Read Just 2 Seconds Online

Authors: Gavin de Becker,Thomas A. Taylor,Jeff Marquart

Just 2 Seconds (79 page)

1282.
Date: March 23, 1998
Target: President Bill Clinton
Location: Accra, Africa
Details: Clinton spoke to a crowd of about 250,000 people and then walked down to a rope line to shake hands. At one point, the crowd surged forward, crushing those in front. Clinton waved his arms, screaming "Back up!" Earlier, police used belts and clubs to beat back people from the motorcade route.

1283.
Date: April 26, 1998
Target: Former President Gerald Ford
Location: New York, New York
Details: Secret Service agents grabbed a waiter with a pistol at a restaurant where Ford was dining. The man was carrying a loaded .38, which he said he had because he was distraught.

1284.
Date: April 28, 1998
Target: Governor Mike Huckabee
Location: Little Rock, Arkansas
Details: About 250 protesters, complaining about welfare reform, stormed the hall where he was supposed to speak. They pounded their fists on Huckabee's vehicle as he fled the conference. Huckabee added security at other appearances later that day.

1285.
Date: September 13, 1998
Target: Prime Minister Fatos Nano
Location: Tirana, Kosovo
Details: About 2,000 Democratic Party supporters stormed the government's offices and set fire to the ground floor and nearby cars. Nano and several other ministers fled their offices amid a hail of gunfire. One protester was killed and four guards were wounded in the shoot-out. On the following day, shooting broke out between protesters outside Nano's offices and persons inside. Guards sent supporters fleeing amid a hail of bullets, wounding at least three demonstrators. Protesters then threw several grenades into the building, causing explosions.

1286.
Date: November 15, 1998
Target: Parliament Members
Location: Jakarta, Indonesia
Details: An estimated 20,000 pro-democracy students rioted in the capitol. At least 16 were killed and hundreds injured. Twelve-hundred had reportedly been killed during previous riots.

1287.
Date: December 30, 1998
Target: Governor Mike Huckabee
Location: Little Rock, Arkansas
Details: When wheelchair-bound protesters clogged Huckabee's front office, his bodyguards recommended that he escape using a wooden ladder to climb down the old Capitol dumbwaiter shaft. The troopers were criticized for having no coordinated response to Capitol protesters. A diagram of the escape route was published in the local newspaper.

1288.
Date: July 29, 1999
Target: President Bill Clinton
Location: Rabat, Morocco
Details: Clinton and 40 heads of state attended the funeral for King Hassan. Clinton walked in the funeral cortege for two to three miles through the city streets, with thousands of mourners pressing in from both sides. The Secret Service struggled to provide adequate protection and keep unscreened crowds back.

1289.
Date: March 1, 1999
Target: Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Details: Shouting "traitor," a man rushed up and struck Nakasone while he was attending a funeral. Police grabbed the man.

1290.
Date: September 5, 1999
Target: Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
Location: Berlin, Germany
Details: Students making a film about a killer brandishing a gun on the balcony of a high-rise apartment block had a shock when police burst in, fearing an assassination attempt on Schroeder. Schroeder was meeting party leaders in a building across the street when his bodyguards spotted the rifle barrel on the 10th floor balcony and raised the alarm. The rifle was a fake, but the police confiscated it anyway before allowing the students to continue making their film.

1291.
Date: November 20, 1999
Target: President Bill Clinton
Location: Athens, Greece
Details: Anti-American demonstrators burned stores and banks on Clinton's Friday night arrival in the Greek capital, but the streets were quiet on Saturday. Shortly after the plane left Athens, Larry Cockell, the president's top bodyguard, took the highly unusual step of asking all aboard to examine their belongings, because there had been a threat. Security always is tight on Air Force One, but veteran travelers on the presidential plane could not recall ever being asked to search their bags while the plane was in the air. Even senior staff members were required to go through their bags. Nothing unusual was found.

