Just a month before leaving the DEA, Force created a Bitcoin speculation company called Engedi, LLC—a Biblical reference to a particular oasis. Force seems to have a predilection for nods to the Bible: he created the online persona "Nob," who became a confidante of Ulbricht. Nob is the location in ancient Israel where David receives the sword of Goliath.
47-year-old Utah grandpa liked Bitcoin, "never intended" to get into drug deals.
On Tuesday, Wired published an extensive feature on SilkRoad founder Ross Ulbricht’s rise and fall, which contains some new details surrounding the government-orchestrated fake execution of a SilkRoad lieutenant, Curtis Green, better known as “chronic pain.”
As Ars reported at the end of the trial in February, Ulbricht was found guilty of seven charges including three drug counts: distributing or aiding and abetting the distribution of narcotics, distributing narcotics or aiding and abetting distribution over the Internet, and conspiracy to violate narcotics laws. His sentencing hearing is currently scheduled for May 15, 2015 in federal court in New York. Wired detailed how one day in January 2013 Green received a controlled delivery of a package in the mail—it turned out to be cocaine. [UPDATE Wednesday 11:21am CT: After being corrected by Coriolanus, a reader, and reviewing the relevant court documents, Ars has corrected our original language, which had stated that this was an "unexpected delivery," rather than one that was allowed to pass through by the relevant authorities.]
As soon as Green opened the package, a SWAT team stormed him and threw him to the ground, his two chihuahuas yapping around him. He immediately pleaded with the agents to not send him to prison, deathly afraid of Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR): “This guy’s got millions. He could have me killed.”
Green’s bust was orchestrated by Carl Force, a Drug Enforcement Administration special agent. Working undercover, Force passed himself off as “Nob,” or Eladio Guzman, a “cartel operative” who e-mailed DPR in April 2012:
Mr. SilkRoad,
I am a great admirer of your work. Brilliant, utterly brilliant! I will keep this short and to the point. I want to buy the site. I’ve been in the business for over 20 years. SILKROAD is the future of trafficking.
Sincerely,
E
Ulbricht began wondering what had happened to Green when he stopped responding to messages and eventually figured out that he had been arrested (and later released on bail). When $350,000 in bitcoins went missing and were attributed to Green, Ulbricht went ballistic and started telling various confidantes (including Force, as “Nob”) that he needed some “muscle” to take care of Green.
It didn’t take long for Force, who controlled Green’s computer, to determine exactly who Green was. Soon after contemplating suicide, Green was willing to cooperate with the authorities.
As Wired reported:
Force got Green to sign a waiver, thereby commencing his role in an impromptu staged torture sting against DPR. Soon Green was being dunked in the bathtub of a Marriott suite by phony thugs who were in fact a Secret Service agent and a Baltimore postal inspector. Force recorded the action on a camera. “Did you get it?” Green asked, wet and wheezing on the floor. He’d felt like their simulation was a little too accurate. They dunked him four more times to get a convincing shot.....................
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www.myinforms.com/ en/ a/ 12079183-silk-road-boss-first-murder-attempt-was-his-mentors-idea/ The allegation that the Silk Road’s Dread Pirate Roberts attempted to pay for six murders has loomed over the story of that massive online drug market. How could the pseudonymous figure preaching non-violent, libertarian ideals stoop to commissioning the paid killings of half a dozen people? Now a newly revealed chat log from the case […] The post Silk Road Boss’ First Murder Attempt Was His Mentor’s Idea appeared first on…
Now a newly revealed chat log from the case sheds light on how the first of those paid murder attempts appears to have arisen. The logs show it was not the creator of the Silk Road who first suggested enlisting the services of a hit man, but rather his top advisor and mentor.
Earlier this week, a trove of new records from the Silk Road pre-trial hearings was unsealed, including logs of January 2013 instant-message conversations that prosecutors say were pulled from the laptop of Ross Ulbricht at the time of his arrest. In February, Ulbricht was convicted of being the Dread Pirate Roberts, Silk Road’s creator and owner. But the recorded conversations, along with the other sealed documents, had been kept secret throughout Ulbricht’s trial earlier this year to avoid compromising an investigation that led to the arrest Monday of two federal agents on corruption charges.
