FBI sketch of D.B. Cooper

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

A day before Thanksgiving in 1971, a man only known to authorities as D.B. Cooper jumped out of a hijacked airplane with $200,000 and parachuted into the night.

After spending 45 years searching for the suspect, the FBI last year announced it had stopped actively pursuing the case.

That may change after a team of private investigators coordinated by a filmmaker found “an odd piece of buried foam” that they believe may be material from Cooper’s parachute backpack, the New York Daily News reports. Just weeks earlier, the team found what they think are remnants of Cooper’s parachute strap. 

The FBI said it received three other “unknown” fabric samples.

The discoveries were made by a team assembled by Thomas Colbert, a former media executive and police trainer. Former FBI supervisor Hadley McCann is overseeing the cold case team.

Colbert runs a website, DBCooper.com, that is dedicated to the cold case.

Suspect James Fields

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The FBI is trying to track down people who saw or talked with James Fields before he drove his car into a crowd of anti-racist demonstrators in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, killing one person and injuring many more.

Surveillance video from a gas station near the crash site show Fields with several people, reports Daily Progress. 

A worker at a nearby Wendy’s told the FBI that she had witnessed a group of neo-Nazis attack a man in the restaurant’s parking lot before the fatal crash.

Heather Heyer, 32, was killed when Fields’ car slammed into the crowd.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

President Trump’s large family and their habit of traveling to several residences on the East Coast have left the Secret Service without enough money to pay hundreds of agents. 

The agency has already exceeded its annual caps for salary and overtime for more than 1,000 agents, with more than three months left before the budget is replenished, Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles told the USA Today. 

In the first seven months, the Secret Service has depleted its budget because of weekend trips to Trump’s properties in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia and his adult children’s frequent business trips and vacation across the country and world.

“The president has a large family, and our responsibility is required in law,” Alles said. “I can’t change that. I have no flexibility.”

Under the Obama administration, Secret Service agents protected 31 people. That number has increased to 42 people under Trump. 

President Trump, via White House

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

White House special counsel Ty Cobb has a positive forecast for the investigation into Russians interfering with the presidential election.

Cobb told Reuters that he believes the probe led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller will wrap up quickly and exonerate Trump. 

Cobb, who said he’s in contact with Mueller’s investigative team, contends the probe appears to be “narrow” and should be over by the end of the year.

“I’d be embarrassed if this is still haunting the White House by Thanksgiving and worse if it’s still haunting him by year end,” Cobb told Reuters, adding: “I think the relevant areas of inquiry by the special counsel are narrow.”

Cobb provided no evidence to back up his claims.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The Justice Department has run out of funding to train officers on combating terrorism and is quietly shutting down the program, even after the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va. earlier this month.

The last day for the State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training Program is Sept. 30, the Kansas City Star reports. 

“It makes absolutely no sense,” said Mike Sena, president of the National Fusion Center Association, which runs a network of centers nationwide to help law enforcement combat terrorism.

“Eliminating programs that are critical to preparing our people in the field to identify threats before they manifest and cause harm to our public is an egregious error.”

The task force was revived in 2014.

The Justice Department declined to respond to questions about the program.

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