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US Media report: Federal air marshal attacked with syringe in Lagos, Nigeria airport

sharon sanders

sharon sanders

Editor-in-Chief & President
US federal air marshal attacked with syringe in Lagos airport
By Jana WinterPublished September 08, 2014
FoxNews.com

EXCLUSIVE ? The FBI and CDC are investigating an attack on a federal air marshal who was injected with a syringe full of an unknown substance inside the Lagos, Nigeria airport on Sunday, according to a Situational Awareness notice obtained by FoxNews.com.

more...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...rshal-attacked-with-syringe-in-lagos-airport/
 
Re: US Media report: Federal air marshal attacked with syringe in Lagos, Nigeria airport

http://abc13.com/news/us-air-marshal-in-quarantine-after-syringe-attack-in-nigeria/300003/

US Air Marshal in 'Quarantine' After Syringe Attack in Nigeria

ABCNews

RHONDA SCHWARTZ

Monday, September 08, 2014

A federal air marshal is in quarantine in Houston today after being attacked last night by an unknown assailant at the Lagos, Nigeria airport wielding a syringe.

U.S. law enforcement officials told ABC News they were alarmed by the bizarre, unprovoked attack because the assailant was apparently able to inject an unknown substance into the back of one of the air marshal's arms.

The air marshal was traveling with a team of other marshals when the attack took place in an unsecured area of the airport terminal in Lagos, the officials said.

He was able to board the United Airlines flight to Houston he was scheduled to work and was met early this morning in Houston by FBI agents and health workers from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Amid fears the substance could contain some form of the Ebola virus, the air marshal was immediately put into quarantine. The FBI said he was screened "on-scene... out of an abundance of caution."

An FBI spokesperson said, "The victim did not exhibit any signs of illness during the flight and was transported to a hospital upon landing for further testing. None of the testing conducted has indicated a danger to other passengers."

Health experts say most infectious agents would not immediately manifest or make the patient contagious.

While the unknown assailant ran away and could not be located, officials said the other air marshals on the team were able to secure the needle and bring it on the flight for testing in the U.S.

U.S. air marshals travel undercover in plain clothes and it would not be immediately obvious to an attacker that his target was an American law enforcement agent, officials say.

"While there is no immediate intelligence to confirm this was a targeted attack, this is our reminder that international cowards will attempt to take sneaky lethal shots at our honorable men and women abroad," said Jon Adler, the national president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.

The Lagos airport has long been considered a possible target for the terror group Boko Haram which has conducted a series of deadly attacks across Nigeria.
 
Re: US Media report: Federal air marshal attacked with syringe in Lagos, Nigeria airport

There's not much Ebola in Nigeria. For that syringe to have contained Ebola virus, it would almost have to have been the blood or other bodily fluids of a member of the Enemuo family, as they are really the only recent Ebola cases in the country. I guess it is possible that the attacker acquired the syringe in Liberia or elsewhere, and just staged the attack in Lagos.

But what, other than Ebola, would you put in a syringe in a robbery attempt?

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/eb...-attacked-syringe-nigeria-flies-texas-n198691

It appeared the stabber did not know the victim was an air marshal and it may have been a robbery attempt, sources told NBC News.
 
Re: US Media report: Federal air marshal attacked with syringe in Lagos, Nigeria airport

Very curious that US officials report this as a robbery.

So I do a quick search for syringe robbery and to my surprise there are many.

Robberies using a syringe as a weapon:

2014
Man in bright clothes robs a ice cream shop with a syringe infected with AIDS
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/24/syringe-full-aids-ice-cream_n_5205286.html


2012
female bank robber threatens to use a syringe with AIDS
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/syringe...-choice-for-female-bank-robber-say-colo-cops/

2012
Here in Florida a man robs a bank wearing a medical mask and using a syringe as a weapon
http://manateecounty.wtsp.com/news/crime/121860-man-uses-syringe-weapon-bank-robbery

2011
Man robs a store in Australia with a blood filled syringe
http://www.qt.com.au/news/armed-robber-threaten-servo-worker-syringe-ipswich/908200/


A 2009 report by Australian government
Of 8,865 armed robberies, 376 used a syringe
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current series/cfi/81-100/cfi095.html


IN May 2014 a news article in Australia summarizes the occurrences and legal issues with syring robberies. They cite one instance in the 1990s where a corrections officers was stabbed with a syringe in prison and died 7 years later.
http://nswcourts.com.au/articles/sy...ra-local-court-is-syringe-robbery-increasing/

 

Finally in 1997 we find that muggers terrorized Dublin with syringe attacks
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/dublin-muggers-bring-terror-to-the-streets-with-bloodfilled-syringes-1249269.html
Dublin muggers bring terror to the streets with blood-filled syringes
It Is A weapon from a horror film: a syringe filled with blood that may be infected with Aids. Yet in Dublin, its use in muggings has become an everyday
Last year there were more than 2,200 syringe attacks or threatened attacks in the Irish capital - an average of six a day in a city that now has an estimated 8,000 heroin addicts, most of whom must steal to satisfy their daily craving.
Click to expand...