1292.
Date: December 1, 1999
Target: President Bill Clinton and Governor Tom Vilsack
Location: Seattle, Washington
Details: Authorities imposed a curfew in Seattle as police fired tear gas in clashes with demonstrators. Police temporarily sealed off a downtown hotel with Clinton inside as clashes erupted nearby. There were 400 arrests of demonstrators. Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack was being driven to a WTO meeting, but found the road blocked by protesters and decided to walk. Two Iowa troopers and two Washington troopers escorted him. The crowd initially showed no inclination toward violence, until his contingent was in the midst of the demonstrators, and people began to scream at them. A trooper moved to protect Vilsack, and was hit, kicked, and punched by the crowd. Protesters pummeled one state trooper bending over Vilsack to protect him. The other troopers pulled Vilsack from the crowd, and he was hustled back to his hotel room.

1293.
Date: December 31, 1999
Target: Singer Celine Dion
Location: Montreal, Canada
Details: Dion had just left the stage during her New Year's Eve concert when an obsessed fan attempted to follow her to the dressing room. Security guards stopped him. Later, when she left her dressing room, the fan lunged in her direction, but was again stopped. He pulled a 300,000-volt stun gun and shocked three bodyguards before he was overpowered and arrested. Dion was not injured.

1294.
Date: September 4, 2000
Target: First Lady Hillary Clinton
Location: New York, New York
Details: A woman bit a Secret Service agent who had intervened to prevent her approach to Mrs. Clinton. The agent went to the hospital for treatment and the woman was arrested and charged with second-degree assault.

1295.
Date: October 5, 2000
Target: President Slobodan Milosevic
Location: Belgrade, Yugoslavia
Details: Protesters commandeered a dredging machine and used it to break through the Parliament building's front door. The protesters were trying to force the resignation of Milosevic. Thousands of protesters seized the building and set several fires.

1296.
Date: October 30, 2000
Target: Singer Moon Unit Zappa
Location: Santa Ana, California
Details: FBI agents arrested Timothy Mark Brownfield for allegedly threatening to kill Zappa. A federal grand jury indicted Brownfield after he allegedly mailed a package of documents to the FBI's Santa Ana office in which he threatened to kill Zappa, although the threat "was not terribly detailed." Brownfield reportedly wrote that he was angry with Zappa and her late father, Frank Zappa, for stealing the lyrics to the 1982 song "Valley Girl" from him.

1297.
Date: November 18, 2000
Target: Governor George W. Bush
Location: Austin, Texas
Details: Two Capitol Police officers on foot patrol around the Governor's Mansion tried to stop a pickup truck driven by a drunken man, who tried to run them over. The officers fired five shots at the truck, but the man continued on. Police found the truck a few blocks away with the man passed out inside, and he was arrested. No one was injured.

1298.
Date: December 28, 2000
Target: Queen Elizabeth II
Location: London, England
Details: A man paraglided into the forecourt of Buckingham Palace as a publicity stunt for his Internet company. Police arrested him. A police helicopter had pursued the motorized parachute across central London before it landed, and police were waiting to make the arrest.

1299.
Date: January 16, 2001
Target: Governor Gray Davis and State Legislators
Location: Sacramento, California
Details: A man drove a tractor-trailer onto the Capitol grounds. After circling the building, he accelerated to 70 mph, jumped the curb, and crashed into the Capitol building. His truck exploded into flames, killing him. The legislature was in session, but no one was injured. The Capitol sustained $16.5 million in damages.

1300.
Date: January 20, 2001
Target: President-elect George W. Bush
Location: Washington, D.C.
Details: Richard Weaver, known as the "Handshake Man," followed VIPs through two checkpoints around the U.S. Capitol, entering the presidential inauguration ceremony without a ticket. He later approached Bush, shook his hand, and slipped a coin into his hand along with a note that said, "Keep Christ first and he will grant you another miracle victory in 4 years." Weaver had slipped into previous high-security events, including both of President Clinton's inaugurals. Secret Service agents interviewed him after Clinton's second inaugural in 1997. Feeling that Weaver would attempt another stunt, they circulated his photo to Bush's inaugural detail, but he still made it through.

1301.
Date: February 23, 2001
Target: Governor Rick Perry and Legislators
Location: Austin, Texas
Details: A man tried twice to park his pickup truck in a restricted zone at the State Capitol Building and was asked to move by security guards. He circled the building twice before veering off and crashing through a gate. He stopped his truck about 150 yards from the building, got out waving his arms and yelling, "Fire!" and tried to put a lit cigarette into his truck's gas tank. He was seized by police and held for mental examination.

