2nd Amendment and quick thinking wife stop a dirty bomb attack
Dig:
Parts for 'dirty bomb' found in slain US man's home
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Parts_for_%27dirty_bomb%27_found_in_slain_US_man%27s_home
February 10, 2009
Agency says radioactive materials recovered in home of man allegedly slain by his wife.
By Walter Griffin (Bangor Daily News)[1]
BELFAST, Maine — James G. Cummings, who police say was shot to death by his wife two months ago, allegedly had a cache of radioactive materials in his home suitable for building a “dirty bomb.”
According to an FBI field intelligence report from the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center posted online by WikiLeaks, an organization that posts leaked documents, an investigation into the case revealed that radioactive materials were removed from Cummings’ home after his shooting death on Dec. 9.
The report posted on the WikiLeaks Web site states that “On 9 December 2008, radiological dispersal device components and literature, and radioactive materials, were discovered at the Maine residence of an identified deceased [person] James Cummings.”
Click here to view the full report. The section referring to Cummings can be read [on page 11].
It says that four 1-gallon containers of 35 percent hydrogen peroxide, uranium, thorium, lithium metal, thermite, aluminum powder, beryllium, boron, black iron oxide and magnesium ribbon were found in the home.
Also found was literature on how to build “dirty bombs” and information about cesium-137, strontium-90 and cobalt-60, radioactive materials. The FBI report also stated there was evidence linking James Cummings to white supremacist groups. This would seem to confirm observations by local tradesmen who worked at the Cummings home that he was an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler and had a collection of Nazi memorabilia around the house, including a prominently displayed flag with swastika. Cummings claimed to have pieces of Hitler’s personal silverware and place settings, painter Mike Robbins said a few days after the shooting.
An application for membership in the National Socialist Movement filled out by Cummings also was found in the residence, according to the report. Cummings’ wife, Amber B. Cummings, 31, told investigators that her husband spoke of “dirty bombs,” according to the report, and mixed chemicals in her kitchen sink. She allegedly told police that Cummings subjected her to years of mental, physical and sexual abuse. She also said that Cummings was “very upset” when Barack Obama was elected president.
A “dirty bomb” is a type of “radiological dispersal device” that combines a conventional explosive such as dynamite with radioactive material, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Web site. “Most RDDs would not release enough radiation to kill people or cause severe illness,” the NRC says, adding that “a dirty bomb is in no way similar to a nuclear weapon” because its effects occur in a very limited area compared to a nuclear explosion.
The report noted that “uranium, thorium, cesium-137, stontium-90 and cobalt-60 are radioactive isotopes and 35 percent hydrogen peroxide is a necessary precursor for the manufacture of peroxide-based explosives. Lithium metal, thermite and aluminum are materials used to sensitize and amplify the effects of explosives.”
The report stated that the uranium component was bought online from a U.S. company that was identified in the investigation, but not in the report.
John Donnelley, an agent at the FBI’s Boston office, declined Tuesday to comment on the report. Donnelley said some FBI reports are provided to law enforcement agencies and sometimes get released to media outlets.
“I wouldn’t be prepared to speak on that,” Donnelley said. “I have no comment.”
The Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center is an intelligence gathering office affiliated with Washington, D.C., law enforcement. Telephone and e-mail messages left with the center Tuesday were not returned.
State police have identified Amber Cummings as the person who shot James Cummings. The couple’s 9-year-old daughter was present the morning of the shooting in what police have described as a domestic violence homicide.
Amber Cummings, who is staying in the Belfast area, has not been charged in the case, although the Waldo County grand jury currently meeting in Belfast could take up the matter during its session this week. While state police have acknowledged that the 29-year-old Cummings was killed by a gunshot, the results of the autopsy have been impounded, as have the search warrants executed at Cummings’ High Street home following the shooting. Authorities spent days searching the home, according to neighbors.
Lt. Gary Wright, who heads up the Maine State Police Criminal Investigation Division team working the case, declined to comment on any aspects of the case when contacted Tuesday.
“We’re not going to comment on anything,” Wright said Tuesday evening. “It’s an open homicide investigation and we’re not going to comment. That’s our standard policy.”
Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, also had no comment on the report. “This is an active, open homicide investigation,” he said Tuesday evening, “and as a result, it’s inappropriate to get into confirming or denying aspects of that.”
