There does seem to be a chronic problem with the qualifications of these people to function well, including well enough to carry out what they appear to have attempted. However, I don't see how being good at trying to kill large numbers of innocent people exonerates someone from having a go at doing so.
But it does bring up again the issue of competency, as well as sanity, for weapons ownership. In the case of the militia old farts, should there be some provision to remove firearms from the elderly when they become demonstrably senile? Possibly by assessment of a physician for their mental status? What about those who have problems with mental deficiency impairing the ability to reason.
From MSNBC and the AP:
Mother of bomb plot suspect apologizes to NYers
Jose Pimentel, 27, right, represented by attorney Joseph Zablocki, left, is arraigned at Manhattan criminal court, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011, in New York. Pimentel, 27, an "al-Qaida sympathizer" accused of plotting to bomb police and post offices in New York City as well as U.S. troops returning home, was charged with criminal possession of explosive devices with the intent to use in a terrorist manner. (AP Photo/Jefferson Siegel, Pool)
By JENNIFER PELTZ, TOM HAYS
The mother of Jose Pimentel spoke to reporters outside her upper Manhattan home the day after her son was arraigned in state court on terrorism-related charges.
"I didn't raise my son in that way," Carmen Sosa said. "I feel bad about this situation."
She also praised the New York Police Department, saying, "I think they handled it well."
Officials with the NYPD, which conducted the undercover investigation using a confidential informant and a bugged apartment, said the department had to move quickly because Pimentel was about to test a pipe bomb made out of match heads, nails and other ingredients bought at neighborhood hardware and discount stores.
Two law enforcement officials said Monday that the NYPD's Intelligence Division had sought to get the FBI involved at least twice as the investigation unfolded. Both times, the FBI concluded that Pimentel lacked the mental capacity to act on his own, they said.
The FBI thought Pimentel "didn't have the predisposition or the ability to do anything on his own," one of the officials said.
Pimentel's lawyer, Joseph Zablocki, said his client was never a true threat.
"If the goal here is to be stopping terror ... I'm not sure that this is where we should be spending our resources," he said.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly defended the handling of the case Monday, saying the NYPD kept federal authorities in the loop "all along" before circumstances forced investigators to take swift measures using state charges.
"No question in my mind that we had to take this case down," Kelly said. "There was an imminent threat."
Added Kelly: "This is a classic case of what we've been talking about — the lone wolf, an individual, self-radicalized. This is the needle in the haystack problem we face as a country and as a city."
Authorities described Pimentel as an unemployed U.S. citizen and "al-Qaida sympathizer" who was born in the Dominican Republic. He had lived most of his life in Manhattan, aside from about five years in the upstate city of Schenectady, where authorities say he had an arrested for credit card fraud.
His mother said he was raised Roman Catholic. But he converted to Islam in 2004 and went by the name Muhammad Yusuf, authorities said.
Using a tip from police in Albany, the NYPD had been watching Pimentel using a confidential informant for the past year. Investigators learned that he was energized and motivated to carry out his plan by the Sept. 30 killing of al-Qaida's U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, police said.
Pimentel was under constant surveillance as he shopped for the pipe bomb materials. He also was overheard talking about attacking police patrol cars and postal facilities, killing soldiers returning home from abroad and bombing a police station in Bayonne, N.J., authorizes said.
The arrest marked the second time this year that the police department took the unusual step of working with a state prosecutor to bring a terrorism case. In May, two men were indicted on charges they told an NYPD undercover detective about their desire to attack synagogues.
A grand jury declined to indict Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh on the most serious charge initially brought against them — a high-level terror conspiracy count that carried the potential for life in prison without parole. They were, however, indicted on lesser state terrorism and hate crime charges, including one punishable by up to 32 years behind bars.
Attorneys for Ferhani said hate crime charges and a rarely used state terrorism law were misapplied to what they have called a case of police entrapment.
State prosecutors insist that there's ample evidence that Pimentel went well beyond merely talking about terrorism — and that he was acting on his own initiative.
"The people whom we're prosecuting have well crossed that line," Adam Kaufmann, head of the district attorney's investigative division, said Monday. "They've gone from sort of espousing an idea to creating a plan to act upon it."
At an arraignment where Pimentel was ordered held without bail, prosecutors said investigators have "countless hours" of audio and video in this case. And in a criminal complaint, an intelligence division detective alleges Pimentel told him after the arrest that he was about an hour away from finishing the bomb and felt Islamic law obligates all Muslims to wage war against Americans to avenge U.S. military action in their homelands.