One key element in the Lagos story is there is no evidence of an attempted robbery, only the assault.
In all the other cases the syringe is used to frighten the victim into compliance. Once the syringe is actually used to attack it can no longer be used for intimidation, the victim simply responds to the attack itself.
JT
 
Re: US Media report: Federal air marshal attacked with syringe in Lagos, Nigeria airport

http://sundiatapost.com/2014/09/faan-denies-syringe-attack-on-us-air-marshal-were-investigating-fbi/#/jobs?ref=Sundiata&page=1&count=5&use_ng=1
FAAN denies syringe attack on US air marshal …We’re investigating — FBI

By akachukwu / September 9, 2014 / 0 Comments
The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) on Tuesday, denied alleged syringe attack on a US Air Marshal at the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos, Sunday, September 7, even as the United States said its Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating the matter. Some foreign news media had published a story alleging that a US Federal Air Marshal was assaulted with a syringe containing an unknown substance at Lagos airport.

...

“Following the report, a team from the US Embassy met with the airport Joint Security team, and at their request, viewed footages of the movement of the said marshal captured on our CCTV cameras.” “Preliminary observation from the CCTV footages did not show evidence of such occurrence

...

The National President of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association Jon Adler said there was no intelligence to link the incident with terrorist attack at this point when US personnel were globally on alert ahead of the anniversary of September 2001 terrorist attack on the United States. There was no official confirmation from the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs whose officers failed to respond to media enquiries. Nigerian Airport security said there was no official report of the incident. (Vanguard) - See more at: http://sundiatapost.com/2014/09/faa...i/#/jobs?ref=Sundiata&page=1&count=5&use_ng=1
Click to expand...
 
Re: US Media report: Federal air marshal attacked with syringe in Lagos, Nigeria airport

Stabbing With Syringe in Nigeria Raises Concerns of Ebola as Weapon

By ANDREW POLLACKSEPT. 10, 2014
...
Initial tests on the substance in the syringe, conducted at a special biodefense forensics laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., did not detect the virus or any other threatening agent, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Christos Sinos, said Wednesday. The marshal, who arrived in Houston on Monday, was examined there and has been released from the hospital with no sign of illness, according to a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration.

Experts say it would be extremely hard for a group to grow large amounts of the virus and turn it into a weapon that could be dispersed over a wide area, infecting and killing many people.

?The bad guys are more likely to kill themselves trying to develop it,? said Dr. Philip K. Russell, a retired major general who was the commander of the Army Medical Research and Development Command.

But it is harder to totally discount the possibility of a smaller attack, perhaps like the one at the airport in Lagos. Another possibility would be suicide infectors, people who deliberately infected themselves and carried the virus out of the epidemic zone to sicken others.
...
Such an attack would not kill many, or even any, people in an advanced country like the United States. But it could strike terror and cause economic disruption. ?Someone gets sick on an airplane, conceivably everyone on that airplane has to be quarantined,? said Dr. Robert Kadlec, who was special assistant on biodefense policy to President George W. Bush.

The United States government considers Ebola and other hemorrhagic fever viruses to be among the most serious potential bioterrorism agents, along with those that cause smallpox, anthrax, botulism, plague and tularemia.

?It?s not very contagious compared to things like plague, but it does have high lethality and could cause fear and terror,? said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior associate at the Center for Health Security, which is affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/w...-raises-concerns-of-ebola-as-weapon.html?_r=0
 
Re: US Media report: Federal air marshal attacked with syringe in Lagos, Nigeria airport

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...uring-the-ebola-outbreak/?tid=pm_business_pop

The strange case of the air marshal who was stabbed by a needle during the Ebola outbreak
Someone jabbed him with a needle in an airport in Nigeria. Was it the beginning of a new type of terrorism?
By Todd C. Frankel November 25 at 8:34 AM

The terminal at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria, was packed. Inside, a small team of U.S. air marshals wormed its way through the crowd. They had a plane to catch: United Flight 143 to Houston. It was Sunday, Sept. 7, and that was the day?s mission.

The exact size of this group of air marshals is an operational secret. Even how many people are employed by the federal air marshal service is not shared. But the number has certainly grown since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, renewed fear of hijacked planes.

The air marshals in Lagos were following an expediter ? a Nigerian airport worker charged with guiding them through the terminal and helping them get through security, said Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. But the air marshals were having trouble keeping up. They kept losing sight of the expediter. He was moving too fast. The air marshals were walking through the airport, nearly to the security checkpoint, other travelers passing them in every direction, jostling for space, when two men approached from the opposite direction. These two men didn?t stand out, until they brushed past the U.S. agents.

It happened in a flash, Adler said. One of the men jabbed a hypodermic needle into the arm of an air marshal and then melted into the crowd, he said. No shouting. No fighting. It took a moment to even realize what had occurred. By then, the two passing men had disappeared...
 
Re: US Media report: Federal air marshal attacked with syringe in Lagos, Nigeria airport

Maybe they were probing for protocol. To see if the agent would be taken back to the US?
 
Re: US Media report: Federal air marshal attacked with syringe in Lagos, Nigeria airport

The syringe was tested. There were no signs of any toxins or pathogens. No Ebola. No HIV. Not even the flu.
Click to expand...

Maybe just low-risk psychological terrorism. Carrying around a biological or chemical weapon, or even a controlled medicine would be illegal, but carrying around a syringe would not be.

ETA:
I mean an empty, clean syringe. As far as I know, that is not illegal in any countries.
 
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Re: US Media report: Federal air marshal attacked with syringe in Lagos, Nigeria airport

Could this have been an accident? Could the person have been carrying around a syringe, perhaps because he was diabetic, and accidentally bumped into the marshal and stuck him with it?

Insulin-dependent diabetics, for example, often carry around syringes for the purpose of injecting themselves at some later point.
 
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