In the 21-page IM chat log, which occurred over the anonymous IM service Torchat, the Silk Road’s Dread Pirate Roberts carries out conversations with his staffer Inigo, a supposed drug-dealing associate named Nob (who we now know was actually undercover DEA agent Carl Force), and a figure named Cimon, also known as Variety Jones, whom Ulbricht had described in his journal as his “mentor” and advisor. The conversations revolve around $350,000 worth of bitcoin that had been stolen from the Silk Road, which Dread Pirate Roberts and Inigo believed had been taken by Silk Road staffer Curtis Clark Green. (In fact, it seems the bitcoins had been allegedly stolen by rogue Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges, using Green’s account—one of the criminal charges for which Bridges was arrested Monday.)
As they’re presented by the prosecution, the chat logs seem to show for the first time how the Dread Pirate Roberts is persuaded to commission Green’s murder. And he’s convinced not by a federal agent seeking to entrap him in the act, but by Cimon, his own trusted mentor and advisor. That initial step into the use of violence to protect his interests and the Silk Road would eventually lead Roberts to pay for five more murders.
(A quick side note: In the chat logs below, I’ve identified the Silk Road’s boss as the Dread Pirate Roberts. Though Ulbricht was convicted in February of being the Silk Road’s creator and leader, he was never charged with murder, and these logs were never presented at trial. Ulbricht’s defense attorney Joshua Dratel has said he’s still seeking a new trial for his client, in part due to the new corruption charges brought against the two federal agents investigating the Silk Road. “Our position, as it has always been, is that Ross is not DPR who is participating in those chats,” Dratel tells WIRED.)
The chain of conversations that leads to the attempted murder of Green begins when Inigo alerts the Dread Pirate Roberts to the Silk Road’s massive bitcoin theft. Roberts responds that he’s “sick to his stomach.”
“This will be the first time I have had to call on my muscle,” he adds. “fucking sucks.”
Later the same day, Roberts chats with Nob, who he believes to be a high-volume drug dealer who can help provide that “muscle” to find Green and recover the bitcoins. Roberts, after all, kept a copy of all his employees’ actual IDs to prevent the sort of betrayal he believed Green had committed, so he knows Green’s Utah address.
But in that conversation with Nob, it’s clear Roberts has no intention of killing Green, or even beating him up if it can be avoided.
Only later, when Roberts checks in with his advisor Cimon, does the question of murder arise. As Roberts explains how Green might have stolen the funds, Cimon interrupts. “Enough about the theft,” he says. “Tell me about the organ donor.”
A few minutes later, he brings up the idea of killing more explicitly. “As a side note, at what point in time do we decide we’ve had enough of someones shit, and terminate them?” Cimon writes. “Like, does impersonating a vendor to rip off a mid-level drug lord, using our rep and system; follows up by stealing from our vendors and clients and breeding fear and mistrust, does that come close in yer opinion?”
SAN FRANCISCO—Federal prosecutors successfully argued Wednesday that Carl Mark Force, the former Drug Enforcement Administration agent who allegedly went rogue during the investigation of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, should not be granted bail.
She heard 90 minutes of argument from government lawyers and from one of Force’s defense attorneys. After the hearing, Force was transferred from Santa Rita Jail in nearby Alameda County to San Francisco County Jail.
The government also presented new evidence suggesting that Force is a flight risk: he had a "go bag" (including a firearm) when he was arrested, he knows how to create fake identities as part of his undercover law enforcement job, he had multiple guns stashed throughout his home, and he sent $235,000 from a bank account in Panama to BTC-e.com, an offshore Bitcoin site that claims to be governed by the laws of Cyprus. (The site's origins are mysterious, and it may also be based in Bulgaria and/or Russia.)