A former federal prosecutor praised the police and state prosecutors for going through with the investigation and charges.
"A person who puts out conspiratorial information and then takes steps to build a bomb should not be walking the streets of New York," whatever his mental state or his interactions with an informant, said Michael Wildes, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn who worked on terrorism-related cases. "Considering the facts that have been revealed to the public, the decision was done well, in this instance, to go ahead with this case and for the FBI not to be the lead agency."
"I didn't raise my son in that way," Carmen Sosa said. "I feel bad about this situation."
She also praised the New York Police Department, saying, "I think they handled it well."
Officials with the NYPD, which conducted the undercover investigation using a confidential informant and a bugged apartment, said the department had to move quickly because Pimentel was about to test a pipe bomb made out of match heads, nails and other ingredients bought at neighborhood hardware and discount stores.
Two law enforcement officials said Monday that the NYPD's Intelligence Division had sought to get the FBI involved at least twice as the investigation unfolded. Both times, the FBI concluded that Pimentel lacked the mental capacity to act on his own, they said.
The FBI thought Pimentel "didn't have the predisposition or the ability to do anything on his own," one of the officials said.
Pimentel's lawyer, Joseph Zablocki, said his client was never a true threat.
"If the goal here is to be stopping terror ... I'm not sure that this is where we should be spending our resources," he said.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly defended the handling of the case Monday, saying the NYPD kept federal authorities in the loop "all along" before circumstances forced investigators to take swift measures using state charges.
"No question in my mind that we had to take this case down," Kelly said. "There was an imminent threat."
Added Kelly: "This is a classic case of what we've been talking about — the lone wolf, an individual, self-radicalized. This is the needle in the haystack problem we face as a country and as a city."
Authorities described Pimentel as an unemployed U.S. citizen and "al-Qaida sympathizer" who was born in the Dominican Republic. He had lived most of his life in Manhattan, aside from about five years in the upstate city of Schenectady, where authorities say he had an arrested for credit card fraud.
His mother said he was raised Roman Catholic. But he converted to Islam in 2004 and went by the name Muhammad Yusuf, authorities said.
Using a tip from police in Albany, the NYPD had been watching Pimentel using a confidential informant for the past year. Investigators learned that he was energized and motivated to carry out his plan by the Sept. 30 killing of al-Qaida's U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, police said.
Pimentel was under constant surveillance as he shopped for the pipe bomb materials. He also was overheard talking about attacking police patrol cars and postal facilities, killing soldiers returning home from abroad and bombing a police station in Bayonne, N.J., authorizes said.
The arrest marked the second time this year that the police department took the unusual step of working with a state prosecutor to bring a terrorism case. In May, two men were indicted on charges they told an NYPD undercover detective about their desire to attack synagogues.
A grand jury declined to indict Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh on the most serious charge initially brought against them — a high-level terror conspiracy count that carried the potential for life in prison without parole. They were, however, indicted on lesser state terrorism and hate crime charges, including one punishable by up to 32 years behind bars.
Attorneys for Ferhani said hate crime charges and a rarely used state terrorism law were misapplied to what they have called a case of police entrapment.
State prosecutors insist that there's ample evidence that Pimentel went well beyond merely talking about terrorism — and that he was acting on his own initiative.
"The people whom we're prosecuting have well crossed that line," Adam Kaufmann, head of the district attorney's investigative division, said Monday. "They've gone from sort of espousing an idea to creating a plan to act upon it."
At an arraignment where Pimentel was ordered held without bail, prosecutors said investigators have "countless hours" of audio and video in this case. And in a criminal complaint, an intelligence division detective alleges Pimentel told him after the arrest that he was about an hour away from finishing the bomb and felt Islamic law obligates all Muslims to wage war against Americans to avenge U.S. military action in their homelands.
A former federal prosecutor praised the police and state prosecutors for going through with the investigation and charges.
"A person who puts out conspiratorial information and then takes steps to build a bomb should not be walking the streets of New York," whatever his mental state or his interactions with an informant, said Michael Wildes, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn who worked on terrorism-related cases. "Considering the facts that have been revealed to the public, the decision was done well, in this instance, to go ahead with this case and for the FBI not to be the lead agency."
Publicly, NYPD and federal officials claim they have a strong working relationship. But behind the scenes, there has been tension ever since the department mounted its own aggressive anti-terrorism effort, including undercover investigations targeting potential homegrown threats.