1302.
Date: March 6, 2001
Target: Actress Pamela Anderson
Location: Malibu, California
Details: Police arrested a woman after she was reportedly discovered sleeping inside Anderson's house. The woman was reportedly spotted on Anderson's property a few weeks before. She confessed to being infatuated with the actress, pleaded guilty to breaking and entering, and was sentenced to return to her home country of France. Anderson was reportedly home at the time of the break-in and called police.

1303.
Date: June 12, 2001
Target: Celebrity Michael Skupin
Location: Columbia, Missouri
Details: Skupin was at an event promoting workplace safety, when a PETA activist doused him in the face with pepper spray. Several other people, including some children, were also sprayed. The activist was arrested on three counts of assault. Skupin had been one of the contestants in the "Survivor -- The Australian Outback" series, and the activist was protesting that Skupin had killed and eaten a pig on the show.

1304.
Date: June 13, 2001
Target: President George W. Bush
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Details: About 30 Greenpeace environmental activists chained themselves together to block an exit at the military airfield where Bush arrived to attend a NATO summit. His motorcade left the airport by another exit.

1305.
Date: July 7, 2001
Target: Mayor Paul Schell
Location: Seattle, Washington
Details: Schell was making a speech while a black activist used a megaphone to loudly criticize the police shooting of a black man on May 31. Schell attempted to talk to the man, but the protester struck him in the face with the megaphone, breaking bones above and below Schell's eye. He was taken to the hospital and the activist was arrested for assault.

1306.
Date: July 12, 2001
Target: Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Details: While Koizumi made a speech about upcoming elections, a middle-aged man stabbed himself in the abdomen with a knife less than 20 yards away, attempting to commit suicide. Police disarmed the man, rushed him to a hospital and he survived. He was reportedly a member of a far right activist group.

1307.
Date: July 31, 2001
Target: Prime Minister Tony Blair
Location: Sao Paulo, Brazil
Details: Blair entered the Botanical Garden and prepared to have his photograph taken. Two Greenpeace protesters tried to push past security guards, apparently to give Blair a letter. One got within a yard of him before being wrestled to the ground.

1308.
Date: November 8, 2001
Target: Prince Charles
Location: Riga, Latvia
Details: Charles was laying a wreath at the Freedom Monument, and approached a crowd to chat. An anti-war protester slapped him around the face with a rose. The prince ducked and tried to fend off the woman. The woman was arrested

1309.
Date: March 2, 2002
Target: Prime Minister Tony Blair
Location: London, England
Details: Blair's office received one of 16 packages containing bottles of caustic soda disguised as eucalyptus aromatherapy products, mailed to public figures and their staffs. Security at Blair House discovered the packages after police passed along a telephone warning from the militant group Scottish National Liberation Army (SNLA). In 2001, the same group had sent a bogus anthrax letter to a university shortly before Prince William began attending there.

1310.
Date: March 31, 2002
Target: President George W. Bush
Location: Chattanooga, Tennessee
Details: A man called police from a pay phone and said he had "a 3,000-pound bomb," adding he had a problem and "the president had a problem." Police spotted the man's truck and chased Branch for 20 miles before they punctured the truck's tires and arrested him. A search of the truck revealed no bombs, though it was loaded with propane. In custody, the man continued to threaten Bush, saying that he was going to "blow him up."

1311.
Date: May 7, 2002
Target: Queen Elizabeth II
Location: Newcastle, England
Details: A streaker ran nude past the queen's car while she was on her way to a dedication ceremony. Police arrested him.

1312.
Date: February 6, 2003
Target: President George W. Bush
Location: Washington, D.C.
Details: Richard Weaver, nicknamed the "Handshake Man," made his way without a ticket into the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton Hotel. He found an empty seat near the head table where Bush was seated with several other dignitaries. During the event, he unhooked a rope in front of the head table and handed Bush an eight-page typed "message from God" about Iraq. Secret Service agents escorted him away and questioned him in his hotel room. He was not charged.

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