Domestic Disturbance Call Leads Police to Terror Suspects

A routine domestic disturbances call lead police to a pair of women who has previously been under investigation by federal terrorism officials; Kimberly Al-Homsi called 911 about 12:40 a.m. Monday July 15.^[1] She said her friend, Aisha Hamad, had threatened her with a knife. and before the day ended, Arlington (TX) police had ended a six-hour standoff, and they had called in a bomb squad over four potentially explosive devices.^[2]

After the standoff, police searched the home on Wembley Road and found four explosive devices, one of which was sitting on a bedroom table.^[3] "We do not know whether they would function as [explosive] devices until we have time to study them and look at them and test the materials….I can tell you this; there wasn't anything in there that would have blown her house to pieces." Arlington Assistant Fire Marshal Stephen Lea said.^[4]

The two are noteworthy because on Feb. 25, the two women were spotted at Love Field acting in a way authorities found suspicious, both dressed in camouflage pants under traditional Muslim robes, conducting what appeared to be surveillance, officials said.^[5] Surveillance video showed one of them walking back and forth, apparently pacing off distances. When confronted, the women told officials they were looking for the Frontiers of Flight museum. Two days later, the pair was spotted at the airport again.^[6] This time Ms. Al-Homsi, was sitting on the hood of a car looking through binoculars at airplanes. Dallas officers stopped the car nearby, but the women refused to let police search it, authorities say; the women also came under scrutiny after they were reported driving near the runways at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on July 4.^[7]

Dallas police and federal terrorism officials have acknowledged investigating the pair, but police officials have said they had no direct evidence the women have ties to terrorism.^[8] Al-Homsi’s and Hamad’s federal criminal attorneys have accused authorities of violating their rights and of religious and racial profiling.^[9]

In 2005, Ms. Al-Homsi was accused of waving a fake grenade at a motorist on Central Expressway during a spasm of road rage. Officials charged her with a bomb hoax, and she was placed on probation.

The “hoax statute” was introduced after September 11 and the subsequent anthrax scares.^[10]The law makes it a crime to engage in any conduct with intent to convey false or misleading information under circumstances where such information may reasonably be believed and where such information indicates that an activity has taken, is taking, or will take place that would constitute a terrorist attack, or any of the crimes enumerated in the statue.^[11]The statute was amended by the Terrorism Prevention Act of 2006, which was introduced on September 6, 2006. It expanded the statute to include hoaxes related to the taking of hostages in order to coerce the federal government^[12] hoaxes related to blowing up an energy facility^[13] hoaxes related to terrorist attacks on military bases aimed at undermining national defense,^[14] and hoaxes related to terrorist attacks on railways and mass-transportation facilities,^[15] such as the recent London bombings.^[16] Further amendments to this section would also increase the penalties for hoaxes about the death, injury, or capture of a U.S. soldier during wartime.^[17]

Federal criminal attorney Douglas McNabb has previously discussed hoaxes in his terrorism blog, here.

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^[1] Steve Thompson, Women arrested after police standoff, The Dallas Morning News, July 17, 2007, available at http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-standoff_17met.ART.State.Edition1.76e4a1.html (last visited July 17, 2007).
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.
^[4] Id.
^[5] Id.
^[6] Id.
^[7] Id.
^[8] Id.
^[9] Id.
^[10] 18 U.S.C. §1038 (2001).
^[11] Id.
^[12] 18 U.S.C. §1203 (2006).
^[13] 18 U.S.C. §1366(a) (2006).
^[14] 18 U.S.C. §2156 (2006).
[15] 18 U.S.C. §1992-1993 (2006).
^[16] S. 3848, 109th Cong. § 2 (2006).
^[17] Id.