Police imposter visiting Ontario area hospitals--UPDATE: MAN ARRESTED
CAN YOU IDENTIFY THIS MAN?
UPDATE: 2 April 2007: The 23 year-old man who impersonated OPP officers turned himself in to authorities through his lawyer yesterday. According to OPP authorities, four charges are pending against the man, whose name has not yet been released.
1 April 2007: It’s no April fool’s joke. An unidentified male dressed in a complete Ontario Provincial Police uniform, pictured above (facing camera), has visited the emergency departments of at least seven-(7) hospitals in the greater Toronto, Ontario Canada in the last 36 hours, asking “probing†and “disturbing†questions of the staff. The exact nature of the man’s questions is not being disclosed, but OPP officials are very concerned about the man’s motives. The police imposter has been spotted at St. Michael's Hospital, The Hospital for Sick Children, and Trillium Health Centre in Mississauga and others in the GTA.
Since 9/11, hospitals have known to have been on the short list of terrorists’ targets. In October, 2005 Waseem MUGHAL, 22, of Railway Street, Chatham, UK was arrested for terror related offenses, noting that he possessed a piece of paper on his person with the words "hospital attack" written on the paper. Last year, four British men were arrested at the Stafford District General Hospital located in central UK under the Terrorism Act of 2000 related to a potential attack against hospitals.
In the US, there have been numerous and persistent reports of suspicious activity, including but not limited to surveillance of hospital operations at medical facilities throughout the United States since 2001. Many of these instances, according to a 2004 FBI bulletin and follow-up reports, indicate that suspected Islamic terrorist operatives in the US could be targeting veteran’s hospitals specifically, due to their association with the military and a perception that such an attack may be more successful than an attack against traditional military targets.
All hospitals in the US and Canada are urged to be extremely cautious. Anyone with information on the man pictured above is urged to contact the Ontario Provincial Police.