RBC firebomb arrests coming: police
21 May 2010 | 
Author: Professor |
CBC News 21 May, 2010
Ottawa police are "extremely confident" they will make arrests in the recent firebombing of a Royal Bank branch, says Chief Vern White.
"When a community is terrorized by activities of a group based in ideology, that's terrorism and that's what I believe happened here — this is domestic terrorism," White told CBC News on Thursday. "And we'll treat it as such."
He added that police have strong leads already, partly because the purported arsonists posted a video of the incident online.
"We do have strong leads…I'm extremely confident that we're on the right path and that we will make arrests," White said, noting he doesn't say that very often.
The fire started with a sudden explosion at a Royal Bank branch at Bank Street and First Avenue in the Glebe neighbourhood early Tuesday morning.
Later that day, a video of the blast was posted on the Ottawa Independent Media Centre's website. It contained a statement claiming that the explosion was a deliberate act linked to RBC's sponsorship of the 2010 Olympics that it said were staged on "stolen indigenous land."
The statement, signed by "FFFC-Ottawa," also said the group will be at the G8 summit near Huntsville, Ont., June on 25-26 as well as the G20 summit in Toronto on June 26-27.
What White called the "expect to see us again" message has local, federal and provincial law enforcement agencies concerned about the case.
Nevertheless, he said he doesn't believe the rest of the city is at risk following the attack.
"We're as safe as we were before this happened," he said.
Camera, software clues in video
Keith Murphy, vice-president of the information technology security firm Defence Intelligence, agrees with White that posting the video online will help police track the perpetrators.
All investigators need to do is find the internet provider address of the computer that the video was posted from.
"Even if they bounced it through a bunch of different places to try to hide their tracks, with enough time, [investigators] will be able to find that," Murphy said.
Murphy said analyzing the raw video could also reveal clues about the type of camera used to capture the image and the editing software used to process it.
In this case, that software was "fairly unique," said Murphy, who has examined the video himself. Police will likely be looking for that software when they execute search warrants.
Investigators can also track who looked at the video on the internet, which could also provide key information.
"When you take a picture the first thing you do is look at it," Murphy said. "My guess would be the first few people that were looking at this video online, they are likely either involved or very close to those involved.
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