In March 2015, after the conclusion of the Ulbricht trial in New York, the government unsealed criminal charges against Force, who is accused of stealing from Silk Road, among others. He faces four charges, including wire fraud and money laundering. Force resigned from his post at the DEA in May 2014.
Just a month before leaving the DEA, Force created a Bitcoin speculation company called Engedi, LLC—a Biblical reference to a particular oasis. Force seems to have a predilection for nods to the Bible: he created the online persona "Nob," who became a confidante of Ulbricht. Nob is the location in ancient Israel where David receives the sword of Goliath.
His short-lived Twitter account has just four tweets, including this one:
(Curiously, Force's Twitter profile picture is the logo of the Penn State University Bitcoin Club—his alma mater from over 20 years ago. Patrick Cines, the club's president, told Ars that he was not aware of any connection between Force and the club. Cines added he had only heard about Force through news accounts.)
As Ars reported earlier, during the investigation, Force also worked for a "digital currency exchange company" called CoinMKT. Force used his position as a DEA agent to help the company do criminal background checks. At one point, he froze $297,000 in the account of a CoinMKT customer and transferred some of that money to his own personal account in Panama. With the money garnered from these illicit transactions, Force also made investments in real estate and businesses, paid off his mortgage, "and wrote several very large checks for tens of thousands of dollars," according to investigators.
Authorities also claim that Force created another, unauthorized Silk Road identity called "French Maid" and offered to sell Ulbricht, as Dread Pirate Roberts, information about the government's investigation into Silk Road for another $100,000 in bitcoins. According to the criminal complaint, DPR paid up, and Force deposited the money in his personal account.
Force, 46, did not speak during the hearing and showed no emotion, turning toward three women seated in attendance only once. He was dressed in red prison uniform labeled "Alameda County Jail," and orange Crocs, which apparently have become standard issue in many jails and prisons nationwide. The middle-aged man has a shaved head and a long illustrated tattoo on his left arm that was partly visible.
Richard Evans, an attorney with the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section of its Criminal Division, led the prosecution and provided new details about the circumstances of Force’s arrest in Baltimore on March 30, 2015.
"The defendant was arrested as he returned home when he was at his personal vehicle, outside his home," Evans told the court. "He was found to be in possession of a ‘go bag.’ He had a fully loaded handgun, a 9mm, [and] did not have a concealed carry permit for that weapon. He had additional ammunition, a passport which may have been expired, and 10 blank $500 money orders. So he had ID, money, and weapon in his possession."
The DOJ lawyer also mentioned that when the government interviewed Force’s wife, Amy Force, she told investigators that she had recently received a tax refund of $150,000.
A few minutes later, Judge Laporte said, "I don't know what that shows, if anything, but it just seems a little odd."
Evans agreed: "I will note that the defendant is a [Certified Public Accountant], and he filed his taxes some time ago. This is the first we've heard about this tax return. This is unusual, to say the least."
The government lawyer also explained that while the passport that Force had in his possession had expired, DOJ investigators were able to determine that Force has a second outstanding passport with an expiration date of 2017.
"Our understanding is that when the defendant was arrested, apparently it was expired," he said. "Upon a check [with the Department of State] there was another outstanding; it was good for 2017. We have not seen it. Whether it is in a safe deposit box, we do not know where it is. I can tell the court that state said there is an outstanding passport good for the next couple years."
But beyond the issue of the passport, Evans revealed that Force had armed himself to the teeth.
"A search of the house revealed no fewer than four fully loaded firearms hidden throughout the house," he said, noting that authorities also found 650 rounds of ammunition.
The judge interjected, "The guns I'm not sure about—would he shoot his way out of the situation?"
Evans replied, "I'm not sure, Your Honor. Those guns have since been turned over by his wife, but they were there at the time of his arrest."
He added that Force has three minor children living at his home, aged 16, 14, and 12.
"The guns were not secured: they were under a bed, in a desk drawer, on a shelf in a closet," Evans noted. "They were stationed throughout the house in places that somebody could access them whether it was the defendant or anyone else in the house. That in and of itself is cause for concern."