Maine Deputy Attorney General William Stokes also declined to comment on the report Tuesday.
David Farmer, spokesman for Gov. John Baldacci, said Tuesday that it was inappropriate for the governor to comment on an open investigation. When asked about the copy of the field report sent to him by the Bangor Daily News, he said, “At this point, I have been unable to confirm the authenticity of the documents you sent to us.”
A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Susan Collins’ staff said there was no one able to comment on the report Tuesday night.
Telephone messages left with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were not returned Tuesday evening. Robbins, who worked on the house for a month last summer, described Cummings as an angry person who was verbally abusive to his wife. He said Cummings apparently was independently wealthy and did not work. Robbins said Cummings talked incessantly about his love of guns and his fascination for Hitler. He said Cummings repeatedly berated his wife about home-schooling their daughter. He said Cummings had a controlling personality and wanted to know his wife and child’s every move.
Cummings grew up in California and lived in Texas before moving to Maine in August 2007. Although Robbins said Cummings told him he made his money in Texas real estate, it appears that the actual source of his wealth was a trust fund established by his father, a prominent landowner in the Northern California city of Fort Bragg. An Internet search of the James B. Cummings Trust indicated that it has an annual income of $10 million.
The FBI field intelligence report was apparently first reported on by unattributable.com, an online magazine which covers and blogs on current events.
BDN writer Dawn Gagnon in Bangor contributed to this report.
Thanks to BDN and the authors for covering this document. Copyright remains with the aforementioned.
Dig:
Officials verify dirty bomb probe results
http://bangornews.com/detail/99310.html
By Eric Russell BDN Staff 2/11/09 | 18 comments
BANGOR, Maine — In the wake of revelations that a Belfast man had a stash of potentially hazardous materials at his home when he was killed last December, state Public Safety Commissioner Anne Jordan stressed Wednesday that at no time was the public at risk.
Jordan did confirm that a number of materials were taken from the home of James G. Cummings on the night of Dec. 9, and that the FBI was contacted.
“A [hazardous materials] team from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection was called to the home the night of the homicide to remove a number of items from inside the home,” the commissioner said in a statement Wednesday. “An assessment that night by members of the hazmat team indicated the home was safe for State Police detectives to enter and conduct their investigation after the materials had been removed. In addition, detectives felt it was appropriate that the FBI be contacted.”
Police have identified Cummings’ wife, Amber Cummings, as the person who shot him, although she has not yet been charged. While the homicide investigation remains open and active, Jordan said, she deferred any comment about the materials investigation to the FBI.
“I can’t confirm or deny an investigation,” John Donnelly, a regional spokesman for the bureau, said Wednesday. “As of this morning, in consideration of the state’s open homicide investigation, we’re making no comment.”
The Bangor Daily News reported Wednesday that Cummings’ name was listed in an FBI intelligence alert that surfaced recently on the Web site of WikiLeaks, an organization that posts leaked documents. The document also was posted and reported on by unattributable.com, an online magazine that covers and blogs on current events and which first called attention to the report on the Cummings investigation.
The document featuring Cummings is attributed to the FBI but appears under a series of alerts that were logged by the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center in Washington, D.C. It states, in part, that on Dec. 9, 2008, “radiological dispersal device components and literature, and radioactive materials, were discovered at the Maine residence of an identified deceased [person] James Cummings.” Cummings was killed the morning of Dec. 9. It also referenced that Cummings had literature on how to build a so-called dirty bomb.
A spokeswoman for the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center who asked not to be identified confirmed Wednesday that the report that was leaked online was authentic, but she downplayed its substance. “That’s a document that was pulled a month ago when the investigation was still ongoing,” she said. “We’ve since determined that there is nothing to it.” The D.C.-based threat center is one of 60 “fusion centers” throughout the country that were created in the aftermath of Sept. 11.
“Essentially, they were created to bring law enforcement officials and the private sector together to share information and prevent terrorist attacks,” the spokeswoman said.
Maine has its own fusion center, but the reason Cummings ended up on the D.C. center’s radar is because his threats had the potential to affect the presidential inauguration, the woman said.
“The information that leaked was for public safety officials, not for the public,” she said. “And the fact is, it was put out before the investigation was completed.”
No additional documents have surfaced online that reference Cummings. The threat center spokeswoman said she’s in the process of having the current document removed from WikiLeaks, one of the sites that posted it.
