Just 2 Seconds (80 page)

1313.
Date: March 12, 2003
Target: Prime Minister Tony Blair
Location: London, England
Details: A man carrying a placard along Blair's motorcade route ran into the road, forcing Blair's car to stop. The man grabbed onto the car before being seized. In February 2001, the same man attempted a symbolic citizen's arrest of African Leader, President Mugabe.

1314.
Date: June 21, 2003
Target: Prince William
Location: London, England
Details: William was making a speech at his private birthday party at Windsor Castle when a man stumbled onto the stage and grabbed the microphone. Bodyguards dragged him away as he began shouting. The man, who was dressed in a pink gown and turban as the "comedy terrorist," was arrested. Earlier in the year, the same man grabbed the microphone from London Mayor Ken Livingstone at an anti-war rally.

1315.
Date: July 11, 2003
Target: President George W. Bush
Location: Uganda, Africa
Details: During Bush's visit to Africa, a man with no press credential or passport boarded a chartered United Airlines 747 carrying 130 members of the press. He boarded a bus used to transport the delegation to their hotel. When Secret Service agents became aware of him at the hotel, he was arrested and taken away.

1316.
Date: July 22, 2003
Target: Queen Elizabeth II
Details: A male guest at the queen's tea party removed his trousers while standing about ten yards from her. He then sprinted off and was tackled by security personnel.

1317.
Date: November 1, 2003
Target: President George W. Bush
Location: Southaven, Mississippi
Details: A woman drove her car past a police checkpoint at a civic center where Bush was speaking. She drove over the curb, through a gate, and rammed the building near a loading dock. Police and Secret Service agents swarmed the car with weapons drawn and took her and her three children into custody. The woman was charged with aggravated assault on two sheriff's deputies who attempted to stop her.

1318.
Date: November 2003
Target: Queen Elizabeth II
Location: London, England
Details: A
Daily Mirror
reporter exposed royal security lapses when he got a job at Buckingham Palace as a butler for two months. In a series of articles, he detailed daily royal life inside the palace and security preparations for the visit of President George W. Bush. One article was titled, "I Could Have Poisoned the Queen." He took numerous pictures of private areas, including a photo of himself next to a royal limousine with the caption: "I could have planted a bomb in this royal car." He had used bogus references to get the job.

1319.
Date: December 10, 2003
Target: Governor Jeb Bush
Location: Tallahassee, Florida
Details: Two men were arrested after stealing a car and crashing it through the gates of the governor's mansion. No one was injured in the incident.

1320.
Date: March 15, 2004
Target: President George W, Bush
Location: Ontario, California
Details: A young man who claimed to be a Secret Service agent was arrested after attempting to enter a secure area at the Ontario International Airport. The man attempted to drive his vehicle through a gate that had opened as police officers drove through. The gate closed before the man could follow them through. He claimed he was on the security detail for Bush and needed to catch a plane. He was dressed in a black suit with pilot's wings and sunglasses. Two days before, he had been cited for trespassing on a naval air station in Imperial County. He was also interviewed in May 2003 when he attempted to gain access to a restricted rooftop of a hotel in Las Vegas.

1321.
Date: April 21, 2004
Target: Prime Minister John Howard
Location: Victoria, Australia
Details: As Howard mingled with people at a garden tea party, security agents confronted a man who wasn't wearing a credential. The man head-butted the agent, giving him a bloody nose. Other police and agents handcuffed the man and took him away. He yelled about how the Court was torturing his children. He was charged with assault.

1322.
Date: April 27, 2004
Target: President Moammar Gadhafi
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Details: Wearing an earpiece and a lapel badge, a man gained access to Gadhafi from behind as Gadhafi was shaking hands with Commission President Romano Prodi during an official visit. As the man tried to hand Gadhafi a letter, a Belgium security agent grabbed him and dragged him away.

1323.
Date: May 18, 2004
Target: Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
Location: Mannheim, Germany
Details: Schroeder was seated behind a table signing autographs at a campaign event. A man lunged across the table and slapped him in the face. Four bodyguards subdued the man and police took him into custody.

