Teen Who Died After Sticking Head Out Of Bus Serves As A Warning

NEW YORK -- It's a familiar scene on city streets and in movies: dressed-up teenagers packed into a stretch limo, celebrating something important by jubilantly sticking their heads through the roof.

A bigger version of that is the rented party bus, which can pack in more guests. Renting such buses – some two stories high, offering such amenities as strobe lights and satellite TV – "is what kids call fun nowadays," said Emily DaRocha of the Silver Star Limousine company. "We're talking about kids in the 21st century; that's how it is."

But such trips also carry more risk, as in the case this weekend of a New York teenager who poked his head through a hatch that had been opened on a double-decker bus loaded with dozens of dancing teens on their way to a party. Daniel Fernandez, 16, was fatally struck when the bus went under an overpass, according to authorities.

"No matter how many times you tell clients this is an emergency exit – it's written on the glass – they still open it," DaRocha said. "It happens all the time."

Her company in suburban Westchester County only offers single-level buses, Mercedes-Benzes that rent for up to $500 an hour.

Safety precautions must be part of the package, though, too. For a group of 40 guests, Silver Star requires two adults be aboard if the group is made up of teens or children 18 or under.

"It's much more dangerous when you have a double-decker with 65 kids – because they're hard to control," DaRocha said.

In addition to the driver, a security guard was on board the bus Fernandez was riding on Friday that was taking the teens from New York City to a sweet 16 bash in New Jersey. Design Limousines of New York, which operated the double-decker bus, did not return calls seeking comment on whether other chaperones were on board.

The security guard told reporters he watched for all but a few minutes, when he'd gone downstairs. And that's when the hatch was opened, after the bus crossed the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey.

Other private transportation companies have altogether given up trying to safely entertain a bus full of teens.

A short drive from The Venetian, the event center that was the bus' destination in New Jersey on Friday night, is the Garden State Limousine company. The company offers sweet 16 party packages, "but no more party buses, not for years," manager Joseph Ramsey said. "It's not easy to deal with kids."

Even in limos, especially during prom season, "they open the sunroof after you tell them not to do this," he says. "They don't listen."

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'Politics' Prevented Sikh Attack Warning, Says Analyst Who Warned Of Right-Wing Terrorism

WASHINGTON -- A former Department of Homeland security analyst who left the government after conservatives pummeled his report warning of right-wing extremism's growing threat said that the weekend attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin didn't surprise him because "politics and personalities" stymie investigators from targeting non-Islamic militants.

"There are certain people in charge who made a decision and they stuck by that decision," said Daryl Johnson, who left DHS two years ago to form his own consulting company. "It's come at a cost and that’s the bottom line. Lives have been lost. Attacks continue to happen."

The latest attack, which left six people dead Sunday, was allegedly carried out by a racist skinhead named Wade Michael Page, who was killed by police. Tracked for more than a decade by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Army veteran was reportedly "looked at" by federal investigators, who apparently didn't follow through.

"Hindsight is always 20-20, but if DHS had a domestic terrorism unit today, we would definitely have sent out a warning, a threat assessment (to) Muslim-Americans being attacked. I know this was a Sikh temple, but he mistook them for Muslims," Johnson told The Huffington Post in an interview. Despite repeated reports of arson and other violence against mosques, "not a single intelligence report has warned these communities. ... Someone's not connecting the dots," Johnson said.

Saying, "I hate to be right under these circumstances," Johnson had warned in a 2009 DHS report about the growing threat of right-wing extremists. He said many would be motivated to become violent by the election of the first black U.S. president and an ailing economy. He also said right-wing extremist groups viewed military veterans as "lucrative recruits." It's unclear when Page, an Army veteran, became radicalized.

Johnson's report was blasted by conservatives, including Newt Gingrich, who insist only Muslim extremism poses an existential threat to the nation.

Pummeled from the right, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano withdrew Johnson's report and soon slashed the number of analysts devoted to domestic, non-Islamic terrorism. Today, said Johnson, just one DHS analyst is assigned full time to track neo-Nazis like Page as well as violent anti-abortion activists and militant environmental and animal-rights groups.

"That just baffles my mind," said Johnson, whose book “Right Wing Resurgence: How a Domestic Terror Threat Is Being Ignored” will be published in September. "Why hasn’t DHS increased its capabilities to analyze and assess these groups?"

While Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has held a series of hearings on Muslim radicalization -- including inside the military -- Johnson noted that no one on Capitol Hill has given equal time to right-wing extremism.

