Stephen Roy

I guess I'm about done with this. Sorry I hijacked your thread, Ron. I disagree with Don, and I disagree profoundly with Paul. For those interested in the truth (or creating a faux conspiracy), here's some photos of the shootout.

http://webcache.goog...ootout-pictures

EDIT: That link seems dead. Try this one:

http://www.getonhand.com/blogs/news/7743337-boston-bombing-suspect-shootout-pictures

There were 2 versions of this. I had an original VHS, then it came out again later on VHS with a new title and some different edits.

I was very close to this story (as a news photog) all week; it had us all very edgy, and I was trying to explain it, but I ran into a little condescension.

Once again, Paul, read this:

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/690347/criminal-complaint-united-states-vs-dzhokhar.pdf

There's some of the evidence as it stands today.

Interesting that you took my passionate offering of evidence and took it personal with "incontinence," "artlessly," "you call yourself a student," and I've "learned precisely nothing." Says more about you than me.

Read the criminal complaint.

Sorry - a link I posted twice above was bad. Here's a better one:

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/690347/criminal-complaint-united-states-vs-dzhokhar.pdf

No, the proper name for the sole-surviving youngster is the accused. Assuming he's permitted to survive to trial, that is.

Amazing how many extreme right-wingers float around JFK research sites these days.

Is THIS what it's come down to? The guy charged with this crime is a "sole survivng youngster" whose life is now in danger, and anyone who gets angry and points out the evidence is dismissed as an extreme right-winger? I SO much want to say something against the rules right now.

By bombing the heavily-attended Boston Marathon with two bombs (ten seconds and 550 feet apart), killing a MIT security guard, robbing a guy after hijacking his car...

Point of order, your Honour, but is that last bit still part of the official narrative, or has it been expunged? I'm getting rather confused by all the shifts, you understand.

Point taken:

http://s3.documentcl...vs-dzhokhar.pdf

The criminal complaint against Tsarnaev, a pdf:

http://s3.documentcl...vs-dzhokhar.pdf

There is reasonable doubt and there is doubt. The former needs to meet the test of reasonableness while the latter is a very broad category which can include unreasonable doubt. With time to pause and reflect, one can raise doubt about almost anything and spend the time to try to elevate the discussion to the benchmark of reasonable doubt. When, however, there is a reasonable risk involved in proceeding too slowly, one needs to act responsibly to reduce that risk. This involves some degree of trust in each other. There was a bombing - not alleged. There WAS a bomber on the loose - not alleged. Do we stop everything to see if the evidence is iron-clad and invite every police officer to personally view the Marathon surveillance tapes (which might later be used in court, by the way) or do we trust others with access to those tapes to develop a working theory and possible suspects, then go and search for the suspects and try to capture them alive, to reduce the risk?

One can be skeptical of the law enforcement people up to a point, the point where it hinders public safety. Fish or cut bait. We are told that the video shows one of them leaving a backpack where the bomb was planted. We are told that the suspects told a person whose car they hijacked that they were the Marathon Bombers. We are told that a guy who had portions of his legs blown off (seen in an iconic photo being helped by a man in a cowboy hat) identified Suspect 2 as the man who left the bag that exploded. We are told that they killed an officer, stole his car, and detonated explosive devices when police approached them. We are told that Suspect 2 was hiding in a boat in someone's backyard. Is this reasonable enough to get out of the way, let the police do what we hope they will do, and ask questions later?

Every citizen of Watertown and surrounding areas I spoke with was relieved to see the police presence, not threatened by it. You're entitled to be suspicious, but don't question the commitment to civil liberties of those of us who lived through it. We wanted the danger to ourselves and our kids ended, to return to safety. Why was there spontaneous applause as the emergency vehicles left? I bet I share your devotion to civil liberties, but I don't agree at all with the level of distrust you indicated.

Personal: On Friday, my daughter was scheduled to "shadow" at a school in Waltham, and take a test on Saturday in Newton, both of which adjoin Watertown. Was I supposed to demand conclusive evidence before being scared to send her there?