1324.
Date: May 27, 2004
Target: Governor Sila Calderon
Location: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Details: A man who had lost his government job and had contacted the governor's office several times to demand help, made his way into the Mansion. He took a staff person hostage, holding a knife to her throat and demanding to talk to the governor. Police negotiated with the man during the three-hour standoff. The Governor agreed to hear the man's demands. SWAT officers led her to the door of the room, where a SWAT officer read a letter the man provided. The man then demanded to see the governor to verify she was there. They opened the door and the man laid his knife down and was taken into custody. He had previously been arrested for robbery and car theft.

1325.
Date: June 16, 2004
Target: President Jacques Chirac
Location: Paris, France
Details: French power workers cut electricity to Chirac's official residence in a series of targeted outages.

1326.
Date: August 16, 2004
Target: Olympic Games
Location: Athens, Greece
Details: A Canadian man dressed in a tutu and clown shoes mounted a diving platform and dove into the pool, during a synchronized diving event. He was grabbed by security and taken away. It was an embarrassing breach of security, since Athens was spending $1.4 billion to provide security for the games.

1327.
Date: September 13, 2004
Target: Queen Elizabeth II
Location: London, England
Details: A protester dressed in a Batman costume scaled the front wall of Buckingham Palace and stood on a ledge near the balcony where the royal family appears on ceremonial occasions. He hung a banner calling for greater custody rights for divorced or separated fathers. No member of the royal family was in the palace at the time.

1328.
Date: October 7, 2004
Target: Actor Mel Gibson
Location: Malibu, California
Details: A man was arrested after showing up at Gibson's home in violation of a restraining order. The man had visited Gibson's Malibu home and church, demanding that the star pray with him. He also sent several threatening letters to Gibson, insisting the two pray together. Sinclair was arrested after the second visit to Gibson's home. Sinclair was found guilty of stalking and sent to a mental hospital for evaluation.

1329.
Date: November 15, 2004
Target: President George W. Bush
Location: Washington, D.C.
Details: A man approached the northwest guardhouse at the White House and asked security officers to deliver a note to Bush. The officers turned him away. He stepped about 15 feet away and used a lighter to ignite his jacket. Secret Service officers wrestled him to the ground and doused the flames with a fire extinguisher. He was taken to Washington Hospital Center, where he was listed in critical condition with burns over 30 percent of his body. The man was an informant with the FBI in a terrorism investigation and was upset because they would not allow him to leave the country and return to his family in Yemen. Hours later, another man jumped the fence onto the White House grounds. He was tackled by uniformed officers and taken away.

1330.
Date: December 6, 2004
Target: Mayor Coleen Seng
Location: Lincoln, Nebraska
Details: A small amount of potentially dangerous mercury spilled from an anonymous letter sent to the mayor's office. The mercury landed on the skirt of a worker there and on the floor. Two chairs and a patch of carpet were removed from the office as a precaution. A second mercury-laced letter was sent to the police chief, but was not opened. No injuries resulted from the letters.

1331.
Date: January 18, 2005
Target: President George W. Bush
Location: Washington, D.C.
Details: Lowell Timmers reportedly drove a van to the Secret Service security shack near the White House. He claimed to have 15 gallons of gasoline and a triggering device. Guns drawn, Secret Service personnel swarmed around the van. The man refused to leave the vehicle, and authorities decided to retreat in hopes of ending the standoff peacefully. They set up a perimeter to control a potential bomb blast and used robotic equipment to deliver a telephone to the man, which was used during negotiations. Finally, he walked out of the van and into police custody. He was charged with making threats. Police said they found "devices" that appeared to be hazardous in the van, and bomb technicians deactivated them.

1332.
Date: January 23, 2005
Target: Actress Nicole Kidman
Location: Sydney, Australia
Details: A Sydney court ordered celebrity photographer Jamie Fawcett to give a DNA sample to police investigating the apparent bugging of Kidman's home. The bug was found outside the actress' home during a search by her security staff. Kidman was granted a restraining order against Fawcett and another Sydney photographer, Ben McDonald, earlier in the year after providing testimony that the pair was hounding her so much that she was afraid to leave her home.

