FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Mon Nov 26, 2012 2:10 pm

see link for full story
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2012 ... t/1725781/

Mich. man sues over being placed on no-fly list
Niraj Warikoo, Detroit Free PressShare
A naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon sues the Department of Justice and the FBI after he was barred from two flights, saying he was placed on the U.S.' no-fly list.
Story Highlights

Naturalized U.S. citizen was unable to board two flights to Lebanon
Jamal Rizk wanted to go to Lebanon for stem cell treatment not provided in the USA
Lawsuit was filed Nov. 15 against the Department of Justice and the FBI

4:54PM EST November 25. 2012 - DETROIT -- After being barred from flying, a disabled man from Dearborn Heights, Mich., filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice and the FBI, accusing them of placing him on a no-fly list meant to prevent terrorists from getting on planes.

Jamal Rizk, 54, a U.S. citizen born in Lebanon who is paralyzed from the waist down, said he was prevented from taking flights leaving Detroit Metro Airport on two occasions to visit Lebanon. On Sept. 30 and again Nov. 5, Rizk wanted to go to Lebanon to get a stem cell treatment not provided in the United States. Rizk said he has no criminal history, but was stopped by law enforcement from boarding both flights.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Mon Nov 26, 2012 3:51 pm

smell the sulphur yet?


see link for full FBI sulphur tench , eh?
http://seattletimes.com/html/politics/2 ... thics.html






Monday, November 26, 2012
Ethics panel investigating New York Republican

The House Ethics Committee announced Monday that Rep. Michael Grimm, a former FBI agent, is under investigation for possible campaign finance violations, but said it is deferring the inquiry because of a separate Justice Department probe.

By LARRY MARGASAK

advertising
WASHINGTON —

The House Ethics Committee announced Monday that Rep. Michael Grimm, a former FBI agent, is under investigation for possible campaign finance violations, but said it is deferring the inquiry because of a separate Justice Department probe.

The New York Republican may have violated campaign finance laws by soliciting and accepting prohibited contributions, actions that may have caused false information to be included in campaign finance reports, the committee said.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Tue Nov 27, 2012 12:21 pm

see link for full story
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/11/27/ ... -her-guns/


Hutaree Militia Member Says FBI Tampered With Her Guns
November 27, 2012 5:09 AM

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - A woman acquitted this year in a major militia trial says federal agents tampered with guns that were returned to her after the trial.

Tina Stone says the barrel on her shotgun was replaced with a cheaper barrel, and the bolt on an AR-15 had similar treatment. Stone wants the government to pay more than $300 to have the guns repaired.

She also believes she’s entitled to $20,000 for possessions seized by the FBI but not returned. The government has until Dec. 4 to respond. A court hearing is set for Jan. 25.


U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts dismissed the case before jury deliberations, saying there might have been “something fishy” going on but that prosecutors had failed to show a specific plot to use force against the government. It was an embarrassing defeat for the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office in Detroit after months of investigation that involved secretly recorded video and audio, a paid informant and an undercover agent.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Tue Nov 27, 2012 9:37 pm

see link for full story
http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/c ... source=rss

4 Ugandan bombing suspects claim FBI abused them
11/27/2012






By TOM ODULA
NAIROBI, Kenya—Four terror suspects charged with killing 76 people watching the 2010 World Cup soccer final on TV in Uganda claimed they were physically abused during interrogations by FBI agents, an international rights group reported Tuesday.

The suspects said men who identified themselves as FBI agents beat them up during questioning between 2010 and 2011 in the East African country, the Open Society Justice Initiative said in a report.

At FBI headquarters in Washington, spokesman Paul Bresson said allegations that FBI employees mistreated or abused detainees were without merit.

"The FBI is responsible for investigating overseas terrorist attacks against U.S. persons or U.S. institutions. When investigating cases overseas, all FBI personnel operate within the guidelines established by the Attorney General as well as all other applicable laws, policies and regulations," Bresson said.

Selemi Hijar Nyamandondo, who is from Tanzania, alleged that an interrogator hit him in the eye, causing his glasses to break, his eye to bleed and making him collapse on the ground. Nyamandondo also said when he attempted to stand up, a Ugandan official in the room punched him in the chest, causing him to fall down.

Human rights groups say Kenya and Tanzania circumvented their extradition laws to illegally deport suspects to Uganda, where they could be interrogated at length by local and foreign agents without scrutiny.

Uganda has been criticized internationally for human rights abuses by its security forces.

Omar Awadh Omar, who is Kenyan, said he was punched and slapped" by men who said they were FBI agents.

Omar, who is among six people blacklisted earlier this year by the Obama administration for providing support to an al-Qaida affiliated terror group, also provided the name of an alleged U.S. "security officer" who struck him in the knee with a hard object, the report said.

Another Kenyan suspect, Yahya Suleiman Mbuthia, alleged that during his first interrogation a blue-eyed man who identified himself as an FBI officer "cocked his gun as if he were going to shoot me, saying there was a bullet inside with my name on it." Mbuthia also alleged that an FBI officer hit him on the back of the head with his fist.