The effort is needed, NYPD officials say, because the city remains a prime terrorist target a decade after the Sept. 11 attack. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said there have been at least 14 foiled plots against the city, including the latest suspected scheme.
The most serious threats came from Pakistani immigrant Faisal Shahzad, who tried to detonate a car bomb in Times Square in May 2010 and is now serving a life sentence, and Najibullah Zazi, who targeted the subway system a year earlier. Zazi pleaded guilty to federal terrorism charges and is awaiting sentencing.
___
Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Jim Fitzgerald contributed to this report.
The effort is needed, NYPD officials say, because the city remains a prime terrorist target a decade after the Sept. 11 attack. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said there have been at least 14 foiled plots against the city, including the latest suspected scheme.
The most serious threats came from Pakistani immigrant Faisal Shahzad, who tried to detonate a car bomb in Times Square in May 2010 and is now serving a life sentence, and Najibullah Zazi, who targeted the subway system a year earlier. Zazi pleaded guilty to federal terrorism charges and is awaiting sentencing.
___
Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Jim Fitzgerald contributed to this report.
Why do you trust mental health professionals to be able to make the correct judgement every time? That's a lot of blind acceptance of authority. Of course, for you, gun ownership isn't all that important, so you don't care if errors get made, so long as guns are out of circulation.
ReplyDeleteJust wait, though, until society comes after something that you do care about. Perhaps the NSA should be listening to our telephone calls. Perhaps we should send certain prisoners to a foreign country for "questioning." Don't worry--they'll get a tribunal when the questioning is done. Perhaps it's no big deal that the FBI can ask what books I've checked out of the library, and the librarian isn't then allowed to tell me. Perhaps it's no big deal that the same agents can ask me about my students, and I then can't tell my students that it happened.
When rights are based on consensus and not on principle, they become the subject of a popularity contest. You'd better just hope that you never find yourself to be unpopular.
"Why do you trust mental health professionals to be able to make the correct judgement every time?"
ReplyDeleteWho said it has to be "every time?"
Government employees with power over the lives of citizens must be held to a higher standard, especially when they can label what we do not just criminal, but insane.
ReplyDeleteGreg's argument is that he would rather see crazy people have unlimited access to guns, than go through a mental health check.
ReplyDeleteIt is perfectly possible to have safety checks in such a system to address any abuse of power. We aren't talking about only one individual mental health professional having a death grip on a process.
We are talking about things like stopping the shooters who commit mass shootings like the one that injured Gabriel Giffords, because Jared Loughner appears to suffer from schizophrenia. We are talking about people like the shooter at Virginia Tech. Or the apparently mentally ill guy who just shot some nine shots at the White House. Or any number of other instances.
But rather than go through a reasonable alternative that tries to prevent that kind of dangerously crazy person from having firearms and hurting people, Greg Camp is instead afraid of trained, tested,licensed, evaluated and supervised mental health professionals.
Don't worry Greg; no on here has proposed a test for critical thinking. I can see how that would worry you. I'm beginning to see why mental health professionals concern you as well, because your relative fears are so badly misplaced.
"Why do you trust mental health professionals to be able to make the correct judgement every time? That's a lot of blind acceptance of authority. Of course, for you, gun ownership isn't all that important, so you don't care if errors get made, so long as guns are out of circulation"
ReplyDeleteA.) We don't trust mental health professionals (or anyone else) all the time. Some folks, used car salesmen and gunzloonz spring to mind, we almost never trust.
CLiiV,sub-part d/z/8a.) When we do trust them it's because they have years of experience and, surprise! (for you, apparently) their opinions are, often, the consensus of their peers.
"Just wait, though, until society comes after something that you do care about. Perhaps the NSA should be listening to our telephone calls. Perhaps we should send certain prisoners to a foreign country for "questioning." Don't worry--they'll get a tribunal when the questioning is done. Perhaps it's no big deal that the FBI can ask what books I've checked out of the library, and the librarian isn't then allowed to tell me. Perhaps it's no big deal that the same agents can ask me about my students, and I then can't tell my students that it happened.
When rights are based on consensus and not on principle, they become the subject of a popularity contest. You'd better just hope that you never find yourself to be unpopular."
And you're saying that any of the five of us who post here DON'T know about, object to and work as we're able to stop those things?
"Government employees with power over the lives of citizens must be held to a higher standard, especially when they can label what we do not just criminal, but insane.
November 23, 2011 11:41 AM"
Unless of course they're doing something YOU like.