1333.
Date: January 31, 2005
Target: Oregon Legislators
Location: Salem, Oregon
Details: A man ran into the State Senate chamber yelling obscenities, and then sat at the podium. He demanded to speak with the governor and talked about "housing problems." He was charged with criminal mischief and menacing and disorderly conduct and taken to a hospital for a mental evaluation.

1334.
Date: April 6, 2005
Target: Queen Elizabeth II
Location: London, England
Details: An undercover reporter and his photographer rented a van, put on coveralls, and used a fake delivery note to trick police into letting them drive their van near Queen Elizabeth's apartment at Windsor Castle. The van carried a box with the word "bomb" printed on it. The breach took place three days before the royal wedding between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. On April 3, two tourists climbed a fence at Windsor Castle to reach an area near the queen's rooms. British police ordered an inquiry to investigate the security breeches and two security officers were reportedly removed from duty.

1335.
Date: April 8, 2005
Target: Vnesheconombank Vice Chairman Yury Zaostrovtsev
Location: Moscow, Russia
Details: Police received a call saying that an object "which looks like a bomb" had been discovered on a car with police number plates. Wires stuck out from the oval-shaped object attached to the car's hood. The device also had a flashing light diode. Bomb disposal experts determined that the device was a fake.

1336.
Date: April 11, 2005
Target: U.S. Capitol
Location: Washington, D.C.
Details: A man showed up at the White House on April 9 and asked to speak to President Bush. Later in the day, the man rolled two suitcases to a fountain on the west side of the Capitol Building. A Capitol Police officer approached him and the man again asked to speak to the president. Worried that the man might be a suicide bomber, the officer called for help, which triggered a massive police response and shut down some streets and tours of the Capitol for three hours. A Capitol Police SWAT team charged and tackled the man, taking him into custody. Neither of the bags turned out to contain explosives.

1337.
Date: April 15, 2005
Target: Chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov
Location: Moscow, Russia
Details: Kasparov was attending a meeting with young opposition activists. A fan asked him to autograph his chessboard, then struck him over the head with it, causing a bruise. The man attempted to hit him again, but was dragged away by security personnel.

1338.
Date: April 22, 2005
Target: Supreme Court Justices and Others
Location: Washington, DC
Details: A woman mailed 14 threatening letters -- each with a baked item or piece of candy laced with rat poison -- to a variety of federal officials: the nine Supreme Court justices; FBI Director Robert Mueller; his deputy; the chief of naval operations; the Air Force chief of staff and the chief of staff of the Army. Each envelope contained a one-page typewritten letter stating either "I am" or "We are," followed by "going to kill you. This is poisoned." All the letters were intercepted at mail facilities, where handlers noticed the contents leaking through the package. The perpetrator was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison.

1339.
Date: April 26, 2005
Target: Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott
Location: Hull, Great Britain
Details: Greenpeace protesters used ladders to stage a demonstration on the roof of Prescott's house. Eight of the group's members installed two solar panels on the roof. Security officers reportedly challenged the protesters, and then withdrew when they realized it was a non-violent situation.

1340.
Date: May 16, 2005
Target: Arizona Capitol Building
Location: Phoenix, Arizona
Details: A Senate page found a package near a tree about 100 feet from the southeast corner of the state Senate building. The packaged was wrapped with tape and marked "bomb" and "6 p.m." The Senate, House, and Department of Economic Security were evacuated, and adjacent streets were shut down. Bomb-sniffing dogs searched the House and Senate buildings, but no explosives were found. A DPS robot examined the package, fired a blast of water into it, and found it did not contain any explosives.

1341.
Date: May 20, 2005
Target: Governor Bill Richardson
Location: Sante Fe, New Mexico
Details: The director of mail operations for Richardson's office opened an envelope containing white powder and a letter threatening the governor. The Capitol Building was closed and the powder was tested by an FBI lab, which determined it to be harmless.