Red vs. Blue
Force’s attorney provided little in the way of clear explanations to counter the government’s assertions.
With respect to the gun that was found as part of what the government called Force’s "go bag," one of his Baltimore-based lawyers, Ivan Bates, told the court that this was merely a "red herring."
"I found out that these checks were not in this bag, they were in a separate section related to his business," he said toward the end of the hearing.
"Under Maryland state law, if you’re going from the bank to your house, it is not necessarily illegal to have a gun in your vehicle provided that you can show under Maryland state law that this is for business purposes. But there has never been a charge with this handgun, and for the government to assume that this is a ‘go bag’ is very wrong. [Force] got out and told the officers that he had a weapon so that they were as comfortable as possible. What I’m saying is that if you're doing business purposes, only from point A to point B—the checks were for GMPro, his business. He has a janitorial business. What i'm saying is that the gun is a red herring, it doesn't matter, he did nothing illegal in terms of that gun."
And the second passport?
Bates said that his client remains "adamant" that the second passport is not a regular civilian blue passport but rather a government-issued "red passport" that was provided by the DEA. The lawyer did not address the other firearms found in Force’s home.
Under the judge’s instruction, Evans said he would confirm with a contact at the Department of State that Force’s second passport was indeed blue rather than red.
And how did Bates explain the $235,000 that had been transferred to BTC-e.com? The government said he had not accounted for this money at all. The Pretrial Services officer, Josh Libby, confirmed to the court that Force had not disclosed that during his Wednesday interview.
But Bates countered that Force had indeed told prosecutors about that sum and moreover claimed that it belonged to the government.
"I have e-mails that's not his money; that's the government’s money. We're fine to give it back to the government," Bates said.
"We would be more than happy to give the government the thumb drives with that information," he added. "This is complicated. It has a series of codes and things like this."
A few minutes later, Evans, the DOJ lawyer, countered, "This is the first time that anyone has ever discussed that these funds that were wired out of United States are the property of the United States."
Bates attempted to argue that his client should be treated like former Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges, who worked with Force as part of his alleged fraud scheme. The attorney argued that Bridges, who has not been charged with a crime, was given more deference than Force was.
But the government drew a clear distinction.
"We can account for all the funds that Mr. Bridges is accused of stealing; we cannot do that for Mr. Force," Eva
Criminal Charges Against Agents Reveal Staggering Corruption in the SilkRoad Investigation
Government exhibit in criminal complaint against Carl Mark Force IV and Shaun Bridges
Two of the law enforcement agents involved in the tangled multi-agency investigation into the SilkRoad have been charged by the Department of Justice for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars (at the very least) in bitcoin. The criminal complaint against former DEA agent Carl Mark Force IV and former Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges alleges money laundering, wire fraud, theft of government property, and more. But more shockingly, it tells the story of a sprawling case tainted by an unbelievable web of corruption. A state’s witness took the fall for an agent’s theft, thus becoming the target for a murder-for-hire—a murder that was then faked by the same agent. The SilkRoad case was compromised again and again as Force and Bridges allegedly took every opportunity to embezzle and steal money. With so much bitcoin on their hands, the two had to coax various bitcoin and payments companies to help convert their ill-gotten gains to dollars. When companies resisted, investigations were launched, subpoenas were issued, and civil forfeitures were sought in retaliation.
The investigation into Force and Bridges began around May 2014, nearly a year after the arrest of Ross Ulbricht. Ulbricht was convicted this February of operating the SilkRoad marketplace under the moniker “the Dread Pirate Roberts.” The criminal complaint alleges that Force and Bridges not only managed to siphon off bitcoins into their personal accounts while conducting undercover operations on theSilkRoad, but Force also adopted a series of different personas on the SilkRoad that switched off between extorting Ulbricht/DPR and selling him information from inside the federal investigation. Under the handles “Nob” and “French Maid,” Force sold DPR information that he had supposedly acquired from a corrupt government agent, while under the handle “Death from Above,” he used information from inside the investigation to extort DPR for bitcoins.
