We have been on a high state of alert against attacks on places where people congregate or where terrorist attacks can be launched. Places like, for example, subways. So WTF is up with this?
chicagotribune.com
From the Chicago Tribune
Suspect in cyanide cache to remain in custody
By Eric Ferkenhoff and Jon Hilkevitch
Tribune staff reporters
March 13, 2002, 10:11 AM CST
A man charged with storing deadly cyanide in Chicago’s subway waived his right to a bond hearing today before a federal magistrate who called him ``an extreme danger to the community.’’
Joseph Konopka, 25, was returned to the Metropolitan Correctional Center after a five-minute hearing to await action by a federal grand jury investigating the stash of cyanide.
``The court is convinced that this defendant intended to do no good and that he intended to use the chemicals to harm the community,’’ federal Magistrate Judge Edward A. Bobrick declared.
He said he wouldn’t have granted bond to the fugitive from vandalism charges in four Wisconsin counties if Konopka had asked.
Konopka appeared in court in the bright orange jump suit of a federal prisoner. His eyes were red-rimmed and his long hair was wild and unkempt. He said nothing in his appearance before the court.
Alarmed by the discovery of a cache of cyanide in the subways, police and transit officials vowed Tuesday to beef up security in the tunnel system, an aged warren of abandoned passageways and storage rooms.
"If there were disbelievers that there could be a threat to our system, they are believers now," said Cmdr. Ed Gross, head of the police mass transit unit charged with patrolling the CTA.
On Monday federal authorities charged Konopka with possessing a chemical weapon after more than a pound of cyanide compounds was found in a storage space in the tunnel system. Konopka had been living in the tunnels for weeks with such freedom that he had swapped locks on underground doors so only his keys could open them, officials said. [EDITORIAL COMMENT: And in a "high" state of alert, nobody noticed?]
The arrest exposed vulnerabilities in a rail system that carries 500,000 commuters every day.
In response the CTA and police have begun an inventory of all doors, closets, rooms, tunnels, passageways, entrances and exits throughout the system to see if some should be sealed off, CTA President Frank Kruesi said.
Beginning immediately, Gross said, anyone found trespassing in the subway system will be arrested, taken to a police station, fingerprinted and subjected to a background check, in contrast with the treatment often afforded tunnel trespassers, such as graffiti vandals known as "taggers."
"One thing this incident has shown us is that when people are in the system--the presumption [has been that] they're taggers--it's more than taggers and therefore the response needs to be stronger," Kruesi said.
Earlier Tuesday, Mayor Richard Daley said the city would move quickly to improve security in the tunnels.
"I think the CTA will make a complete assessment--what type of equipment is stored in there, why they need it," Daley said. "We will comb the system and look at these little places they built 70, 80, 90 years ago. What are they doing with them? If no one is using them for months, why do you need them?"
Cavernous system
CTA subway tunnels contain many nooks and crannies, closets and storerooms that have been abandoned as the system has changed. There are janitor and electrician closets, supply rooms, money-counting rooms that are no longer used, areas for platform lighting and communications equipment--even spaces under elevators and escalators.
There also are restrooms that no longer are open to the public but often are left unlocked by employees.
"The locks on many of the storage rooms haven't been changed since they were installed more than 50 years ago," said one subway maintenance worker who asked not to be identified. "It doesn't take a safe-cracker to pick them."
Also, many of the pre-World War II office buildings on Dearborn Street have direct access to the Blue Line subway.
"Remember, the Loop `L' is 150 years old in parts. There are tunnels [to the subways] all over the place," the worker said.
Kruesi and other city leaders insist the system is safe--major crime was down 23 percent on the rail system last year--but acknowledge there is work to be done.
Konopka was ticketed for trespassing in the system in November, but that didn't keep him away. It also did not connect him with several outstanding arrest warrants in attacks on utility and media facilities in Wisconsin.
There, authorities knew him by his self-assigned moniker, Dr. Chaos.
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Kruesi said, the CTA and police tightened security around public transportation facilities and continued discussions on strategies to respond to a crisis.
Patrols have been routine, he said, including multiple checks per week of doors and other access points.
"Since Sept. 11, we've been doing a lot of examining and re-examining of the systems with police and law enforcement elsewhere and other transit systems," Kruesi said. "Out of what happened on Saturday, we are re-examining the sufficiency of the steps we have taken. There's no such thing as a closed and perfect system in a free country, but we are determined to make it as safe as we can."
Early Saturday, UIC police on a stakeout investigation of break-ins at University of Illinois at Chicago buildings arrested Konopka and a 15-year-old boy in a utility tunnel. A 17-year-old boy got away.
Konopka was found to be carrying a small amount of cyanide. Very quickly, police said, the younger boy told authorities that more chemicals were stashed in the subway system.
Outfitted in protective suits, police found seven containers of chemicals, including two varieties of cyanide compounds.
Police sources also say Konopka had sketches of the CTA system and computer software that was designed to intercept electronic communication to police squad cars.
Reassuring riders
Despite the breach, officials sought again Tuesday to reassure the riding public.
"The CTA is safe," police Supt. Terry Hillard said. "That is the bottom line."
Hillard described Konopka as a burglar and computer hacker who was apparently no more a threat than the graffiti vandals who deface city property.
A motive for stockpiling the powdered cyanide compounds remained elusive Tuesday.
"No one can say with certainty what his intent was," a federal investigator said Tuesday.
The source said Konopka previously was linked to actions against property, not people.
Among other things, Konopka, a dropout and computer whiz who lived with an aunt outside rural De Pere, Wis., was wanted on warrants for attacks against a television station transmitter, electric power substations and natural gas pipelines.
Gross said preliminary interviews with Konopka suggested he is intelligent and meant to injure no one.
It remained unclear late Tuesday where Konopka had obtained the cyanide, but police said that he told them he took it, though it was unclear if that meant he had stolen the chemicals.
"He's an explorer. ... He had a nickname of `the Rat' [for crawling in tunnels]," Gross said. "He repeated that he was not doing this to harm anyone. He said, `I don't know why I took [the cyanide], I just took it.'"
Tribune staff reporters Gary Washburn and Matt O'Connor, and the Associated Press contributed to this report. |
