FBI Letter June 12, 2003

U.S Department of Justice 

Federal Bureau of Investigation

2901 Leon C. Simon Blvd.

New Orleans, LA 70126

504-816-3000
June 12, 2003

Mr.  Steve W. Carlsen-Crowell

2111 Westbend Pkwy. #233

N.O.,LA 70114

Dear Mr. Crowell,

         The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) received your letter dated May 25, 2003. After reviewing its'  contents we have determined there is no violation over which the FBI has jurisdiction.

          

          If you receive any further information you feel may be evidence of a federal crime, please forward the information to the FBI.

Sincerely yours,

Louis M. Reigel, III

Special Agent in Charge

BY: (signed) Charles L. McGinty

Supervisory Special Agent

“No Federal violation?”

This is hard to believe. In a 1984 letter the USDOT Motor Vehicle Safety Compliance Safety Director mentions a “trade off of passenger safety”, with the use of partitions, which are not certified, or in compliance with Federal Standards. This so-called “trade off of passenger safety” is not only blatantly illegal under any circumstances, but it is done in the name of hollow allegations that partitions protect drivers in assault scenarios.

There is a 1997 Federally funded study out of North Carolina State University authored by Dr. John Randolph Stone, which contends that partitions are viable because they satisfy a cost/benefit ratio analysis. The contention asserts that a 20% drop in cab driver assault results in a decline in emergency medical care expenditure. When that amount of cost is compared to the cost of partition installation, it is revealed that Stone believes that an INCREASE in cab driver murder is tolerable and actually beneficial, because it is less costly.

Of course ‘medical attention costs’ for fatal assault attempts on cab drivers is costlier than BURIAL. This assertion is nigh on Genocide.

Additionally, there exists a scenario where widespread cowardly vicious felonies are bragged about openly by police officers nationwide. When an officer uses inertia to thrust the handcuffed prisoners’ face into the steel grid of the illegal partition by slamming on the brakes, what we have is institutionalized police brutality. Is it not the venue of the FBI to address civil rights violations? Police departments, nationwide, buy substandard partitions and then assert that because they are in the business of public safety and law enforcement they have the right to use substandard dangerous illegal equipment. This is inversely logical and disgusting.

I have started production and sales of a partition design which addresses all of the drawbacks of conventional partition design only to be put out of business with unfair bidding practices and illegal restraint of trade measures committed by police departments.

Police officers have been rendered unconscious in high speed rear-end collisions by impact with the partition and as a result perish in the occasional fire because they do not exit the vehicle when it catches on fire. A less rigid design would help to minimize this likelihood.

Police departments have an obligation to provide a safe work environment. When they choose partition designs, which do little or nothing to preclude the intrusion of possibly contaminating bodily fluids from the rear seat into the front seat area, these departments are not doing all that is reasonable to provide a safe work environment. Officers and sensitive equipment are at risk because many of the partition designs allow bodily fluid transmission from the back seat. My design also addresses this.

If you actually read the letter that I sent on May 25^th, 2003, you will be aware of the fact that it is not just I who has noticed these hazards, which are illegal. The letter also quotes many doctors who are aware of the hazards.

I know it is not the business of the FBI to see that I can sell partitions. It is, however, the business of the FBI to be certain that these current scenarios be addressed. One of your agents once told me that the ‘FBI will never, never, never, never” address this issue. Charles Cunningham seemed to understand, last April, that this is wrong.

The USDOT should enforcing mandatory standards, not endorsing their subversion.

Police departments should be aware that what is used is illegal and they (police departments) should not ban compliant partitions. They have banned partitions, which are compliant. They have also gone as far as to require the removal of compliance certification labels.

Will your office please address these issues before more officers and other members of the public, such as people in cab industry, are killed because of illegal partition hazards?

Thank you,

Steve Crowell

Crowell Manufacturing Co.