Thread: Port of Miami is safe' officials say after scare

Port of Miami is safe' officials say after scare
POSTED: 7:48 p.m. EST, January 7, 2007
Story Highlights
• NEW: Incident blamed partly on "language barrier"
• Incident unrelated to terrorism, officials said
• FBI still questioning three who tried to enter port
• Police: truck driven by 20-year-old Iraqi did not have correct paperwork


MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- The Port of Miami is safe said police after investigating three men who tried to enter a secure area in a truck without proper documentation.

"After a thorough investigation we are here to tell you that the Port of Miami is safe," said Lt. Nancy Goldberg, a spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade Police Department.

"At no time was the port closed. All cargo and cruise operations continued uninterrupted," she said.

FBI agents were still questioning the men Sunday evening, but a law enforcement source told CNN the incident does not appear to be related to terrorism.

About 8 a.m. the driver of an 18-wheeler loaded with electrical supplies approached the port's main entrance.

The driver, a 20-year-old Iraqi, was unable to produce required paperwork to enter the port, according Goldberg. (Watch local and federal authorities answer questions about the incident Video)

The driver did not have the standard seaport-issued identification card, she said.

The security officer then directed the man to pick up a one-day pass from a nearby inspection station.

At the inspection station, a Miami-Dade police officer discovered two other men in the cab of the truck.

The discovery sparked alarm, and the three men were detained.

Goldberg disputed an earlier report that the two other men in the cab of the truck had been hiding, but said the driver had initially told the security guard he was alone.

She added, "Apparently, there was some sort of miscommunication between them; maybe it could have been a language barrier."

The men in the truck -- who are lawful permanent U.S. residents -- speak "some English," she said.

Two had Michigan driver's licenses, but the third had no identification, which "raised our level of concern," she said. Two of the men are brothers and the third is a friend. All three work for a company in Dearborn, Michigan, she said. She did not disclose the name of the company.

Once the other two passengers were discovered port authorities exercised "an abundance of caution" and called in federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Coast Guard and the FBI, Goldberg said.

While the men were questioned by the FBI, port officials used a gamma-ray scanner to examine the truck's cargo. They determined the contents of the container -- 22 pallets of electrical automotive parts -- matched the truck's paperwork, Goldberg said.

Earlier, a federal law enforcement source told CNN that the contents did not match the required paperwork.

Goldberg credited "checks and balances at the port" for resolving in a few hours what "would have taken us three or four days" in years past.

None of the men have been charged with anything yet, she said.

Sunday is typically a busy day for cruise ships at the port: Passengers come ashore from ships in the morning and new passengers arrive for late afternoon departures.

CNN's Susan Candiotti and Patrick Oppmann contributed to this story.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/07/miami.port/index.html

Yeah, language barrier, that's all it was, nothing to see here folks, move along, move along.

It just shows that Miami is indeed a third world country. This just proves that people must learn English as it can be a real security threat. They have not said anything about the security guards. If they did not understand the man then they should have got someone else to check it out.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070108/ap_ ... y_incident

Charges dropped in Miami port scare

By ADRIAN SAINZ, Associated Press Writer
34 minutes ago


MIAMI - A judge Monday dropped all charges against three Middle Eastern men whose miscommunication with guards at the Port of Miami had sparked a terrorism scare.

Officials initially said that the three men were caught trying to slip past a security checkpoint in a cargo truck on Sunday and that the driver had said he was alone. Federal investigators and a bomb squad were called in, and authorities eventually determined the freight was harmless.

Even though Miami-Dade Police said the problem was a miscommunication, driver Amar Al Hadad, 28, was still charged with resisting an officer without violence, and his passengers, Hussain Al Hadad, 24, and Hassan El Sayed, 20, were charged with trespassing.

Court records show a judge dismissed all the charges on Monday and the men were released.

The three are permanent U.S. residents from Iraq and Lebanon who live in Dearborn, Mich.

Miami-Dade County police declined to comment on the judge's decision. Authorities said no federal charges were expected.

The scare started when a port security officer became suspicious because the truck's driver couldn't produce proper paperwork during a routine inspection to enter the port Sunday morning, said Miami-Dade police spokeswoman Nancy Goldberg.

"Due to a miscommunication between the gate security personnel and the truck driver, we believe there was a discrepancy in the number of people in the vehicle," Goldberg said. "This, and the fact that one of the individuals did not have any form of ID, raised our level of concern."

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security were called to the scene, along with federal and local law enforcers, "in an abundance of caution," Goldberg said.

The truck's contents — electrical automotive parts in a 40-foot container — matched the driver's cargo manifest, she said.

The three men did not appear on any terrorist watch list, said Barbara Gonzalez, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman.

The Port of Miami is among the nation's busiest. More than 3.6 million cruise ship passengers traveled through in 2005, making it the world's top terminal for cruise vacationers. Its seaport services more than 30 ocean carriers, which delivered more than 1 million cargo containers there in 2005.

Bomb squad investigating positive test for explosives at Port of Miami

There is no story yet but this is the breaking news on MSNBC as of right now.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

Story act's like it is not related.


Miami port investigates ‘suspicious’ package
MSNBC cable reports package tested positive for the explosive C-4

MIAMI - Officials at the Port of Miami were investigating a "suspicious" package found near a terminal on Monday.

MSNBC cable reported that the package tested positive for the explosive C-4.

Scanning instruments detected an anomaly on a pallet being removed from a truck, and the Miami-Dade County Police bomb squad was sent to the busy cruise and cargo port for further investigation, spokesman Roy Rutland said.

The U.S. Coast Guard requested the cruise ship Majesty of the Seas be moved as part of the investigation, and the Federal Aviation Administration asked television helicopters to move back from the scene.

The cruise ship had been loading passengers for a four-day cruise.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16528857/

Last thing I heard is that the charges were dropped. I really want to find out about the security guards and how well they speak English. Nothing much has been said about them. I like what channel 4 in Miami called this incident: "The Circus at the Port of Miami."