For a guy who doesn't see mental health professionals you have pretty strong feelings about them. There isn't a profession known to man that doesn't have in its ranks hucksters, charlatans and violent criminals--not one. I would be willing to put a group of 288 mental health professionals, picked at random, up against the current reptilican membership in the House and Senate to see which one more consistently conflates facts and issues, cherry picks facts to support their agendas or just flat out lies.
Yee Haa, Greg! You are such an idiot?
ReplyDeleteHow far do you live form Jonesboro? You remember what happened there?
Or is that another fact that you are ignorant about?
You live in the middle of nowhere. You can walk around with a gun and not have to worry about shooting a bystander.
In fact, you probably don't have to worry too much about crime.
The only idiot with a gun you have to worry about is yourself.
On the other hand, there are places called cities where large amounts of people live in close proximity to each other. Deadly weapons that can shoot out a projectile for over a couple of miles is a danger.
It doesn't take too much brainpower to figure that out, but it escapes you, Greg.
GC wrote:
ReplyDeleteWhen rights are based on consensus and not on principle, they become the subject of a popularity contest. You'd better just hope that you never find yourself to be unpopular.
Rights are always based on consensus; that is where they originate. A right begins as a moral concept (also called a principle), and when enough people agree -- in other words, arrive at a consensus -- we translate the moral right into a civil right.
There ARE no civil rights without consensus, and you sometimes agree that is how it works (and always has worked in every society that has ever existed).
You keep backsliding on that one Greg.
Remember the RIGHT to own slaves? Remember the RIGHT to collective bargaining? Remember the RIGHT of women to vote? Remember the RIGHT of disadvantaged Minorities to vote despite the 'popularity contest' of bigots? Remember the RIGHT that was revoked and then restored to drink alcohol? ALL of those were reflections of consensus translated into rights.
Duh? You are either stupid or a (gun)lunatic Greg - and those are perhaps not mutually exclusive in this case. Your grasp of the history of rights and the history of this country is just plain abysmal.
Geezus I hope they don't let you teach history or civics. EVER. ANYWHERE.
YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED MY EARLIER QUESTION. DID YOU EVER HAVE FORMAL TRAINING SPECIFICALLY IN THE SUBJECT OF LOGIC/RHETORIC OR CRITICAL THINKING?
Dog Gone,
ReplyDeleteShall I send my undergraduate and graduate transcripts to you? I didn't realize that you were offering me a job. Tell me what the benefits package and salary are, and I'll consider submitting my papers.
Seriously, yes, my courses of study included critical thinking. Just because I reach different conclusions from yours, having started on different premises, doesn't mean that you're smart and I'm stupid.
Oh, and I don't keep backsliding. I was never in agreement with you. People can reach a consensus about rights, but that's a process of discovery, of finding a Platonic ideal, rather than invention.
Also, when I teach world literature, I do give an overview of the period in which the text was written. Feel free to sign up for a class.
Laci the Dog,
I'm presuming that you can use Mapquest or something similar. Look up Fayetteville and Springdale, Arkansas. If you have time, read about the University of Arkansas. You seem to have the typical prejudice of your breed: Anyone from the south must be uncultured and unlettered.
dog gone said...
ReplyDeleteI'm not offering you a job; I asked a question, and you haven't actually answered it.
Did you take coursework specifically IN logic or critical thinking or rhetoric? I didn't ask if your coursework used or included critical thinking.
Given the numerous false analogies you use, and the misuse of terminology to improperly conflate things that are too dissimilar for that process, it is a legitimate question.
I was particularly surprised (and not in a good way) at your confusing disobedience and opposition.
Not to mention the idiocy of the 'inanimate object' sham reasoning.
You may do an excellent job at what you teach; I have no way of knowing.
But the logic, reasoning and critical thinking skills you demonstrate here are poor.
Naw, Greg, I don't give a shit where you are from.
ReplyDeleteYou're just a plain off fuckwit.
And you keep reconfirming my opinion with every character you type.
Greg, don't ascribe it to bigotry, or prejudice--you're just a common fuckwit.
ReplyDeletePeople like you get their arses kicked--gun or no gun.
That must be areal let down for you when you finally figure out, that even with a gun--you're just another shit for brains, Greg.
Greg says, "Government employees with power over the lives of citizens must be held to a higher standard, especially when they can label what we do not just criminal, but insane."
ReplyDeleteYes, indeed, they should be. Is that a reason to abandon the entire process? Let's do mental health screening and hold those responsible for the judgments to a high standard.