Between 2012 and 2013, while Force was investigating the SilkRoad, he deposited into his bank account about three times the amount of money he was making on his government salary. He also paid off the mortgage on his house, repaid a $22,000 government loan, wired $235,000 to an offshore account in Panama, and invested tens of thousands of dollars in real estate and stocks. DPR Blamed Curtis Clark Green For Agent Bridges’s Theft
As for Shaun Bridges, he seems to have stolen about $820,000 from the SilkRoad. Curtis Clark Green, a SilkRoad employee, turned government witness in January 2013. As part of the deal, he handed over access to his SilkRoad account. While Green was debriefing the Baltimore SilkRoad Task Force on how to use administrative access through his account, the SilkRoad suffered a massive theft of bitcoins, beginning in the afternoon and continuing into the night. Bridges had left the debriefing session early that day.
DPR traced the thefts to Curtis Clark Green’s SilkRoad account. Believing Green to be the thief, he turned to SilkRoad user Nob, who he thought was a drug dealer and hitman, and ordered a hit.Nob was, in reality, Carl Mark Force. He and Green faked Green’s death, and Bridges made “proof-of-death” photographs that were eventually sent to DPR.
Ross Ulbricht was charged with this murder-for-hire in Maryland. The case is still pending there.
As for the stolen bitcoins, they were transferred to Mt. Gox—a bitcoin exchange—in late January. In February, Bridges formed “Quantum International Investments, LLC,” and opened a bank account in Quantum’s name, which only ever received transfers from Mt. Gox. Between March and May, the Quantum account received nine wire transfers, approximately totaling $820,000.
Was Ross Ulbricht Deprived of Due Process?
Although the investigation into Force and Bridges began approximately nine months before Ulbricht’s trial, Ross Ulbricht’s defense team was kept unaware of it until about five weeks before the trial date, at which point prosecutors moved to keep the information sealed. Nothing about either Force or Bridges made it into the trial.
“The Government’s efforts to keep the Carl Force scandal out of the public eye at trial is in itself scandalous,” said Joshua Horowitz, one of Ulbricht’s defense attorneys. “The recently filed Complaint which names Carl Force as a defendant demonstrates that the Government’s investigation of Mr. Ulbricht lacked integrity, and was wholly and fatally compromised from the inside.”
Worse, says Horowitz, because facts about what Force and Bridges did weren’t allowed to come to light, Ulbricht never got the trial he was entitled to. “The Government used the ongoing grand jury investigation of Carl Force to deprive the jury from hearing critical facts about the corrupt nature of the Government’s investigation, consequently depriving Ross of due process and a fair trial.”
You are hereNot another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israel's crimes. Not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israel's crimes ...
Mar 6, 2014 - Israel's crack-shot snipers are to be equipped with "invisible" nickel-tipped bullets. ... were originally designed to be used by U.S. Special ...
http://www.rense.com/general26/isratw.htm
Isreali Terror Weapon DescribedFrom Emmet
6-29-2
Note - We cannot confirm the details of this story for obvious reasons but in light of other advanced technologies which have been transferred to other countries, this report is worth considering. -ed
Israel's deadly snipers are using "Invisible" nickel-tipped transuranium bullets to kill key Palestinian targets. The bullets have no tell-tale muzzle flash when fired. There is no recoil from the specially adaptd U.S. super-pressure rifles that have twice the range ordinary sniper rifles and a killin distance of a mile.
The bullets and rifles were originally designed by the CIA armourers to be used by NATO special forces against bodyguards of wanted war criminals in the Balkans. The request for the weapons was made by Israel's prime minister Ariel Sharon to George Tenet when the 45 year-old CIA chief made his failed peace mssion to the Middle East earlier this summer.
Tenet raised the matter with President George Bush - who agreed to supply Israel.