"Why haven’t we had any hearings on the white supremacist threat? I think it boils down to the fact that our legislators are basically biased in what they think the threat is," Johnson said. "I think they need to be more equitable."

Before Sunday's shooting at the Sikh temple, right-wing terrorists had killed nine people in eight attacks in the U.S. since 9/11, according to the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank. As Peter Bergen, who co-authored the foundation's study on homegrown terrorism, noted, that toll appears likely to rise to 15 given Wade Michael Page's white supremacist ties.

In contrast, terrorists inspired by al Qaeda or other Muslim extremist ideology have carried out four attacks on U.S. soil since 2001 that resulted in 17 deaths -- all but four of them at Fort Hood in 2009.

HuffPost's request for comment from DHS was not returned, but agency officials have denied Johnson's depiction of a department asleep at the wheel when it comes to violent extremists who don't fit the al Qaeda mold.

But Johnson said denial is bipartisan, with Republicans in Congress and Democrats in the White House failing to take right-wing extremism as seriously as they take Islamic militancy.

"The best word that could describe it is probably defiant. Resolute," Johnson said of the federal government's attitude. "There’s pretty much a 'We made a decision, we’re sticking with that decision no matter what happens, because if we reverse position we’ll look worse' attitude."

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Congressman Revives Report Warning Of Right-Wing Extremism

Amardeep Kaleka comforts members of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin on Monday. Kaleka's father, Satwant Kaleka, the temple president, was among the six killed. (M. Spencer Green/AP)

WASHINGTON -- It’s been almost two years since Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), as a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, watched conservatives blast Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for a report warning right-wing extremists threaten American security. But after Sunday’s shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, killing six and critically injuring three, Pascrell is calling on lawmakers to reconsider the report.

The nine-page document, titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” was released in April 2009. It found that deep-rooted frustration across right-wing extremist groups may push individuals toward violence. "If such violence were to occur,” the report said, “it likely would be isolated, small-scale, and directed at specific immigration-related targets.”

Reaction from the right was furious. Former Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, then the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, asked for an investigation around the DHS report for "unsubstantiated conclusions and political bias." Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin called it a “piece of crap” and “one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda” she had ever seen.

“People just concluded that if it didn't involve al Qaeda, it wasn't a case of terrorism, which was absolutely foolish,” Pascrell said in an interview with The Huffington Post. But "this was part of the Homeland Security’s responsibility to look at domestic terror. It existed in America -- it's not something people made up or manufactured.”

Pascrell acknowledged much isn't known about accused temple shooter Wade Michael Page, who was killed by police. Page was a white supremist, played in white supremist heavy metal bands and urged other skinheads to be more active in their cause.

Daryl Johnson, a former DHS security analyst and the report's principal author, left his government job after his report was criticized. Johnson told HuffPost on Tuesday the decision not to take the report's warnings seriously has "come at a cost and that’s the bottom line. Lives have been lost. Attacks continue to happen."

“This is serious business,” Pascrell said. “When we go back to the warnings in that DHS report, it just jumps right out at you.

“The shooting in Wisconsin is an act of domestic terrorism -- it's plain, it's simple, it's very clear,” Pascrell continued, adding that there has been no major effort to prepare or protect Sikh Americans, who have repeatedly been targeted since 9/11.

A DHS spokesman didn't immediately return a request for comment.

As HuffPost’s Amanda Terkel reported Monday:

The FBI and the Justice Department currently lump hate crimes against Sikhs together with hate crimes against Muslims -- saying that Sikhs are often targeted by individuals who mistake them as Muslim.

Pascrell was also one of 93 members of Congress who signed a letter to the Justice Department in April, as part of an appeal to the FBI to track hate crimes specifically against Sikh Americans. That letter was spearheaded by Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), who told HuffPost Monday that the Justice Department and FBI “need to take it one step further” with respect to counting crimes against Sikh Americans, to better understand why they are being targeted, and to look for a resolution.

Pascrell said the request is entirely reasonable to protect the half-million Sikh Americans -- as well as Muslim Americans, who are just as much of a target.

“Just because you're Muslim, or just because you're Sikh, should not be a cause for you to worry about your safety,” Pascrell said, adding that there needs to be a greater push to outlaw all hate crimes. “Lawmakers on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, they need to come together and stop trying to get short-term political advantage. Let me simply say this: If we choose to wait to see what happens, then the long-term suffering of America continues.”

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