Dawn, are you serious? The REALITY is that we, in the Boston area, had a dangerous bomber in our midst, who was on video planting a bomb, who had killed and showed inclination to kill again. The older brother was not tortured; When he was being captured, his brother ran him over. Schools, businesses and pretty much everything else were closed, people were afraid to leave their homes and they wanted this guy caught. There was a complete consensus to give the various police organizations 100% support in eliminating the threat.

Nobody is being tortured, nobody is having their rights violated. To believe these things is to be out of touch with the reality of the situation. To not understand the fear we felt this week is to be out of touch with the reality of the situation.

There are the usual troubling questions here. The "evidence" against these brothers consists of them walking around the area carrying backpacks. There were lots of people with backpacks there, including a number of obvious Navy Seals (they were wearing their patented logo). But since the American people have shown conclusively that they absolutely love martial law, I don't expect that the surviving brother has any chance at justice.

How many amendments to the Bill of Rights were broken during the "lockdown" around Boston? And with all that law enforcement and military presence-they looked like an occupying army-they still couldn't track down one 19 year old kid. If the citizen hadn't been smoking a cigarette and alerted the authorities, he'd probably still be at large. And yet the same voters who loved having their homes searched and movements restricted are unanimous in calling these guys "heroes."

First, Don, you're understating the nature of the evidence. It was not simply a case of walking around with backpacks; it was a matter of being caught on video planting the backpack bomb.

He evaded capture because he hid just outside where police set up a perimeter.

I've been working with TV news the last few days, and I can tell you that the atmosphere in Watertown was unanimous: He started it with this horrible act. We want him found at any price and brought to justice.

As for the searches, by the way, we videotaped one and I spoke with several residents about them: The searchers didn't open cabinets and look in drawers etc. They were only looking for places where a person could hide.

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I keep hearing about the video showing one of the suspects placing the backpack bomb. I've never seen it among the numerous videos broadcast nor online. Has anyone else here?

WASHINGTON (AP) - Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick says surveillance video from the Boston Marathon attack shows the suspect putting his backpack down and moving away in time to avoid being injured by the blast of the bomb inside it.

Speaking Sunday on NBC, Patrick says the video clearly puts 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-KHAR' tsahr-NEYE'-ehv) at the scene of the attack. Tsarnaev is in serious condition at a Boston hospital after his capture Friday.

Patrick says the video is "pretty clear about his involvement and pretty chilling, frankly."

Ron:

Sorry I came across as a smarmy know-it-all. You're a good guy.

I'm in Boston and following it closely. With respect to CNN/Fox, I think they were wrong. The brothers became suspicious when Lord and Taylor video showed one of them placing a black backpack right where it shortly went off.

What helped make the two brothers in Boston immediate suspects was the fact that they just stood and watched as everyone else ran or tried to help victims right after the explosions.

That's not true. They were carrying backpacks similar to one that apparently held a bomb; video shows the younger one placing a black backpack right next to the 8-year-old who died; and both men walked away without their backpacks.

The fact that they looked relatively calm as they walked away was not a major identifying factor.

Pat and Tommy:

Just FYI, the evidence that Ferrie associated with delValle is less strong and definitive than you might think.

Some of Garrison's files turned up in other places: in Bud Fensterwald's collection, at the Assassination Archives and Research Center, in the Billings collection at Georgetown and in the Weisberg collection at Hood.

For context, the US government files from the Garrison era and the defense files are illuminating, too.

A brief clip I found by happenstance on YouTube. John Corporon was the news director of WDSU-TV, the NBC affiliate in New Orleans, and he did the August 1963 short interview with Oswald that we've all seen: Oswald, facing camera left, denies being a communist but admits being a marxist, says FPCC seeks trade restoration with Cuba. It's interesting to hear Corporon's brief take on it. He also mentions his brief interview with Ferrie on 11/25/63, and has some uncomplimentary things to say about Garrison.

I've perused it a few times. The offerings are interesting, but limited. On a particular topic, there may be documents relating to just some limited aspect. Frustrating, in a way, to someone who has mined the FBI stuff in more detail, via NARA-AARC-ARRB

I notice there's not much on JFK-related topics.

Banister wasn't fired from the FBI for the gun incident.

His departure from the FBI revolved around some critical comments he made, a transfer (which he wouldn't accept) and, apparently, some medical issues.