Fifty of the state-of-the-art weapons and ten thousand rounds of "invisible" bullets were flown out of Kennedy Airport, New York, on an EL AL freighter to Tel Aviv.
Israel's best army snipers - some of whom are women - were sent to a secret base in the Negev Desert to familiarise themselves with the weapons.
They will be deployed around the Gaza Strip and the West Bank this coming week.
Until now Israel snipers have been unable to operate at night - due to the risk of discovery from the give-away flash from their rifle barrels. Now, using special night sights also developd by the CIA, the snipers will be able to pick out a target without any risk of detection once they shoot. Unlike other bullets the "invisible" ones make no sound as they travel towards a target.
"Not only is it an effective killing weapon but it is designed to create panic. A target can be standing in the middle of a crowd one moment. The next moment he keels over dead," said an Israeli source.
Prime Minister Sharon has also ordered Mossad's most secret unit - its kidon assassination teams - to be deloyed in the killing fields of Gaza and the West Bank.
EMMETT
Comment
From Mike Nelson
6-30-2
The weapon is not described...but here is the ammo, maybe?
Generic Dim Trace
5.56mm, XM996, Dim Tracer Cartridge
7.62mm, M276, Dim Tracer Cartridge
Caliber .50, Dim Tracer Cartridge
Dim Tracer ammunition provides the user community with a tracer cartridge which is invisible when viewed with the naked eye but is visible when viewed through NVDs and does not cause visual interference to the wearer of a night vision device.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/gdt.htm
Comment
From Wm Gerald Beecham, Jr 6-30-2
Sir,
I am writing in response to the article Israeli Terror Weapon Described written by an individual named Emmet. First my experience level/knowledge base, I have nearly 30 years as a serious student of weapons, 6 years in the US Army as an infantryman and signal soldier, and 11 years a police officer. The article described 2 things a new wonder weapon and wonder ammo that allows it to be fired at night. This isn,t a new weapon most likely it,s the Barrett M82A1 .50BMG caliber anti material rifle. It is in the Israeli inventory and has been since the early 90,s. It is a magazine feed, semi auto rifle firing the .50 cal Browning machine gun round. Currently in Afghanistan the Coalition forces (US, Canadian, and Brit) have scored hits on individuals out to approximately 2200 meters or roughly 6600 feet, slightly over a mile. This rifle is extremely effective and accurate with special match ammo of 700-750 grains made of turned bronze or other such metals. It doesn,t need special high speed ammo to achieve kills, soft or hard at this distance. As to the new nickel tipped transuranium ammo, well anything is possible.Nickel has mostly been replaced as a bullet jacket material by copper. As for transuranium, the current solid bronze, brass, and conventional copper jacket lead core/steel penetrator match/regular issue ammo has proven most effective without dealing with uranium. Depleted uranium is used in cannon shells for anti armor applications due to its dense nature.
As to the muzzle flash issue, at 2000 meters the muzzle flash is a non-issue as the chances someone will be looking in the right direction, at the right piece of real estate, at the right moment, is slim to none. If for some reason it is an issue, there are companies that make muzzle mounted suppressors that would work with this weapon. The suppressor would eliminate the sound except for the bullets sonic crack (caused when the bullet breaks the sound barrier) and almost totally eliminate the muzzle flash and blast.The down side would be that the effective range might be reduced a little.
Below is a link to a non official site on IDF special Operations forces. The link is to the sniper section that covers the Barrett M82A1. The individual who wrote the original article with just a little research could have determined the believability of his information beyond a WAG (Wild Arse Guess) with a little time and research.
In reference to the article about the new Isreali weapon article... It sounds to me like it is a gun based on electronic technology called a rail gun. That is why it has a nickle jacket. Nickle is more magnetic than steel. That is why there is no muzzle flash. All gunpowder produces a muzzle flash. And that is why it is silent. The only type of gun that fits what was described in the article is the electronic rail gun. I will provide two links. The first is a good introductory site and the second is just a web search on the topic of "rail gun".
