http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121901946.html
FBI Chief for Md. Faces Balancing Act Chase Sees Need To Bolster Fight On Crime, Terror By Eric Rich Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 21, 2006; Page T03 After running down fugitives in the District and pursuing one of the nation's most storied fugitives, William D. Chase is settling in as the head of the FBI's Baltimore office. Chase, 50, who assumed the job in June, says that while counterterrorism remains the bureau's top priority, he also wants to dedicate more resources to fighting crime, the bureau's traditional role. "I'm hoping to make some changes to firm up resources to better address the criminal program," Chase said. Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, the bureau's top priority has been fighting terrorism, and that is more the case in the Washington area, with its preponderance of government facilities, than elsewhere. The majority of Chase's agents necessarily are assigned to that central responsibility; his agents must follow tips and possible leads of all kinds, even hoaxes, often simply to eliminate them. Still, he said, he hopes to work more closely with state and local authorities, particularly to address the gang activity that has increasingly taken root in Maryland's Washington suburbs. The Baltimore FBI office covers Maryland and Delaware. The FBI announced in February that Kevin L. Perkins, then the special agent in charge of the bureau's Baltimore office, was being appointed assistant director in charge of the FBI's finance division. Chase replaced him during the summer. Federal law enforcement officials, including U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein, spoke highly of Chase in recent interviews. Rosenstein, the top federal prosecutor in Maryland, said he and Chase agree that the Baltimore division must be appropriately mindful of the need to balance counterterrorism activities with the bureau's more traditional crime-fighting role. "I think he's a very experienced and very responsible leader, and I think we're going to work very effectively together," Rosenstein said. Clare Weber, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said her agency has worked well with the bureau under Chase. "It's just a good partnership," she said. "Everything is all glowing." Chase comes to the position with an unusual r?sum?, having started his professional career as a corporate attorney specializing in environmental law. It was "very unfulfilling," said Chase, a graduate of Vermont Law School and a self-described environmentalist. But Chase had an uncle who was an agent, and over dinner that uncle told stories that intrigued the young lawyer more than a little bit. Chase applied to the bureau "kind of on a whim." Chase was accepted, and soon he was assigned to St. Louis, where he battled organized crime and drug-trafficking, working closely with local authorities in some of the same ways he hopes his agents do here. But he was a lawyer, and before long the FBI decided it wanted him in headquarters. He worked in the office of legal counsel from 1986 to 1991, when he was named special assistant to William S. Sessions, then the director of the FBI. "I came to the bureau to get out of being an attorney, and three years later I was back to being an attorney," he said. But Chase said he missed doing what the FBI does on the ground level: working cases. He joined the Washington field office in 1993, where he was the head of a fugitive task force. The ratio of paperwork to arrests was very good, he said. "It was kind of like a law enforcement officer's dream," he said. "We'd hit 10 places a day . . . and usually every arrest was high stress." The team looked for fugitives anywhere that one could hide -- in dishwashers, in refrigerators -- and looked for such tell-tale signs as loose ceiling tiles. In one instance, he said, a fugitive was found hiding behind a disposal. In the late 1990s, Chase was named assistant special agent in charge of the Boston office, a period that he recalls as frustrating and in some ways disappointing. That office, and much of that city, was seemingly fixated on the bureau's long-running search for James "Whitey" Bulger, a reputed mobster and fugitive for more than a decade. It was around that time that the public learned, in an extremely embarrassing moment for the bureau, that the suspected multiple-murderer also had been an FBI informant. Possible sightings were everywhere, from Thailand to South America, and each had to be explored. Bulger remains at large. The Boston office also came under public scrutiny in what may be one of the FBI's most embarrassing revelations in recent history, that one of its agents had been an informant for the mob. And Chase was in Boston on Sept. 11 -- his birthday, incidentally -- when two airplanes slammed into the World Trade Center after leaving Logan International Airport. What first seemed to be a hijacking was quickly revealed to be a terrorist attack, and the bureau's mission was recast in a sprint to prevent a feared second wave of attacks. "I still remember that night," Chase said. "I got home, it was probably 2 in the morning and I turned on the television and I was still watching it at 5 a.m." Everyone worked every day for two months, he said, and eventually, agents were told they had to take a half-day off on the weekend. The fear that a second wave would follow immediately belongs to a different era, but in some respects, of course, the concern persists. "Our mission is that there never be a recurrence of 9/11," Chase said. +++ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
