Showing posts with label The Sniper Files. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Sniper Files. Show all posts
A top DHS official revealed on Wednesday
Sniper attack on California power grid may have been 'an insider,' DHS says
Rest assured it was a inside job leading to other deadly explosions.
A top DHS official revealed on Wednesday that an infamous 2013 sniper attack on a California energy grid substation may have been committed by someone on the inside.
The attack, which nearly took out power to parts of Silicon Valley, has been called "the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred" by the nation's top electrical utility regulator.
The yet-unsolved case has been shrouded in mystery. No suspects have been named, and as of last year, no motive identified.
But at an energy industry conference in Philadelphia this week, we got our first glimpse at who the government thinks might have attacked the grid.
"While we have not yet identified the shooter, there's some indication it was an insider," said Caitlin Durkovich, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security.
Was it a current or former employee of PG&E (PCG)? A hired contractor? DHS will not comment on an ongoing investigation.
Shortly after midnight on April 16, 2013, some people snuck up on PG&E's substation in Metcalf, California. They cut fiber-optic AT&T phone lines, shutting off service to nearby neighborhoods. They also fired more than 100 rounds of .30-caliber rifle ammunition into the radiators of 17 electricity transformers. Thousands of gallons of oil leaked, causing electronics to overheat and shut down.
PG&E engineers were able to reroute power, but it was a struggle to keep the power on during the attack.
The assault lasted only 19 minutes, but it caused $15 million in damage. It also became a harsh wake-up call for energy providers, who have since become obsessed with the physical security of their remote power stations.
PG&E alone has pledged to spend $100 million to improve security at its facilities. Also, it and AT&T (T) have each announced separate $250,000 rewards to catch the attackers.
Why the alarm? Transformers are often custom designed, sometimes costing $3 million each -- and replacements are slow. Plus, physical attacks on energy distribution machines are much more effective at taking out the power grid than a computer hack. And it's incredibly easy to pull off, several energy utility firms told CNNMoney.
Experts attending GridSecCon, held by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation this week, are now discussing the need to enclose electronics in 1/2-inch thick armor plating that can stop high-powered rifle rounds. Power utilities have started loading remote substations with infrared cameras, gunshot audio sensors and even seismic recorders that catch vibrations.
Correction: The headline and first sentence of this story have been updated to reflect the comment made by the DHS official.
File photo: Burned out automobiles caused by the PG&E gas explosfluidnview Drive, in San Bruno, Calif., on September 11, 2010. (LiPo Ching/Bay Area News Group archives)
By George Avalos, gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com
Posted: 07/20/2016 03:59:36 AM PDT
Updated: 07/20/2016 04:00:32 AM PDT
SAN FRANCISCO -- PG&E spiked the pressure beyond the maximum allowed level on numerous pipelines and was aware of defects in several pipes -- including the one that failed in the San Bruno explosion -- according to an FBI agent
who scoured company records after the disaster.
The utility also was unable to provide investigators with required pressure test records on several lines, the agent testified Tuesday in the company's federal criminal trial.
Separately, PG&E provided federal officials investigating the explosion two different versions of its policy on pipeline pressure spikes, documents showed.
The evidence submitted on Tuesday appeared to bolster prosecutors' allegations that PG&E violated pipeline safety rules before the blast and subsequently obstructed the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation.
Prosecutor Hartley West asked FBI Special Agent Sandra Flores what her review of PG&E pipeline records revealed. The records showed a manufacturing defect in a segment of Line 132, the pipeline that ruptured beneath San Bruno, Flores testified. Eight people were killed and dozens of homes were destroyed in the ensuing explosion.
Additionally, Flores testified that she discovered pressure test reports did not exist for numerous pipelines throughout the Bay Area, including segments in or near San Jose, Sunnyvale, Woodside, Newark and Pittsburg. Records also were
missing for a line near Aptos High School in Santa Cruz County, she said.
Flores said her review found 196 pipe segments with "active" manufacturing defects. For pipelines installed before 1970 -- such as the ill-fated Line 132 -- federal rules allow operators to set the maximum pressure at the highest level
that was used in the pipes in the previous five years.
But the same federal rules also require any lines in which the pressure has spiked above allowed levels -- no matter how tiny -- be tested with water at high pressure. Those tests cost much more than the relatively inexpensive inspection
of external corrosion on pipes, a method preferred by PG&E.
After the explosion, PG&E scrambled to comply with an array of data requests for the NTSB probe. The utility initially gave federal and state investigators one version of its pressurization policy that indicated PG&E spiked pressure
on lines by as much as 10 percent over the legal limits.
Later, PG&E attempted to dismiss that letter as a draft document that was never in effect. The characterization of the document as an unapproved draft of a program is a key element in the prosecution's obstruction allegation.