Fergoson,Baltimore Police Both Recived Israeli Police Training;Protest Agora Inc.'s Israeli Zionist And City Of London Rothschild Connections!Thewy have made many billions of stolen American dollars placed in offshore accounts using Baltimore and its corrupt political prostitutes to do so.WHY DID POLICE AND U.S. SEC COVER UP THE MURDER OF PORTER STANSBERRY'S AND AGORA INC.'S PATSY REY RIVERA FOUND DEAD FROM ALLEGED 14 FOOT FALL FROM BELVEDERE HOTLEL ?
The mayor of Baltimore was right to blame outsiders for causing trouble, but got it wrong. ... In September 2009, members of the Baltimore PD “toured [Israel] and met with ...
Aug 14, 2014 - U.S. and Israeli Military Tactics Used Against American Citizens … ... Indeed, the Ferguson police chief received training in crowd control in Israel in 2011. .... African-Americans Line Up to Protect White Baltimore Police.
Fergoson,Baltimore Police Both Recived Israeli Police Training
3 hours ago - As Baltimore burns, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is turning the flip-flop into a high art form, to the point where she is now apologizing to the rioters for calling them “thugs.” She stated early Monday that police were instructed to allow “those who wished to destroy space to do that.”
2 days ago - Baltimore's disgrace is its history of police violence ... advancements in the oppressive arts, thanks to training sessions in Israel for U.S. cops.
Dec 4, 2011 - In an article which begins with examples of American police trainingalongside Israeli security forces, Blumenthal writes, “Having been ...
2 days ago - We saw it in Ferguson where “pro-Palestinian” activists spread lies thatIsrael trained the Ferguson police, and actually embedded themselves ...
While the Baltimore Police Department recruits its manpower outside city limits, its leadership is regularly junketed to training tours in Israel, the occupying power whose hyper-militarized settlers act as some of the Middle East’s most aggressive outside agitators. In September 2009, members of the Baltimore PD “toured [Israel] and met with their Israeli counterparts to exchange information relating to best practices and recent advancements in security and counterterrorism,” according to the trip’s sponsor, Project Interchange. A separate Israel tour organized by the neoconservative Jewish Institute for National Security saw members of the Baltimore PD “begin the process of sharing ‘lessons learned’ in Israel with their law enforcement colleagues in the United States.”
Back in Maryland, the rate of citizens killed by police officers is skyrocketing. Areport by the ACLU has found that 109 people died after encounters with Maryland police between 2010 and 2014, that almost 70 percent of those who died were black, and that over 40 percent of them were unarmed. In Baltimore alone, the city was forced to pay $5.7 million in lawsuits by suspects who accused police officers of beating them brutally and without cause.
Even after the National Guard vacates the streets of Baltimore and the state of emergency is lifted, vast swaths of the city will remain under occupation. Rather than return to a deadly status quo, the city could start answering the crisis by enacting residential requirements that force police officers to live in the neighborhoods they patrol.
Outside agitators have caused enough trouble in Baltimore. It’s time to send them back where they came from.
On Monday, the country watched as a band of outside agitators descended on the streets of Baltimore, attacked locals with blunt force, intimidated innocent bystanders, and even threw rocks at native residents. Every day, these gun-toting rogues come from as far as New Jersey and Pennsylvania to intimidate the good people of Baltimore, forcing communities to cower under the threat of violence. The agitators are known for their menacing dark blue garb, hostile behavior and gangland-style codes of secrecy and silence. Though many of these ruffians have attempted to conceal their identities from their victims, they can be easily spotted by the badges that signify membership in the widely feared Baltimore Police Department.
According to data posted on the city of Baltimore’s OpenBaltimore website in 2012, over 70 percent of Baltimore Police Department officers live outside city limits, with at least 10 percent living over state lines, in places as far away as New Jersey and Pennsylvania. By contrast, almost all of those arrested in ongoing protests sparked by the police killing of the unarmed Baltimorean Freddie Gray reside firmly within the city. These facts were apparently lost on Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake when she blamed “outside forces” for all the looting of local businesses and attacks on cops. Similarly, the Baltimore Police Department claimed that "outside agitators continue to be the instigators behind acts of violence and destruction,” even as it conceded in the same statement that “the vast majority of arrests reflect local residency.” No evidence of outside agitation was produced by the mayor or the police, and none was demanded by much of the media covering the ongoing troubles.
