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FBI Director Addresses Terrorism, War On Drugs During Visit To Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- For the second time in his term, FBI Director James Comey has visited the Pittsburgh Bureau Office making the rounds to all the 56 field offices around the country.

"It is a very healthy place in terms of law enforcement cooperation," Comey said.

Comey applauded the work done out of the Pittsburgh office and maintained that the top priority for the FBI is counterterrorism, surveilling people across the country with possible connections to ISIS.

And closer to home, Comey commented on the recent shooting of Philadelphia Police Officer Jesse Hartnett.

"We're investigating that as a terrorism attack and trying to understand, as we do in all these cases, what were the motivations," Comey said. "And often it's a tangled web we have to untangle. What were the motivations, who directed or inspired the individual, if anyone, and who else may have been involved."

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Comey says the war on drugs is not typically an issue for the FBI, but it has become one in recent years.

"The FBI's core mission is to protect the American people and the American people are dying in droves," he said.

We've seen in western Pennsylvania a major heroin problem, and Comey warned another powerful, inexpensive drug is coming our way.

"There is a wave of highly pure methamphetamine that is washing from west to east and it's on its way here," he said. "Those two waves are now meeting in about Kansas City, Missouri, which is dealing with both of these plaques. That second plague is coming here."

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