The breaking story

The actual facts

Woman in Georgia restuarant overhears three foreign-looking men talking about going to Miami, that they were going to "bring it down," and that "if Americans were sad on 9/11, wait until 9/13."

The three foreigners are two resident aliens and one US citizen, all medical students. They say they were talking about 'bringing down" a car and said nothing about 9/11. This leaves aside the question as to why arabic terrorists would be discussing an attack in public in English.

The cars carrying the three students are pulled over after one car allegedly ran the toll booth. A toll collector swears out a statement that the car did not pay. Cpl. Darrell Kehne, a sheriff's deputy stationed at the toll plaza, stops one car and issues a citation.

Videotapes of the toll booth show both cars paid the toll. The ticket issued to one car for running the booth is quietly dropped.

The car is searched and a suspicious bag is identified because a dog "alerted" to it. The bag is destroyed with a water cannon and is later said to contain "medical equipment." TV reporters breathlessly speculate on detonators and anthrax.

A sandwich. The reliability of bomb- and drug-sniffing dogs has been discredited. The dogs respond frquently to non-verbal cues from their handlers.

The police still stand by Eunice Stone's story, but now the theory is that they were saying things as a "trick." Georgia local law enforcement officials raise the possibility that the men could be charged with a crime for their alleged statements.

This is all based on the statements of the Georgia woman eavesdropping on this conversation, who fled reporters and was briefly hospitalized for "stress." I'd like to see that trial- Eunice Stone's word versus those of three Muslims held in Dalton, GA.

The students are denied their externship at Larkin Hospital in north Miami. The chief of staff cites over 200 e-mails threatening unspecified consequences.

The content of these e-mails has not been released. The senders of these e-mails have committed a federal crime yet are not being sought or harassed. Meanwhile, the medical students have lost their training position.