San Francisco-based PG&E faces 13 criminal counts, including 12 alleged violations of pipeline safety rules and one that it obstructed the NTSB investigation. PG&E has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and could be fined $562 million.
Contact George Avalos at 408-859-5167. Follow him at Twitter.com/georgeavalos.
OBIT: Army Spc. James J. Coon, 22, Walnut Creek; killed by a sniper @dod @cia @army @marines
Army Spc. James J. Coon, 22, Walnut Creek; killed by a sniper
April 15, 2007|John M. Glionna | Times Staff Writer
James J. Coon went to war as a way to better his life, hoping to use his soldier's pay to one day buy a house.
SPC James Coon
Step Mom worked at Nordstrom
Was my tailor
Knows my sons and ex
Stracks, Driscolls and Marshalls
ALL KNOWN TO BENNETT
Once in Iraq, he was recognized for his heroism after he jumped from his Humvee in an effort to save two fellow soldiers seriously injured in a roadside bomb explosion.
Then, his family says, a sniper's bullet took his life.
The 22-year-old Army specialist from the San Francisco Bay Area city of Walnut Creek was killed April 4 while on patrol in Balad, north of Baghdad.
The Department of Defense initially listed his cause of death as a roadside bomb explosion. But a co lonel in Coon's unit called the family last week from Iraq to explain that their son had been shot in the head.
Coon's body was returned to his family Thursday.
The soldier's father, Jim, described his son as an outgoing youth who loved hip-hop music and dancing, and excelled in football and darts. Coon had won a national steel-tip dart championship in 2001 and traveled to England as a 16-year-old to represent the United States. He finished fifth.
At 6 feet 6, with a size 14 1/2 shoe, Coon also was a punter on his high school and college football teams. His real love, his father said, was popping wheelies on his motorcycle.
"He was a good athlete as tall as he was," his father said. "He could ride his motorcycle doing a wheelie from one county to the next, even using one hand.
"He was a happy-go-lucky and free-spirited kid without a care in the world. He made friends very easily. It was uncanny how easily he could do that."
Pat Lickiss, principal of Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek, said Coon was a "kid who always had a smile on his face. He was a really nice young man. And you can't say that about all kids these days. But you can about James."
Coon, who grew up in Walnut Creek, was practical about his future, his father said. He worked as a supermarket clerk and in a paint store and lawnmower shop. He figured that the military would be a good way to save enough money to buy his own home some day.
He enlisted in September 2005, right after his 21st birthday, and spent six months in Iraq before he was killed.
Jim Coon said he kept in regular touch with his son through e-mails, which the young soldier used to express his growing frustration with the war effort. In one e-mail, the soldier wrote about fighting what he called an unseen enemy: "Dad, I feel like we're fighting ghosts. There's nobody out here to fight."
His father offered support. "James didn't like what was going on in Iraq," he said. "He didn't want to be there. But he was a dedicated soldier who did what he was told."
Last month, Coon attempted a rescue near Baghdad. He was working as a gunner in the hatch of a Humvee on patrol when his unit was struck by a roadside bomb, his father said.
When several soldiers went to investigate, a second bomb detonated, wounding half a dozen men. "He heard them screaming for help, so James told his driver to hold his gun, and he went out, without cover, to help his fellow buddies," his father said. "One guy was a medic, the other a sergeant. He put tourniquets on them. Both later died."
Coon was nominated for a Bronze Star but couldn't understand the honor, his father said. "He said, 'Dad, they're calling me a hero, but all I did was what I thought was right. A lot of kids would have done the same thing.' "
Coon said he had lost his buddies, and that hurt. "He told me, 'The only good thing I had out of this whole thing was taken from me when both those guys passed away,' " his father said.
In a subsequent e-mail to his family, Coon wrote of a lingering depression. "I wanna come home so bad. I don't wanna play Army anymore," he wrote.
Jim Coon said he saw his son in February during a military leave. He will remember him as a big, strapping boy who had yet to figure out a direction in life.
"In his last e-mail, he said he'd die for his brothers, as he called them," his father said. "My boy didn't go down without a fight."
He said that he recently read an entry on his son's MySpace.com website in which he wrote: "My dad is for sure my hero. He is also my best friend."
Said his father: "When I saw that, it tore me up."
In addition to his father, Coon is survived by his stepmother, Marie Coon; two half sisters, Roxanna Coon and Samantha Lares; and his grandparents, Jack and Janet Stahl of Fairfield, Calif.
john.glionna@latimes.com
War casualties
Total U.S. deaths*:
* In and around Iraq**: 3,292
* In and around Afghanistan***: 313
* Other locations***: 61
Source: Department of Defense* Includes military and Department of Defense-employed civilian personnel killed in action and in nonhostile circumstances
**As of Friday
***As of April 7
