News Blog

FBI Special Agent Horace Ashenfelter wins his heat in the 3,000 meter steeplechase at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. The next day, he won gold in record time. Bettmann/CORBIS photo.

This Day in FBI History: G-Man Gets the Gold

It was 60 years ago today—on July 27, 1952—that FBI Special Agent Horace Ashenfelter, III won the men’s 3,000 meter steeplechase in Helsinki, becoming the first and only Bureau employee to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games.

	Agent Ashenfelter, left, shows his gold medal to Newark Special Agent in Charge S.K. McKee.

Though considered a long shot, Ashenfelter beat his nearest competitor—a Russian who was the pre-race favorite—by more than six seconds and set a world record in the process. To this day, he is the only American to hold the world record in that event. The race helped earn him the Sullivan Award as outstanding amateur athlete in 1952.

Born in Pennsylvania, Ashenfelter joined the FBI in November 1950 at the advice of his running friend and long-time competitor, Special Agent Fred Wilt. Ashenfelter served most of his career in the Newark office, resigning in October 1959 to take a job in the private sector.

In addition to his Olympic achievement, Ashenfelter participated in competitions all over the world and won a number of collegiate national titles. He was elected to the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame and has an 8K race held every year in his honor in New Jersey. He also competed in the 1956 Olympics but didn’t take home a medal.

Ashenfelter was not the only FBI employee to compete in the Olympics. Special Agent Walter Walsh, a skilled marksman who won numerous championships and was selected to the All-American Pistol Shooting Team five times, was a member of the U.S. shooting squad in the 1948 Olympics in London. He finished 12th in the Men’s Free Pistol 50 meters event. Walsh—who joined the FBI in 1934 during the height of the fight against gangsters—also served for years as coach of the Olympic shooting team.

Note on August 7, 2012: We also recently learned that Special Agent Donald R. Lash of our Indianapolis office competed in the 1936 Olympics on the U.S. track team, and Special Agent Frederick L. Wilt of our New York office was selected to the U.S. 10,000 meter race team in the 1948 Olympics.

Radio Interview with Ashenfelter | Video of Walter Walsh’s career

Wanted by the FBI: The Bearded Bandit

	View Poster

The FBI needs your help to identify a serial bank robber known as the Bearded Bandit.

He has a beard—dark beard—and dark hair. Some of it his hair is long and others it appears to be tucked under a hat.

Over the last six months, the unknown bank robber has hit up four banks in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Supervisory Special Agent Romel Velasco says the bearded man uses the same method in each robbery.

“He’ll threaten the teller that he has a weapon,” Velasco said. “He doesn’t show the weapon, however he does say he has one.”

The bandit talks on his cell phone while he robs the bank. He hangs up and takes off once he has the money.

We ask if you do recognize this person to please pick up the phone and call the FBI or your local police department so we can get this subject off the street as soon as possible before he hurts somebody.

If your tip leads to the charging and arrest of this man, you could receive a reward of up to $2,500. To view more surveillance footage, follow the link below to the recent press release on the case.

Press release | ‘Wanted by the FBI’ podcast

‘Play How You Practice’: WMD Training Tests Massive Response

On May 18, a carrier ship bound for the Port of New Orleans left a Caribbean nation weighted with 12,000 tons of ammonium nitrate. Intelligence later revealed that two of the ship’s crew members were on terrorist watch lists. Meanwhile, a few miles outside New Orleans, police received a report of someone suspiciously circling a chemical plant in a car while taking pictures.

What may have appeared at first to be isolated incidents were actually parts of an elaborate drill held during a three-day workshop to test how well local, state, federal, and even international emergency responders would coordinate and communicate in the fog of an unfolding terror plot.

The workshop is a prime illustration of our Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate’s mission, which is to prevent a weapon of mass destruction (WMD)—chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive—while at the same time preparing to respond to one.