The document indicated that Cummings had quantities of hydrogen peroxide, uranium, thorium, lithium metal, thermite, aluminum powder, beryllium, boron, black iron oxide and magnesium ribbon. Cummings also reportedly had literature on how to build dirty bombs and information about cesium-137, strontium-90 and cobalt-60, additional radioactive materials, although he did not actually have those materials.
A spokesman for Gov. John Baldacci’s office declined to comment on the case involving Cummings other than to refer to the statement from the Department of Public Safety. Members of Maine’s congressional delegation also have declined comment. Officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have deferred all questions to the FBI.
While the FBI and the Washington, D.C., threat center declined to talk specifically about any of the materials found at Cummings’ home, Public Safety Commissioner Jordan said she was satisfied with the result.
“I’ve been told by federal officials that the items seized could be purchased legally and that there was not sufficient quantity or quality to pose an immediate threat or hazard to the health and safety of the public,” she said.
The spokeswoman for the D.C. threat center said, from her perspective, the materials linked to Cummings were not indicative of a terrorist network but rather a lone, disturbed individual.
erussell@bangordailynews.net 990-8167
Dig:
Cummings had violent history
http://www.bangornews.com/detail/99358.html
By Abigail Curtis 2/12/09
BELFAST, Maine - James G. Cummings II was known as "kind of a violent dude" back home in Fort Bragg, Calif., according to Lt. Rusty Noe of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.
"He was involved in several assault cases," Noe said in a telephone interview Wednesday evening. "He was a victim in some, a suspect in others, most of them involving family."
But despite the 16 contacts the sheriff's office had with him in the late 1990s, Noe sounded surprised to learn of recent allegations that Cummings was a white supremacist with a cache of radioactive materials and directions for building a dirty bomb in his Belfast home. [Profile of a patsy, look into connections with this guy and government agencies. He could be one of the "Homegrown" patsies that they have available. Look how everyone is completely quiet about this one.]
"The guys say they never knew him to be a Neo-Nazi type," Noe said. "He seemed like he was a kind of angry dude that argued with the family."
Police say that Cummings was shot to death by his wife, Amber B. Cummings, two months ago, in what they have described as a domestic violence homicide. He had no criminal history in Maine.
There was even less information readily available about Amber Cummings, whose maiden name may have been Brown. Cummings didn't answer the phone at her Belfast home Wednesday afternoon.
It wasn't clear Wednesday why the Cummingses moved to their home at 346 High Street in Belfast.
There are three vehicles registered to the couple with the office of the Maine Secretary of State: a 2000 Jeep Wrangler, a 1999 Dodge Durango and a 1998 motor home.
All in all, a modest lifestyle for a man who came from a California family as wealthy as it was troubled. His father, James G. Cummings Sr., made a fortune in real estate and was a well-known local philanthropist before being shot to death at his home in 1997, according to newspaper accounts.
Just months before his father's death, when James G. Cummings II was 17, he made the national news - including Oprah - when he and his father allegedly conspired to secretly videotape his mother in the act of using hard drugs, according to the archives of the Anderson Valley Advertiser.
"The national media swooped down on Fort Bragg, and there was a 24-hour cacophony about kids spying on parents," wrote Bruce Anderson in a 2002 story. "[They] were long gone by the time it was found that Mom had been brewing up popcorn balls for the kids, not black tar heroin."
Mark Scaramella, the managing editor of the paper, said Wednesday that Cummings and his sister, Kathryn, sued to get more of their father's estate in the early 2000s.
It isn't clear how much they inherited, but the father's trust fund reportedly earns an estimated annual income of $10 million.
When asked about a neo-Nazi presence in Fort Bragg, Scaramella chuckled.
"There are some red-necky sorts of skinheady people," he said. "I don't think they read enough to be neo-Nazis."
CaptainFreedom09:
SANE , THANKS FOR PUT'N THIS INFO OUT ,, I NEVER HEARD ALEX COVER THIS STORY ,, I HOPE HE DOES. !!!
CaptainFreedom09:
Quote from: Chemicalrain on March 09, 2009, 08:42:47 PM
Well no shit somebody sent it to him -- he had all kinds of exotic materials in his basement or whatever.
He's an agent of a higher power -- most definately.
I agree,, where ,and who supplied him with the materials ... you know , they don't exactly sell that stuff at wal=mart.
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