I'm reminded of that old saw from my college days by the is-it-a-terrorist-or-just-harassment-raid of several apartments in Queens yesterday by the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
I'm not privy to any inside information, so I, we, have to take the authorities at their words - that they were conducting anti-terror raids, and, they're sorry, but they can't say anything more about it.
Top secret. Hush hush. National security. Need to know. Blah blah blah.
Ok, they're The Man, and to a large extent we have given them wide berth to do their jobs. Lawd knows they'd get grief if there were another huge terrorist attack on U.S. soil and they had done nothing to follow the clues leading up to it, ala Sept. 11.
I get it.
But there have been no arrests, no charges, no nothing from yesterday's raids. The people inside, we're told, operate food pushcarts around the city. And cops didn't find the potential homemade explosive materials they went in looking for. So what does that say?
There have also been no voices of outrage from the family or neighbors. And what does that say?
It's all quite curious. Perhaps we'll find out the truth at some point - we usually do. For now, all we know is that there seems to be some kind of tension, again, between the FBI and the NYPD; that information about the raids or the supposed plot to blow something up was somehow leaked; and that counterterrorism officials have, coincidental to the raids or not, suddenly started warning police departments around the country to be on guard for evidence of homemade bombs.
Were some of these folks in contact with an Al Qaeda suspect? That's the implication.
Tonight at 11, we'll have the latest on the raids and the warnings.
We're also following new developments in the murder of Annie Le, the Yale University grad student whose body was found hidden in the wall of a medical lab.
And a curious development this afternoon - the Connecticut Medical Examiner was set to release the cause of death; but then New Haven prosecutors asked that the cause of death be withheld to facilitate the investigation.
Hmmm. I'm no homicide investigator, one has to wonder if certain information is known only to the killer, and authorities are loathe to release it. They have been questioning a "person of interest" in the murder. We'll have the latest at 11.
Also at 11, we have primary election night results - from Mayor of New York City, to Comptroller to Public Advocate to Manhattan District Attorney. We have Eyewitness News reporters with all of the major candidates, for complete coverage, tonight at 11. You can also get results after the polls close on 7online.com along with live coverage of some of the speeches.
We'll also have any breaking news of the night, plus Lee Goldberg's AccuWeather forecast, and Scott Clark with the night's sports. I hope you can join Liz Cho and me, tonight at 11.
BILL RITTER
