Several businesses in Old Forge and Inlet were paid unannounced, simultaneous visits by undercover New York State Homeland Security agents on Wednesday, December 7 in an effort to test employees’ abilities to identify possible domestic terrorist activity.
Vickie Smith, manager of ACE Hardware in Old Forge said three men and a woman came into the store early in the afternoon and asked for pipe, nails, switches, black powder, and timers-items which Smith described as “normal things people would go into a hardware store to buy.”
But it was the collective nature of the items that raised Smith’s suspicion-identifying them as things that could be used to make homemade bombs.
“Then one of the men asked if he could special order some pipe. When I asked for his name and phone number, they all left the store abruptly,” Smith said.
Store employee Connie King called 911 and described the suspicious behavior to the dispatcher. Another employee, Rane Allen then called Norm Kipp, manager of Brooker’s True Value Hardware, to alert him of the suspicious activity.
No sooner did he hang up, Kipp said four men came into Brooker’s. He said one of them brought a propane cylinder to the counter and asked if they were more in stock. When he turned to look for another cylinder, all of the men ran out of the store.
Kipp witnessed them leaving the parking lot in two cars and quickly called 911 and identified the vehicles.
When Town of Webb Patrolman Russ Brombacher stopped the south-bound vehicles outside of town, he learned the occupants were New York State Homeland Security agents.
Meanwhile, Smith said the undercover agents involved with the ACE Hardware incident returned to congratulate the staff for their actions.
“They told us that the NYS Office of Homeland Security conducts random exercises in small towns to test the community’s awareness of possible terrorist activity-and we passed the test,” she said.
Among other local businesses that were involved in the simultaneous “test” were ACE Hardware and EZ-Mart in Inlet, Old Forge Camping Resort and the Old Forge Hardware Store.
This exercise was part of the Bomb-Making Awareness Program (BAMP) through the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office for Bombing Prevention.
The program was designed to increase public and private sector awareness of how to identify and prevent bomb-making activity.
According to the DHS, the BAMP program strives to bring law enforcement and local businesses together to recognize suspicious purchasing behavior and help employees at small businesses more easily identify improvised explosive device components.
