Incident shows post-9/11 changes at

BY MONICA RHOR, mrhor@herald.com, Feb. 14, 2002

In an unchanged America, the snippet of conversation between three young men in a Shoney’s restaurant might have gone unnoticed by the woman sitting at a nearby table. Their words, in a mixture of English and Arabic, might not have set off the manhunt that began in Georgia and ended hundreds of miles away on Alligator Alley in South Florida with the men detained for more than 17 hours while robots and bomb-sniffing dogs searched their cars for explosives. But in a country where color-coded security alerts, stringent airport checkpoints and fear of terrorist attacks are now the undercurrents of daily life, awareness has replaced apathy.”9/11 changed this country dynamically. It changed the citizenry. It changed law enforcement,” said Bill Gavin, a former FBI official who ran the agency’s Miami office and investigated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Leaders in South Florida’s Muslim community, however, say Friday’s highly publicized incident also shows how easily heightened awareness and anxiety can lead to unwarranted suspicions and false alarms. ANXIETY ”The bottom line is that anxiety prompts behavioral change — this lady’s anxiety, a police officer’s anxiety. It prompts us to act differently with the same amount of information that we had 15 months ago,” said Dr. Samuel Sears, an associate professor of clinical and health psychology at the University of Florida. Those changes include hypervigilance, a heightened distrust of others and a greater sense of vulnerability, said Sears, who attributes nationwide anxiety to a combination of the trauma from 9/11 and the on-going warnings about possible terrorist attacks. ”That heightened vigilance is just an outgrowth of fear and anxiety. But the fear and anxiety is there for good reason,” said Sears. “We are trying to protect ourselves. We try to do prudent things to keep unsafe things from happening. ”Although that could lead to detecting a threat where none exists, it could also help alert authorities to real danger. ”People used to say they did not want to get involved. Now everyone is involved,” said Gavin, noting that the Georgia woman not only reported the conversation but wrote down the license tags and provided descriptions of the cars. MEASURES WORKED Gavin and other law enforcement officials applauded the swift response by state and local police to Friday’s incident, saying it demonstrated the effectiveness of security measures put into place after last year’s attacks. ”A year and three days ago, if we had what seemed like a terrorism-related incident, we would have had to start scratching around, searching to find the right number for the right people in different agencies,” said Jim Leljedal, a spokesman for the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. “Today, the protocol is established. Any deputy . . . would know who to call. ”Altaf Ali, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Florida, said police officers acted appropriately Friday. He said their conduct was “justifiable.” Ali said officials showed restraint by not rushing to make statements and by waiting ”until they had the facts” before going on television. DISCRIMINATION FEARS But Muslim leaders fear such vigilance may lead to increased discrimination against Muslims and those from the Middle East. Since the terrorist attacks, Ali said, the FBI has received ”hundreds and hundreds” of similar calls, “all unfounded.” ”I agree that everyone needs to be cautious and alert, but everyone is innocent until proven guilty. But people think because you are Muslim, the chance of you being guilty is 100 percent,” said Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout, of the American Muslim Association of North America’s Miami office. “We should be cautious about every single person walking on the street, not just because someone has a beard, not just because they are Muslim.” Since 9/11, Abdelaziz said he has been stopped by police after visiting a friend in the hospital and turned down after trying to lease office space in three different locations. He has also received dozens of reports from other South Florida Muslims who feel targeted. ”If I take my wife or children out to a restaurant, do I have to sit down and be careful to laugh, not to do anything?” asked Abdelaziz. DIFFERENT TREATMENT Both Abdelaziz and Ali noted the discrepancy between media and police handling of Friday’s incident and the case of Robert Goldstein, a 37-year-old Tampa doctor arrested on charges of planning to blow up mosques in Florida. Goldstein was arrested Aug. 23, but Ali complained that authorities have never called Goldstein a ”terrorist” and wondered if the term was only used to describe those of Middle Eastern descent. Police found more than 30 explosive devices, including hand grenades and a five-gallon gasoline bomb with a timer and a wire attached and a cache of up to 40 weapons, including .50-caliber machine guns and sniper rifles, in Goldstein’s home, prosecutors said. ”All we’re asking is for equal treatment,” Ali said. Although no explosives were found in the cars stopped Friday, Sears said the incident could help restore some of the sense of security many people lost after 9/11 by showing how quickly police responded to a possible threat. But, it could also carry another lesson. ”One of the ways people learn is by watching what happens to other people,” said Sears. “People learn that if they make comments even of a joking nature, they will be pursued. Seeing rapid consequences teaches us to mind our own behaviors. ”Herald staff writer Cassio Furtado contributed to this report.