The 9/11 incident you’ve never heard about

On the morning of September 12, 2001, the day after America suffered its worst terrorist attack in history, the FBI’s headquarters in Washington sent out a “be on the lookout” or “BOLO” message to police and other law enforcement agencies around the United States. Known to local police departments as a “Switch” message, the BOLO alerted police to “two Middle Eastern-looking” individuals, driving a stolen truck and driving toward the East Coast.

“Middle Eastern-looking” is standard FBI and law enforcement parlance used to describe Israelis. The term is used in order to alleviate pressure from pro-Israeli Jews who believe that Israel never commits any harmful acts against the United States.

The FBI BOLO also provided details about the truck’s appearance. It was a white “box truck,” had Texas license plates, and bore specific identification stickers.

Perhaps no place in the country was as far away from the bedlam in New York, Washington, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the day after 9/11 than was Marion, Indiana, a quiet town best known as the birthplace of actor James Dean and the site of the 1993 wedding of celebs Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett.

Informed sources in Marion recalled what happened a few hours after the Marion police department sent to its officers on patrol a “signal 15,” otherwise known as a stolen vehicle alert. In the early afternoon of September 12, an officer who was entering the parking lot at the Market Place convenience store/Marathon gas station on Indiana State Road 9, also known as North Huntington Road, spotted what appeared to be the stolen truck in the store’s lot.

At about 1:30 pm, the officer radioed police headquarters telling the dispatcher, “I think we’ve got that truck out of Texas out here at Market Place.”

Eventually, the vehicle’s two occupants came out of the convenience store about 20 seconds before a second assisting police officer arrived at the scene. The two officers present were ordered not to approach the vehicle.

Because of the fact that the nation was on high alert after the events the previous day, the Marion police reacted with alarm. Due to the FBI’s alert and the preceding events, police believed the truck may contain explosives or dangerous chemicals. The FBI “Switch” messaging system was full of traffic concerning suspicious vehicles, including the BOLO sent nationwide on September 11 regarding the Urban Moving System van that was parked at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey. The moving van’s occupants were seen dressed in Arab-like clothing and celebrating, in addition to videotaping the World Trade Center before the first plane hit the North Tower.

Dispatched to the scene at the Market Place store in Marion were some 13 units, including fire trucks, ambulances, and hazardous material (HAZMAT) handling vehicles.

As the emergency radio frequencies chattered with news of the truck, the Marion police department received a call from an individual claiming to be from Grissom Air Force Base, some 30 miles from Marion. The purported Air Force official asked the police dispatcher, “Do you have a stolen box truck out of Texas?” The answer was, “Yes, we have it pulled over.” A second Air Force official on the line was emphatic in his demands, “I’m with the Air Force at Grissom. We want you to have your officers stand off. Do not approach. Do not detain. We have someone coming to the scene in a few minutes.”

The Marion Police’s efforts to determine from the Air Force callers what materials were inside the truck were unsuccessful.

About five minutes after the call from Grissom, two men driving a dark unmarked car pulled up at the Market Place parking lot. They spoke to the senior police officer present, a Marion police captain. The two Air Force personnel ordered the captain to escort the truck and the driver and passenger to Interstate 69 where the truck proceeded south toward Indianapolis.

The FBI never sent a follow-up Switch message telling police to disregard its initial message. When a few Marion police officers expressed their bewilderment over the situation, the assistant police chief told them, “Forget it!” The FBI never issued a formal “case closed” report on the truck and there was never any attempt by local, state, or federal law enforcement to locate the truck.

What happened in the aftermath of the incident was even more troubling. Six months after the incident, the recording machine containing all the “911″ calls was taken to the aptly-named Dynamite Cleaning Services in Marion and placed inside an incinerator. Also incinerated were all the tapes. The tapes contained 20 years of 911 emergency call data, including missing persons and theft reports.

The fate of the Marion police department’s “911″ tapes is similar to that of the Jersey City Police Department. After ISI Systems took over the operation of the Jersey City Police Department’s 911 emergency call system, all the recorded phone calls from September 11, 2001, were deleted.

Earlier, Information Spectrum, Inc. (ISI) of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, a subsidiary of the Fairfax, Virginia-based defense contractor, Anteon, took over the operation of the Jersey City police computer system that handled all incoming emergency phone calls. In addition to the September 11, 2001, calls, archives dating back to 1989, including those dealing with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, were also deleted.

It was later determined that the two individuals who arrived at the scene in Marion and claimed to be from Grissom never worked at the base. Some Marion police officers said it would have been impossible for the two men to have traveled in less than 10 minutes from the base, which was 30 miles away, after the truck was detained by the Marion police at the convenience store. There continues to be the belief that the two men who claimed to be from Grissom were actually traveling with the box truck in the dark vehicle.

The Marion police captain who escorted the box truck and the purported Air Force vehicle to the interstate highway said the two Air Force officials showed him badges and federal credentials. He said he believed them to be authentic.

In 2002, a year after the destruction of the 911 recorder and tapes, the Marion police department received a new “toy” from the federal government. It was a system that is used to mine databases for information on individuals who are subjects of “high value warrants.” The system mines phone numbers, credit cards, and travel, as well as manufacturing “call trees,” the latter a favorite method used by the National Security Agency to map out a target’s family, friends, and associates. The new system was originally presented to the Marion police department on a “test basis.” Sources have told WMR that the federal government’s “Big Brother” system provided to local police departments can be routinely used to violate an individual’s constitutional rights.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

Copyright © 2015 WayneMadenReport.com

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).