“You play how you practice,” said Stephanie Viegas, a special agent and WMD coordinator in our Miami Field Office, who attended the workshop. “The time to get to know each other is not when something’s happening. It’s having meetings together, going over each other’s operational plans, getting together, and training together so we have the opportunity to recognize and address any gaps.”

“What keeps me up at night is not what I know—it’s what I don’t know,” said Assistant Director John Perren of the WMD Directorate. “And that’s why we do these things; to establish trip wires to find out what we don’t know.”

Read full story, which includes a photo gallery and a video interview with Assistant Director Perren

Journey Through Indian Country, Part 6

Since 9/11, the FBI has become an intelligence-based, threat-driven organization. Regarding terrorism, for example, the mission is to prevent acts of terror rather than investigate them after they occur. “But in Indian Country,” said Special Agent Lenny Johns, who supervises our Santa Fe Resident Agency, “the majority of the crimes we have jurisdiction over are still very reactive for us.”

That means when the FBI is called to the reservation, usually a serious crime has already been committed. “Our agents, and particularly new agents,” said Johns, “get a ton of experience in Indian Country they can apply in other programs later in their careers.”

“It’s a 24-7 job,” noted Special Agent Mike Harrigan, who supervises an Indian Country squad. “An agent is always on call. If something happens, even in the middle of the night and the crime scene is two hours away by car, the on-call agent responds from home. That’s how it works in Indian Country.”

“The agents and professional staff working here in Indian Country are as dedicated as any group I have served with during my 25 years in the FBI,” said Carol K.O. Lee, special agent in charge of our Albuquerque office. “They really care about the people on the reservations and making those communities the best and safest places they can be.”

Read conclusion of series

Webster Commission Report Delivered to FBI

Judge William H. Webster has delivered to the FBI the Final Report of the William H. Webster Commission on The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counterterrorism Intelligence, and the Events at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5, 2009. We have posted an unclassified version of the report on our website, along with our response to the commission’s recommendations.

The FBI requested a full investigation of the manner in which the Bureau and its Joint Terrorism Task Forces handled and acted on counterterrorism intelligence before and after the Fort Hood shootings, as well as a review and assessment of the FBI’s governing authorities and remedial measures after the Fort Hood shootings. We concur with the principles underlying the commission’s recommendations and, in most cases, have already taken action to implement the recommendations based on our own internal review of the Fort Hood shootings and that of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Press release and response to recommendations | Final report (pdf) | Webster transmission letter (pdf)

CJIS Executive Briefs Congress on Next Generation Identification Initiative

Jerome Pender, deputy assistant director of our Criminal Justice Information Services Division, updated members of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law on the status of the Bureau’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) program. NGI, according to Pender, was created in response to advances in technology, FBI customer requirements, and growing demand for Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) services. NGI, which is 60 percent deployed, is improving the major features of the current IAFIS, including system flexibility, storage capacity, interoperability with other systems, and accuracy and timeliness of responses.

The program, Pender told subcommittee members, is being deployed in increments, and one of those increments currently in progress includes a new facial recognition system, which began earlier this year as a pilot program and is scheduled for full operational capability in 2014. Pender said that the goal of the pilot program is to test the facial recognition processes, resolve policy and processing issues, address user concerns, and in particular, address privacy protection procedures. Addressing the appropriate use of NGI facial recognition technology, he said that searches of the national repository of mug shots are subject to all rules regarding access to FBI CJIS systems information and are also subject to dissemination rules for authorized criminal justice agencies.

Read full testimony

Director Speaks on Preventing Illegal Exports, Protecting National Security in the Global Marketplace

Director Mueller speaks at a Department of Commerce-Bureau of Industry and Security conference on export controls and policy.

Globalization has not only changed the way the FBI conducts its operations, it has changed the way the world does business as well—thanks to advances in technology, travel, commerce, and communications that have broken down barriers among nations and individuals.

