FBI’s Hoover had mass arrest plan
Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a plan to suspend the rules against illegal detention and arrest up to 12,000 Americans he suspected of being disloyal, according to a newly declassified document.
Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, less than two weeks after the Korean War began. But there is no evidence to suggest that President Truman or any subsequent president approved any part of Hoover’s proposal to house suspect Americans in military and federal prisons.
Hoover had wanted Truman to declare the mass arrests necessary to “protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage,” the New York Times reported Saturday on its Web site.
The plan called for the FBI to apprehend all potentially dangerous individuals whose names were on a list Hoover had been compiling for years.
“The index now contains approximately twelve thousand individuals, of which approximately ninety-seven percent are citizens of the United States,” Hoover wrote in the now-declassified document. “In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the writ of habeas corpus.”
HUNTINGTON, W.Va.
Body believed to be missing coed
Investigators on Saturday removed the body of a young woman found in a crawl space at an apartment building where a missing Marshall University student lived, authorities said.
Officials have not identified the body but believe it is that of Leah Hickman, 21, a journalism student who has been missing since Dec. 14. The body was sent to the state medical examiner’s office in Charleston for an autopsy.
Lt. Rocky Johnson described the death as an apparent homicide, the Herald-Dispatch reported.
Police have released few details about the case, though Police Chief Skip Holbrook said Friday night that there are no suspects. The agency planned an update about the case for Monday.
CHICAGO
Leukemia patient sues syringe maker
A leukemia patient has filed suit against the manufacturer of a batch of pre-filled syringes that were contaminated with bacteria, claiming they made her violently sick.
Katie Abrams, 30, of Buffalo Grove, was hospitalized for nine days as a result of using the syringes at home, according to the complaint filed Friday in state court.
She “became ill with uncontrollable shaking, vomiting and a fever that reached as high as 105.5 degrees Fahrenheit,” according to the lawsuit.
Earlier this month, doctors traced numerous infections to heparin-filled syringes used during home treatment for cancer and other ailments. About 40 people were sickened in Illinois and Texas.
The syringes, made by Sierra Pre-Filled of Angier, N.C., are used to flush catheters and intravenous lines.
The bacteria Serratia marcescens was found in a single lot of syringes, which has been recalled.