents will pursue the easiest, safest counter-terrorism efforts with all their strength.
That inevitably means that we’ll be arresting nutcases like this guy in Rockford at maximum expense while more serious, determined, capable terrorists carefully make their plans without much chance of federal apprehension.
No way to run a railroad.
I do find it interesting that the only organization able to supply these nutcases with resource, such a grenades and boots, is the FBI. However, do you suppose Al Qaeda is missing a whole base to operate from? Perhaps Al Qaeda needs to get a 1-8oo number going to reel these guys in. You know, develop a network or something.
They seem to view each and every case as an isolated one, only proceeding to “link it to the bigger picture” by mentioning “Islamofascism” and “network of terrorists”, but that never goes very far. Connect the dots!
We’re basically doing the same in Iraq now, whereby the Iraqi Army is too incompetent and inefficient in counterinsurgency operations. Even a few guys planting IEDs on the side of some obscure road in some obscure province needs the MNF and US troops to get down there and deal with them. But to compare the state police and the Iraqi Army – that would be unimaginable, no?
Then why are we not devolving more power and resources to them?
There are two reasons why this was an FBI case and not a local cops case:
1. The “informant” named in the article was an acquaintance of the guy and he called the FBI, not the local cops from other news reports I read.
2. Only the FBI has the resources to determine if this was a “lone gunman” situation or part of a larger plot. Only the feds have the surveillance capability and research and investigative resources (to say nothing of expertise) to trace any links outside the country. The facts, as you outline them, weren’t known until the investigation was done. It’s unfair to call it a lousy use of resources when no one knew it did not represent a big conspiracy. Once it became apparent it wasn’t a big conspiracy then I suppose the feds could have turned it back over to the locals, but transferring cases across jurisdictions mid-way through an investigation would probably be risky and a huge waste of resources as well.
Your second point is just saying the same thing that I am in another way. If an “international conspiracy unless proven otherwise” position is taken, it federalizes an enormous amount that wouldn’t otherwise be within the jurisdiction of the federal government. That, in turn, raises the cost of dealing with the situation.
It might be useful to find out who converted him – and arrest him too, for incitement to murder and probably conspiracy as well, and shut down and bulldoze the mosque where he was converted, on the grounds that it was property being used for the purposes of committing a criminal offense.
Dave,
I’m not so sure. The primary text in your post I disagree with is:
That’s what my second point was addressing. I don’t think it’s a waste of resources because when an investigation begins and terrorism is suspected, we don’t know what resources will ultimately be required to uncover it. Therefore, given the international terrorist threat, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the feds to be the primary agency in these cases. And the new NCTC is, or will be, the “one-stop-shop” for terrorism-related events. Hopefully locals will have access to the resources there.
The circumstances are the same; you just see it as good or necessary and I think it’s a frivolous waste of money. Both the Rockford case and the case last summer in Florida follow a similar pattern: characters who as best as has been reported have no international connections (or even national connections)—characterized by the FBI as “aspirational rather than operational”—being devoted federal resources.
That dealing with such cases federally with “sting” operations (as in both the Rockford and Florida cases) is more expensive than dealing with them locally is just a matter of arithmetic: FBI agents make a lot more than local cops.
I have no problem if, when there’s a reasonable supposition that there are conspiracies involved broader than a couple of guys in a hotel room, the case being handed off to the feds. But, as I said, giving federal jurisidiction to every case in which a guy thinks about setting off a cluster of grenades in every one of the thousands of counties in the country will be absurdly expensive.
The circumstance are the same. My point is that when an investigation begins, neither the locals nor the feds know if it’s an international conspiracy or not. Yes, in both cases you cite they were reported as having no international connection, but that wasn’t known when the law enforcement was first tipped. Therefore, it’s impossible to tell which tips will lead to wacky “aspirational” players (and consequently a “waste” of resources) or bona-fide international terrorists. I don’t see it as unreasonable to assume the latter until investigation proves otherwise especially when the feds are the only ones capable of definitively determining one from another.