Chicago police foils terror attack ahead of NATO Summit

May 20, 2012 |

Washington

Tags:

Three members of the 'Black Bloc' group have been arrested in President Barack Obama's hometown Chicago on charges of allegedly plotting terror attacks during the key NATO Summit in the city.

Nearly 60 world leaders have gathered in Chicago for the Summit beginning today, aimed at charting out a road map of international support to Afghanistan post-2014.

The trio were also planning to attack the headquarters of the Obama Campaign in Chicago, the home of Chicago Mayor Ram Emanuel and police stations, authorities said.

The three men -- Brian Church (22) from Florida, Jared Chase (27) from New Hampshire and Brent Betterly (24) who told police that he is from Massachusetts, were produced before a court on Saturday. An Illinois judge set bails for each of the three suspect of USD 1.5 million.

The three were charged with material support for terrorism; conspiracy to commit terrorism; and possession of explosives or explosive or incendiary devices.

According to prosecutors, the investigation began in May, and revealed that the defendants are self-proclaimed anarchists and members of the 'Black Bloc' group, who travelled together from Florida to the Chicago in preparation for committing terror acts and destruction directed against different targets in protest to the NATO Summit.

According to prosecutors, plans were made to attack four police stations with destructive devices, in an effort to undermine the police response to the conspirators' other planned actions for the NATO Summit.

All three men will plead not guilty at an arraignment set for May 26, said Sarah Gelsomino, an attorney at the National Lawyers Guild.

The 'Black Bloc' members wear black clothing and face- concealing items during protests to hide their identities and appear as one large unified mass.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/153481" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-18290847ff51fb9037c4c11d22573526" value="form-18290847ff51fb9037c4c11d22573526" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80930597" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>