June 1, 2002
Cryptome reports:
This is how a military investigation of an anthrax hoax has been used to harass and intimidate an innocent teacher of disabled children on a US Army base.
The setting is Fort Carson Army Base in Colorado where in January of this year an unknown person mailed an envelope containing Bisquick mix to Carson Middle School located on the base. (Local news report below.) This led to a scrub down of several persons who feared contamination by anthrax. Laboratory tests later showed the substance was Bisquick. An investigation was begun by the FBI and Army investigators, however the party who mailed the letter remains unidentified.
Yesterday, May 31, 2002, the last day of classes at Carson Middle School, Special Agent Duane Mitchell, a US Army investigator on the case, asked to meet with a special education teacher at the school. (The teacher has asked that her name not be published.) The principal of the school, Phyllis Wannemacher, requested by the school's loudspeaker that the teacher come to her office. The teacher went to the school office and there met the principal who said someone in the office wanted to interview the teacher for a job.
Agent Mitchell, in civilian clothes, after identifying himself, told the teacher he was investigating the January anthrax hoax and that the teacher was a suspect. Amazed, the teacher laughed and asked who had made that ridiculous allegation, and Mitchell said he could not tell her that. He said that he wanted to question her about the incident, and that the interview would be the basis of a report that would be filed with the FBI locally as well as in Washington, DC.
Upon hearing that the interview would become an FBI file, the teacher asked if she would be able to get a copy of the interview notes as well as Agent Mitchell's report. Mitchell said no, that she could get the documents only by making a Freedom of Information request to FBI headquarters after the report was filed.
The teacher then said that she would need to have someone present during the interview. Mitchell said that having another person present during the interview was not permissible, that he must speak to the teacher alone.
The teacher left the room and invited the school counselor to witness the interview. Mitchell refused to conduct the interview with the counselor present.
The teacher then called her union, Pikes Peak Educational Association, based in Colorado Springs, CO (telephone 719-635-5694), and arranged to have a union representative, Misty Hart, come to the school to witness the interview. Again, Mitchell refused to conduct the interview with Ms. Hart present.
The teacher told Mitchell that she would not participate in the interview alone, and after getting additional information from Agent Mitchell about himself, Mitchell left without interviewing the teacher. Mitchell's data:
Duane L. Mitchell
Criminal Investigation Command
48 MP Det.
Building 1816
Fort Carson, C) 80910
Tel: 719-526-4258
Fax: 719-526-4258/2830
Pager: 719-279-3698
E-mail: duane.mitchell@carson.army.mil
The teacher subsequently consulted with an attorney who advised that she was fully justified in not taking part in the interview alone and that she should not do so in the future. Also, that Agent Mitchell was in error for not allowing a witness participate. But that investigators make that claim to isolate and dominate a person.
On the teacher's reputation: She has an excellent record of 8 years teaching special education to intellectually disabled and severe-needs students. She has earned two masters degrees in education. She also tutors disabled students in math and reading during off hours, both for pay and as unpaid volunteer. Students' parents praise her work highly. She has consistently received favorable teacher evaluations during her career, including those from Carson Middle School.
However, over the past year the teacher has suffered sustained harassment from the Carson Middle School principal, Ms. Wannemacher, culminating in Wannemacher firing the teacher in early May this year without explanation -- under the school's teaching contracts firing may occur without grounds. (The principal herself is leaving Carson Middle School to take another position in Aspen, CO).
The teacher, aggrieved over the unexplained termination, wrote Dr. Dale Dosser, Superintendent of El Paso County School District, which has jurisdiction over Carson Middle School, to ask for an explanation for the firing. Dr. Dosser said the principal wanted to find "a more suitable person" -- a pat phrase of Wannemacher's (and fatuous authorities everywhere) -- for the teacher's position.
Nothing about the anthrax matter has ever been connected to the teacher and previously she has not been questioned about it. The matter has not been prominent in the school in recent months.
The teacher believes that it was Principal Wannemacher who named her as a suspect in the anthrax hoax, perhaps encouraged by Dosser. And that it was done to intimidate her into not pursuing the firing or to head off action by her union. A number of summary firings have taken place at the school and the teacher believes that officials of the school and its district, as well as the US military are apprehensive that they will become targets of a broad complaint of unfair employment practices. Thus, harassment of those terminated has become a pattern of anticipating the need for ammunition for future undermining of claims of unfair treatment.
This behavior on the part of the school system, and its military backer, amounts to political and social intimidation of individuals who are not given credible reasons for termination. School officials are improperly using federal investigators to harass and intimidate persons who have been discharged for undisclosed reasons in order to inhibit those persons' future complaints.
This smearing by Wannemacher, and likely Dosser, of an innocent person, using the majesty of military investigative powers, for vindictive personal reasons and for covering professional ineptitude is outrageous and surely illegal under civil and military law.
Shame on the mighty US military, Fort Carson and the Colorado school system for allowing this travesty.
[Article purchased from the archives of The Gazette.]
The Gazette
Colorado Springs, Colo.
Jan 12, 2002
Investigations go on into substances sent to school, air base
Abstract:
The latest occurred Thursday when an envelope filled with a white powder was delivered to Carson Middle School. El Paso County health officials examined the starchlike powder, determining it was not anthrax or any other biological hazard. But the school was closed Friday because of the scare and will reopen Monday. FBI agents and Fort Carson officials are investigating.
Full Text:
Copyright Freedom Newspapers, Inc. Jan 12, 2002
Federal authorities are looking into two recent incidents involving powder in envelopes on area military installations.
The latest occurred Thursday when an envelope filled with a white powder was delivered to Carson Middle School. El Paso County health officials examined the starchlike powder, determining it was not anthrax or any other biological hazard. But the school was closed Friday because of the scare and will reopen Monday. FBI agents and Fort Carson officials are investigating.
People with information should call Crime Stoppers at 634-STOP and may be eligible for a reward of as much as $1,000. Callers may leave information anonymously.
In an unrelated case, Peterson Air Force Base investigators released an updated sketch of a suspect in the Dec. 21 tear gas incident. A man dropped an envelope in the base's commissary that contained the powdered form of tear gas. Thirty people complained of breathing difficulties and watery eyes. The base was closed for two hours and one person was hospitalized.
A reward of $2,500 has been set up for information that would lead to an arrest in the Peterson case. People with information should call 556-4000.
Authorities don't think the two cases are related.