g4s

The trial of three protesters, including an elderly nun, who allegedly broke into the Y-12 nuclear weapons site in Tennessee last summer, has been reassigned to a federal judge in Kentucky, according to knoxnews.com.

U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Phillips was supposed to preside at the trial, scheduled for May 7. Phillips, however, was planning to retire. A filing last week indicated the case had been reassigned to a judge with the Eastern District of Kentucky. It has not been disclosed whether the current trial date still stands.

Plowshares protesters Sister Megan Rice, Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli each face three felony charges related to the break-in and defacing of government facilities at the Oak Ridge site.

Meanwhile, G4S Government Solutions, which was on duty at Y-12 when the breach occurred, said it is ready to move past the "punishment stage and work to restore its image," according to Frank Munger's Atomic City Underground.

G4S lost its security contract following the breach and more recently lost its other major Department of Energy contract in Oak Ridge (for protective force services at ORNL, East Tennessee Technology Park and the Federal Building), Munger's report said.

"A lesson for everyone in all aspects of both physical and protective force security is what we now internally refer to as the 20/20 rule," President and CEO Paul Donahue said in a statement. "Within 20 minutes, 20 million hours of exceptional protective force support at Y-12 was wiped away."

Last week, G4S security officers received a British Security Industry Association's Award for Best Regional Team (South West) for their work at the Hinkley Point C nuclear building site in Somerset. The regional award makes G4S eligible for a national award. G4S has won six BSIA regional awards this year, according to a prepared statement.

B&W Y-12 has assumed security guard command at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., in the wake of the July security breach in which an elderly nun and two other senior protesters cut a fence to get in and defaced a building where bomb-grade uranium is stored, according to a report from Oak Ridge Today.

The website reports:

“The transition ends three months after an unprecedented security breach at Y-12 and one month after B&W Y-12 announced it would terminate its contract with WSI Oak Ridge. That company, also known as Wackenhut and G4S Government Solutions, had provided security guards at the nuclear weapons complex for about a dozen years.

“The transition from WSI Oak Ridge to B&W Y-12 has gone very smoothly, and we welcome these new employees to the company,” said retired Brig. Gen. Rod Johnson, deputy general manager for security. 'We’ve already seen improvements in security performance following previously announced contracting changes, and we believe we’ll see additional successes with the protective force fully integrated into B&W Y-12.'

"B&W Y-12 announced it would end the WSI Oak Ridge contract after a Sept. 28 recommendation from the National Nuclear Security Administration. B&W Y-12 manages and operates Y-12 for the NNSA.
The transition from WSI to B&W Y-12 began Oct. 1. B&W had said it would offer employment to active Y-12 security police officers and other active union WSI Oak Ridge employees at Y-12 and the Central Training Facility in Oak Ridge.”

G4S said it "deeply regrets" its failure to provide enough trained security personnel to staff the London Olympics, according to a statement from the company.

It's understandable that a workforce supply contract at this scale—G4S called it "unprecedented"—would be tough to fulfill. The unfortunate result, however, is that it's forced the UK government to call up an additional 3,500 soldiers, most of whom are just back from Afghanistan, to make up the difference.

"We are grateful for the additional military support. We do not underestimate the impact on the military personnel and their families and express our appreciation to them," G4S said in a statement.

G4S said it would swallow the cost of the increased military deployment, and said it was also "incurring other significant costs as it endeavours to meet the contract challenges." The company estimates it will incur a loss on the contract in the range of £35 million-£50 million.

U.S. border officials on Saturday afternoon took Travis Baumgartner, the rogue G4S security officer who killed his fellow officers and stole an unspecified amount of money from a G4S armored truck at the University of Alberta, into custody. Baumgartner was trying to pass into Washington state southwest of Abbotsford, B.C.

Edmonton police homicide detectives travelled to British Columbia on Saturday evening to interview Baumgartner, who is wanted on three counts of first degree murder, one count of attempted murder and four counts of armed robbery. “We have a team of eight EPS investigators that flew into B.C. last night, who are busy sifting through evidence, including the suspect’s vehicle, as we speak,” Bob Hassel, superintendent of Edmonton police’s Criminal Investigations Division, said in a statement on Sunday. “Sheriffs will be accompanying the accused back to Edmonton sometime next week.”

In an update on Monday afternoon, Hassel said Baumgartner had cooperated with law enforcement officials. However, Edmonton police have yet to locate Baumgartner's firearm or the body armor he wore as a G4S security officer the evening he perpetrated the crime. Hassel did confirm that police are confident that Baumgartner was "the lone perpetrator" in these crimes.

On Friday, I found Baumgartner's Facebook page. His profile photo shows him in a black balaclava and dark sunglasses. A spokeswoman for G4S wouldn't comment on whether the company knew of the photo on his social networking site.

In the meantime, G4S Cash Solutions over the weekend released the names of the victims. "On June 15, at approximately midnight, three G4S crew members, Michelle Shegelski, Brian Ilesic and Eddie Rejano, tragically lost their lives in a shooting incident at the University of Alberta in Canada. Another crew member, Matthew Schuman, remains in critical condition in hospital," a company statement reads. "This is a devastating tragedy. Again, we send our heartfelt condolences to the victims of the shooting in Edmonton, to their families and friends, and to our employees."

G4S has set up a fund with TD Bank to help the families of the victims. "Simply ask at the TD Bank branch to mark your donation to 'the families of the victims of the University of Alberta Edmonton Shooting,'" according to the company statement.

Edmonton police say they are looking for Travis Brandon Baumgartner as a "person of interest" in last night's attempted armored-car robbery at the University of Alberta that left three G4S security officers dead and a fourth wounded. Here's a photo of Baumgartner from his Facebook page. Judging by his profile picture, the attempted robbery looks premeditated rather than a crime of convenience gone terribly wrong.

Here's a photo of Travis B. Baumgartner that the Edmonton police released at a press conference this morning.