Denver SAC Discusses Role of JTTF

Denver Special Agent in Charge James Yacone discusses role of Denver's Joint Terrorism Task Force.


Video Transcript

Our Joint Terrorism Task Forces are very active, not just from an international terrorism perspective, but also a domestic terrorism perspective.

So we actually have three Joint Terrorism Task Force squads focused on international terrorism, and then one specific squad here focused on domestic terrorism.

And it works well. All of the local and state police officers and detectives have the same clearances that the agents do. They sit side by side. And the way we work it is, if that agency has a terrorism matter occur in their area of responsibility, that local or state agency, that local or state officer will work jointly with an FBI agent as a case agent on that case.

So they all carry a pretty big caseload. And they work arm-in-arm with access to the same databases and the same systems.

We’ve had some national terrorists. Najibullah Zazi was a very well publicized counterterrorism investigation.

Zazi was definitely somebody that was trained internationally, but bought into the philosophy, really, of gaining access through the Internet to radicals that were oversees. And then he decided to act on that and travel abroad, get some of his training, and then come back here.

He was planning and facilitating out of this area of responsibility, but his target was New York City.

We’ve had other recent concerns on the counterterrorism side as well. So our Joint Terrorism Task Forces are very active, not just from an international terrorism perspective, but also a domestic terrorism perspective.

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