So said FBI Director Robert Mueller today at a Department of Commerce conference on export controls and policy. He went on to say that while these advances have made it easier to conduct business anywhere in the world, “that same globalization has opened the door to our adversaries. Terrorists who are willing and able to strike around the world. Computer hackers who seek trade secrets and state secrets. Child predators who seek to exploit the most vulnerable amongst us. And criminals and spies who seek access to U.S.-manufactured components, either to gain a military advantage or to build weapons of mass destruction.”

Director Mueller highlighted the importance of working closely with federal, international, and private sector partners to prevent the illegal export of restricted materials in order to protect national security. “Technology continues to take us in new directions,” he said. “And there will always be those who seek to illegally benefit from our forward thinking. We must work together to flourish in this new world, while at the same time protecting the innovation and the ingenuity that have kept our country safe and strong.”

Read full speech

Celebrating 40 Years of Women Special Agents, Part 2

Joanne Pierce Misko, in red and at lower right, and Susan Roley Malone, seen at the FBI Training Academy in 1972 and today, were the first women of the modern FBI to become special agents.

They were known as the nun and the Marine. The respective backgrounds of Joanne Pierce Misko and Susan Roley Malone could not have been more dissimilar. But 40 years ago, on July 17, 1972, the two women were drawn together by a shared goal—to become FBI special agents.

Up until then, under the leadership of longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, only men could be agents. But just weeks after Hoover died in May 1972, the Bureau’s acting director—motivated in part by new equal rights laws—changed the men-only policy that had been in place since the Prohibition Era. So on a balmy Monday exactly four decades ago, the two women assembled with 43 similarly pressed and starched men at FBI Headquarters to take their oath before heading down to the FBI Training Academy in Quantico, Virginia for 14 weeks of physical and mental conditioning in preparation for their new careers.

“I honestly didn’t see myself as a pioneer,” said Misko, now 71. “It was just a role that I was fortunate enough to become a part of.”

Malone, 65, echoed Misko’s comments. “I was an agent first and Joanne was an agent first. We wanted to be agents first. We just happened to be women.”

Read the full story, which includes recent video interviews with both women

Inside Denver’s JTTF, Part 2: Partners Help Cast Wide Safety Net

Maj. Steve Garcia discusses the CIAC.

The more than 100 FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) around the country rely on a network of local, state, and federal partners to help protect the nation. In Denver, one of our key partners is the Colorado Information Analysis Center, or CIAC.

The FBI is the CIAC’s investigative arm “and the single most important partner we have,” said Steve Garcia, a major in the Colorado State Patrol who oversees the center’s operations, explaining how the two organizations work hand in hand. “Our motto at the CIAC is that information sharing is a contact sport,” Garcia added. “You’ve got to get up and talk to someone and share that information rather than just sending an e-mail. It’s important to have that day-to-day, face-to-face contact.”

Learn more in Part 2 of series

Four Fugitives Sought for Murder of Border Patrol Agent

From left to right, Jesus Rosario Favela-Astorga, Ivan Soto-Barraza, Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, and Lionel Portillo-Meza (photo unavailable) are wanted in connection with the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

A reward of up to $1 million is being offered for information leading to the arrest of four men wanted in connection with the death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed in a shootout near the U.S.-Mexican border in Southern Arizona on December 14, 2010.

In an indictment unsealed in Tucson today, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, Jesus Rosario Favela-Astorga, Ivan Soto-Barraza, Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, and Lionel Portillo-Meza—who had allegedly entered the United States illegally in order to rob drug traffickers of their contraband—were charged with various crimes, including murder, assault, robbery, and firearms offenses. Manuel Osorio-Arellanes was taken into custody on the night of the shooting, but the four other men are still on the lam.

“Brian Terry made the ultimate sacrifice while protecting our border,” said FBI Phoenix Special Agent in Charge James L. Turgal Jr. “It is our hope that the publicity surrounding this case will lead to information concerning the whereabouts of the remaining four fugitives. The FBI and our law enforcement partners will continue to pursue those individuals responsible for the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.”

Press release
Wanted posters: Ivan Soto-Barraza | Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes | Jesus Rosario Favela-Astorga | Lionel Portillo-Meza