This week’s scenes of mostly white cops battling the African-American youth of Baltimore captured a legacy of deeply entrenched racism that stretches back to Maryland’s Antebellum days. Though Maryland ended the slave trade in 1783, over 40,000 slaves remained in bondage in its Eastern Shore, near the border of Virginia, until Emancipation Day. When the Sixth Massachusetts Militia marched through Baltimore on April 19, 1861 on its way to protect Washington DC from advancing Confederate forces, the Union troops were attacked in the center of town with rocks, bricks and even pistols by local Southern sympathizers. Maryland’s last recorded lynching of a black man occurred in the town of Princess Anne on the Eastern Shore in 1933, when a thousand whites dragged assault suspect George Armwood from his jail cell, tortured him, hacked his ear off and hung him from a tree. It was the 33rd documented lynching in the state since 1882.
Gerald Horne, a professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Houston, sees the legacy of slavery as an underlying factor in the policing of majority black cities like Baltimore. “The origins of the urban police department lies precisely in slavery,” Horne remarked in a recent interview with The Real News founder Paul Jay. “That is to say, slave patrols that were designated to interrogate, to investigate Africans who were out and about without any kind of investigation. You fast forward to 2015 and you still see more than remnants of that particular system.”
The Gilmor Homes area where Freddie Gray was violently apprehended and later killed by Baltimore police officers is one of the city’s most heavily policed areas. Eddie Conway, a local civil rights activist who served 43 years in prison after a dubious conviction for killing two cops, explained in an interview with Democracy Now! that Gilmor Homes is “a ‘broken windows’ police area in which people and residents in that area are arrested for sitting on their own steps. They are loitering in their own community, on their own steps, and they're harassed constantly.”
“[Cops] won’t let us go nowhere,” one young Gilmore Homes resident complained to The Real News, “They’ll tell us, ‘Move, we gotta go here, you gotta move off there.’ We ain’t doing nothing!”
When Paul Jay relocated The Real News operations to Baltimore in 2013 and initiated a series of roundtable discussions with local cops, he learned about the hostile racial attitudes white officers were importing into the city. “I’ve talked to some black cops in Baltimore and one of them told me that in the locker room,” Jay said, “and when they’re getting ready to go on their shift, some of the white cops joke…’Time to go back to work in the zoo.’”
While the Baltimore Police Department recruits its manpower outside city limits, its leadership is regularly junketed to training tours in Israel, the occupying power whose hyper-militarized settlers act as some of the Middle East’s most aggressive outside agitators. In September 2009, members of the Baltimore PD “toured [Israel] and met with their Israeli counterparts to exchange information relating to best practices and recent advancements in security and counterterrorism,” according to the trip’s sponsor, Project Interchange. A separate Israel tour organized by the neoconservative Jewish Institute for National Security saw members of the Baltimore PD “begin the process of sharing ‘lessons learned’ in Israel with their law enforcement colleagues in the United States.”
Back in Maryland, the rate of citizens killed by police officers is skyrocketing. Areport by the ACLU has found that 109 people died after encounters with Maryland police between 2010 and 2014, that almost 70 percent of those who died were black, and that over 40 percent of them were unarmed. In Baltimore alone, the city was forced to pay $5.7 million in lawsuits by suspects who accused police officers of beating them brutally and without cause.
Even after the National Guard vacates the streets of Baltimore and the state of emergency is lifted, vast swaths of the city will remain under occupation. Rather than return to a deadly status quo, the city could start answering the crisis by enacting residential requirements that force police officers to live in the neighborhoods they patrol.
Outside agitators have caused enough trouble in Baltimore. It’s time to send them back where they came from.
