News and Document archive source
copyrighted material disclaimer at bottom of page

NewsMine9-11questions — Viewing Item


Trade Center warning baffles police (htm)

Trade Center warning baffles police
FYE~For Your Entertainment. Stores Everywhere & Online
Home page



Click Here!
Trade Center warning baffles police
An ‘urban myth’ turns out to be true — but what does it mean?
By Jonathan Alter
SPECIAL TO MSNBC
NEW YORK, Oct. 12 — I went to Brooklyn this week in search of an “urban myth” about the World Trade Center attacks. What I came back with was no longer a myth — it was cold, chilling fact. But it didn’t clear anything up for me; that the “myth” was true only made matters murkier. Was word of the attacks on the street beforehand? I wanted to find out.

     
     
Advertising on MSNBC

 
 
 
 


 


       YOU KNOW the “myths” I mean. Maybe you heard the one about the “friend of a “friend” who was stood up by her Afghan boyfriend, who then e-mailed her on September 10 not to get on a commercial airliner the next day or go out to the malls on Halloween. The FBI said yesterday it was not a “credible threat.”
       The story I was looking for had circulated less widely and in more general form. It recounted the story of a kid who bragged around school before the attacks that the World Trade Center was going to be destroyed. On October 11, an aggressive young reporter for The JournalNews of Westchester, N.Y. — Jeffrey Scott Shapiro — published a article that tracked the story down to New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn. Shapiro identified a teacher who witnessed a freshman in her class saying: “Do you see those two buildings? They won’t be standing there next week.”
       “This is the only case we know of where someone said the World Trade Center was coming down prior to it happening,” a police source told me. I had to take a closer look.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
THE HOME FRONT
•  Ashcroft: Plot to detonate 'dirty bomb' in U.S. foiled
•  Suspect left trail in Pakistan, Europe
•  WashPost: Focus shifts to U.S. radiation sources
•  Complete coverage
THE WAR ABROAD
•  NBC: Afghans embark on political journey
•  WashPost: U.S. endorses preemptive strikes
•  Complete coverage

       
       
SCHOOL OF RICH DIVERSITY
       New Utrecht High School in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, is a wonderful melting pot. The day I visited, two girls — one Chinese, one Russian — sat poring over SAT prep material near polling booths set up for the the New York City mayoral runoff. I heard at least three languages spoken I couldn’t even begin to identify. The school offers courses in Urdu because 116 students come from Pakistan.
Advertisement



       Outside the school, Bensonhurst has changed immeasurably since the days of black versus white racial confrontation in the 1980s. Immigrants, many of whom speak little English, far outnumber native speakers on the streets. The restaurants and shops offer food from dozens of countries.
       Since September 11, hundreds of leads have poured into the local police precinct, but incidents have been few. Someone tried to throw a Molotov cocktail into a mosque, but it hit a canopy pole instead of the building and did little damage. Reports that Arab immigrants had been cheering at a local supermarket after the towers collapsed (a frequent rumor around the country) were investigated and turned out to be false. So were the dozens of rumors of Arabs mysteriously disappearing from their homes just before the attack.
       The police say they have been working closely with two of the three mosques in the area. One is run by an Irishman who converted to Islam and became an imam; the other by a baggage handler for American Airlines. This latter fact, not surprisingly, aroused a great interest at first. His friends in the community thought he might lose his job. But the imam is backed by the airline and remains close to the police in the area. “I feel sorry for the dark-skinned people in the neighborhood,” says a police officer. “They’ve done nothing wrong and most have been cooperative.”
       
STRANGER THAN FICTION
       It’s that context that makes the story of the Pakistani freshman so strange. I can’t tell you who filled in the details for me; the heat is on and the FBI is particularly jumpy. Both teacher and student have, with the help of the school, successfully ducked all efforts to contact them. But here’s what I’ve pieced together:
       On September 6 — five days before the attack — Antoinette DiLorenzo, who teaches English as a second language to a class of Pakistani immigrants, led a class discussion about world events. She asked a freshman (his name has been withheld): “What are you looking at?” The youth was peering out the third floor window toward lower Manhattan. After he made the remark about the World Trade center not being there next week, the teacher didn’t immediately think much of it, though it stuck in her mind.

•  War coverage
•  The home front
•  Video, photos
•  Newsweek coverage
•  Behind the headlines
•  Coverage for kids
       On September 11, school was canceled after the attack and again the following day. On Thursday September 13, a clearly agitated DiLorenzo, saying she had been afraid to come forward, reported the incident to the principal’s office. “It scared the hell out of everyone,” according to a source at the school.
       The police and FBI were alerted and twelve NYPD officers entered the school and secured DiLorenzo’s classroom for three hours, locking the doors with the students inside. While the students were brought lunch and a movie and told to be calm, the youth in question and his older brother, a sophomore, were taken to be interrogated by the FBI, stationed at the police precinct nearby.
       DiLorenzo, the key to the believability of this story, was also questioned. She was described by school officials as having a superb and unblemished record in the New York school system. A police source described her as “100 percent credible.”
       Moreover, according to police, the youth confirmed having made the September 6 statement about the towers. At the moment he did so, his older brother elbowed him, said he had been “kidding,” and the youth in question agreed. The younger brother seemed upset and said he was “having a bad day.” When asked why, he said that his father was supposed to come back from Pakistan that day. Further details of the interrogation are unclear, in part because the FBI is not discussing it.
       Because of the suspension of air travel, it took the father a few days to return. About a week after September 11, the father visited the school and angrily asked why his sons had been interrogated by the authorities. He said that his family’s constitutional rights had been violated.
       Having done nothing wrong beyond spreading a rumor that turned out to be true, the student was returned to his classroom. He remains in the school.
       The FBI placed the boy’s family under surveillance but, according to sources, does not see a connection to the plot to blow up the towers. The case remains under investigation, but with thousands of leads, it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.
       