The gun incident was later, in New Orleans, when he was fired as Assistant Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department. The gun incident was serendipitous for the Mayor and police administration, as Banister was taking his duty to root out police corruption a bit too seriously.

Just a quick aside on Seal, one of those little inaccuracies repeated from book to book, the kind of inaccuracy that bugs me.

A 2001 book by Daniel Hopsicker entitled "Barry and the Boys" postulates that future drug smuggler Adler B. "Barry" Seal, was a cadet in the Baton Rouge CAP squadron, attended a bivouac at Barksdale Air Force base in Shreveport, and while there met David Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald. Contemporaneous news accounts indicate that such a bivouac did occur between July 24 and August 7, 1955, and that cadets from various squadrons, including Lakefront, Moisant and Baton Rouge did attend, and a young man Hopsicker identifies as Barry Seal is shown boarding a USAF plane. However, after the publication of the book, Seal’s younger brother Benjamin said that it was he who was in CAP, went to the bivouac and was pictured in the paper. The question of Ferrie’s attendance at the event is unsettled: The book quotes a friend of Seal’s who recalls Ferrie there, but the event occurred after Ferrie left the Lakefront squadron, while he was a guest lecturer at the Moisant squadron, which would make him technically ineligible. The question of Oswald’s attendance seems even more uncertain: The bivouac began on July 24, but Oswald joined the CAP on July 27, while the event was in progress. It seems unlikely that Oswald would be permitted to fly in a USAF plane to attend an official CAP event before he had actually joined the organization. Further, former CAP cadet Joseph Thompson noted that "it was necessary to be an active member for ninety days before becoming eligible" for CAP encampments.

However, the matter seems to be settled by the existence of a Moisant CAP roster, showing which cadets attended which event. Collin Hamer joined the CAP’s Moisant Squadron at around the time Oswald left it, and he eventually became the Squadron Adjutant, the man who kept the records of the cadets and their activities. Among the records Hamer inherited were the rosters for the time relevant time period. When Oswald’s time in the CAP later became an issue, Hamer located and segregated all relevant records. The alphabetical roster of the Moisant CAP cadets’ attendance at encampments was (and today, still is) missing the page with the first half of the alphabet, but the page with the second half of the alphabet indicates that Lee Harvey Oswald did not attend the Barksdale event.

Further, I interviewed some of the same people Hopsicker interviewed, and they feel that his accuracy in relating those interviews is questionable.

I don't think anybody has found specifics, but an obvious guess would be that a person who profoundly believes that Oswald had a background in intelligence and that it was covered up might take it upon themselves to "sweeten" the evidence and provide a "smoking gun." In their eyes, this would advance research by establishing something that they already know is true.

(I feel the same about a figure in assassination research who profoundly believes certain things, but feels it necessary to sweeten the evidence with ersatz personal recollections.) The problem with all this is that it muddies the waters of evidence, of what we know and can prove, of what we don't know and can't prove. Fortunately, the McCone-Rowley memo is filled with screaming red flags, and sensible researchers urged caution from the beginning.

An alternate scenario is that it was crudely faked with the expectation that it would be quickly exposed, in an effort to discredit serious researchers. I think this is unlikely.

Had he learned such information, which would cast immediate suspicion on CIA, it is hard to believe that even the goody two-shoes McCone would have committed it to paper, and outside his agency to boot. If, for some reason, he decided to share it with Rowley, one might expect tradecraft to dictate that McCone meet Rowley in a safehouse (or a park bench?) and whisper it to him.

Most responsible researchers regard it as a fake.

Mods and others, forgive me if this is not in concert with the spirit of the rules:

Good God! We have even unearthed the original and faked

copies of the same newspaper for 11/22/63, intended to create the impression that Altgens6

was published on 11/22/63, when it didn't even come off the photo/fax until the following day.

This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard in this forum.

I couldn't believe it when Jim pontificated:

One of the elementary fallacies I spent 35 years teaching freshmen to avoid is known as "special pleading" by only citing the evidence favorable to your side and ignoring the rest.

Egad! Who, in this forum, in this thread, only cites evidence favorable to his side and ignores the rest? And is in profound denial about doing it?