TRUTH NO ANSWER
       So what to make of all of this? There is no doubt in my mind that the story is true. But what does it mean?
       There are only three possibilities: 1.) the youth was clairvoyant; 2.) the youth, knowing about the 1993 bombing, was just venting anger in a particularly timely way; 3.) word of the attack on the World Trade Center was rumored in his family or neighborhood and he heard about it.
       Investigators don’t know what to believe. On the one hand, one argues, “This is too much of a coincidence that the kid said this” before September 11. On the other hand, scores of tips in the area have not checked out when pursued by police. One police officer says he would need a couple of other similarly confirmed cases to conclude definitively that word was on the street.
       In the meantime, police and school authorities in Brooklyn are looking ahead. “It’s creepy,” one told me before I got on the subway to go back to the office. “But what the hell are we going to do about it now?”

Read more from Jonathan Alter at Newsweek.MSNBC.com
       
       
       
       
    Special Report
MSNBC News Morocco arrests 3 linked to al-Qaida
MSNBC News Afghan council to convene Tuesday
MSNBC News Rumsfeld: Iraq 'lying' about arms
MSNBC News Defense wants to call Pearl's widow
MSNBC News Ex-hostage reunited with her 3 children
MSNBC News MSNBC Cover Page


MSNBC News Wind shift helps slow Denver fire
MSNBC News Ashcroft: 'Dirty bomb' attack averted
MSNBC News A life in the margins assumes high profile
MSNBC News WashPost: Focus shifts to U.S. radiation sources
MSNBC News Mafia boss Gotti dead at 61
MSNBC News MSNBC Cover Page
 
     
Infocenter Write Us Newstools Help Search MSNBC News
 
  MSNBC VIEWERS' TOP 10  
 

Would you recommend this story to other viewers?
not at all   1    -   2  -   3  -   4  -   5  -   6  -   7   highly

 
   
 
  Download
  MSNBC is optimized for
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Windows Media Player
 
MSNBC Terms,
  Conditions and Privacy © 2002
   
 
Cover | News | Business | Sports | Local News | Health | Technology & Science | Living & Travel
TV News | Opinions | Weather | Comics
Information Center | Help | News Tools | Jobs | Write Us | Terms & Conditions | Privacy
   


bush-on-911
charlie-sheen
citizens-question
flight-77-no-arabs
insider-job
israelis
jersey-widows
planted-weapons
remote-flying
scholars
stocks-trades
vreeland
25 inconsistencies
9 11 facts
9 11 truth movement picks up in 2004 { February 21 2006 }
9 reports
911 myths coverups { October 20 2001 }
Abc docudrama blames clinton for bin laden failures { September 7 2006 }
Accuracy questioned anti terror efforts
Arizona creates contraversial 911 memorial { December 16 2006 }
Assassination too complex for intelligence to not know { October 20 2005 }
Bill clinton tells heckler 911 not inside job
Blind eye springman ins { November 6 2001 }
Coincidental 911 excercise
Coverup and conspiracy
Enron and 911 { May 31 2002 }
Fbi admits no evidence
Fbi oklahoma 911
Fbi stole 911 flight controller black boxes { December 19 2005 }
Fbi whistle blower backed for terror committee
Ghost riders in the sky { December 5 2002 }
Graham blames nations { December 11 2002 }
Hijacked jets almost collided
Homeland sec before 911 { January 31 2001 }
In 1998 zelikow predicted and planned for 911
Indications add up to government conspiracy { September 8 2006 }
Israeli daniel lewin shot on AA11 { September 15 2001 }
Missed offers for binladen
Mohamed atta terrorist emails
Muhammad claims ashcroft inolved in 911 attacks { April 29 2006 }
New york mag ground zero grassy knoll
Npr covers 911 conspiracies { August 9 2006 }
Npr show guest says 911 truth linked to terrorism { July 10 2006 }
Pipeline atta
Points to 911 inside job
Senator leahy asks why bush let 911 happen { September 29 2006 }
Sf mayor warned 911
Television show depicts 911 as bush plot
Trade Center warning baffles police [htm]
Trade center warnings turn out true
War pre planned { September 18 2001 }
Who knew 911 { May 16 2002 }
Zbigniew brzezinski and 911 { December 23 2001 }

Files Listed: 41



Correction/submissions

CIA FOIA Archive

National Security
Archives
Support one-state solution for Israel and Palestine Tea Party bumper stickers JFK for Dummies, The Assassination made simple