Hussein Hassan Agade, another Kenyan, gave the name of a man who he said introduced himself as an FBI official and kicked him in the abdomen, grabbed him hard by the neck, and threatened to send him to Guantanamo Bay, the report said.

The four men who claim they were abused are among 14 illegally transferred to Uganda without extradition proceedings in a practice known as rendition. Two of the suspects have since been released, according to the report.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Wed Nov 28, 2012 12:51 am

let George Orwell sort out the truth,eh?

see link for how FBI agents use your tax dime to fund their public relations.

2 stories

1st read
http://www.thedaily.com/article/2012/11 ... -shooting/


FBI AGENT HAS HISTORY
Special agent in the middle of the Petraeus scandal was involved in fatal shooting two years ago
By M.L. Nestel Thursday, November 15, 2012


Ronald Bullock was shot and killed in an incident at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., in 2010.

FBI Special Agent Frederick Humphries has been in the middle of trouble before.

The agent who opened the investigation that ultimately led to CIA Director David Petraeus’ resignation, played a key role in stopping a terrorist attack on Los Angeles International Airport in 2000 and fatally shot a knife-wielding man during a 2010 altercation at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla.

The shooting was later found to be justified, but the family of the man killed wants to know why he had to die.

“That’s the only question: why did you have to shoot him in the heart,” said John Bullock, 65, the brother of Ronald Bullock, shot and killed by Humphries on May 10, 2010.

“I was wondering why they couldn’t shoot him in the leg or shoulder,” John Bullock said. “I was a Military Policeman. They had guns and he had a knife. You’d think with some of the training the MPs had they could have disarmed him some way.

Humphries has been identified as the confidant who Florida socialite Jill Kelley turned to when she was receiving anonymous emails regarding her friendship with Patreaus. But his work was already known in the Tampa area after the shooting at MacDill two-and-a-half years ago.

According to the story the Bullock family was told, Bullock — a Vietnam War veteran — began squabbling with the MPs at the base.

“Something happened on the Air Force base that set him off,” John Bullock said. “He raced his motorcycle through MacDill and [police] shut the gates.”

With no escape, Ronald Bullock, who was still wearing his motorcycle helmet, allegedly turned violent and made agressive movements with a knife.

”They thought he was giving up,” his brother said, describing the six MPs who circled around the distressed man with their guns drawn. “The FBI agent took a rifle out of his trunk and shot my brother.”

The Bullocks never knew Humphries name before now.

John Bullock said he wished he could recover his brother’s knife, and still wonders if there was any videotape of the incident.

“I can’t imagine at the front gate of MacDill Air Force Base that there isn’t some kind of video camera — that’s the headquarters for General Petreaus, after all.”

Ronald Bullock, 61, served in the 101st Airborne Scout Dog Battalion and suffered post-traumatic stress disorder. He was said to be making progress by receiving treatment from the Veterans hospital in Texas but apparently was off his medication shortly before his death.


2nd read
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55357 ... e.html.csp

Utah advocate for homeless honored by FBI
Service » Pamela Atkinson will travel to Washington, D.C., to meet agency boss.

By Kimball Bennion

| The Salt Lake Tribune
November 27, 2012
At a time when holiday giving increases and many people start to think about the less fortunate, the FBI honored a Salt Lake City woman who makes the homeless a personal cause year-round.

Activist Pamela Atkinson received the FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award, which is given to people across the country every year by each of the FBI’s field offices.
Photos

( Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune) Light flows throw a stained glass window at the Road Home in Salt Lake City, Utah Tuesday November 27, 2012 after Pamela Atkinson received the 2012 FBI Director's Community Leadership Award for the Salt Lake Division. According to FBI Special Agent in Charge, David J. Johnson, Atkinson won the award for her two decades of volunteer work with Utah's homeless and low income citizens.
(Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune) Pamela Atkinson talks with friends and supporters after receiving the 2012 FBI Director's Community Leadership Award for the Salt Lake Division at the Road Home in Salt Lake City, Utah Tuesday November 27, 2012. According to FBI Special Agent in Charge, David J. Johnson, Atkinson won the award for her two decades of volunteer work with Utah's homeless and low income citizens.
( Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune) Pamela Atkinson talks with friends and supporters after receiving the 2012 FBI Director's Community Leadership Award for the Salt Lake Division at the Road Home in Salt Lake City, Utah Tuesday November 27, 2012. According to FBI Special Agent in Charge, David J. Johnson, Atkinson won the award for her two decades of volunteer work with Utah's homeless and low income citizens.

Atkinson was honored by Special Agent in Charge David Johnson, who heads up the FBI’s Salt Lake City Office. She, along with other award recipients across the country, will travel to Washington, D.C., in April to meet FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Johnson said he chose Atkinson as this year’s recipient because of the breadth of her influence on the community and the "sheer volume of work that she does for the homeless and underserved in Utah."

"We [in law enforcement] see the dark side of life on a regular basis, but people like Miss Atkinson remind us of the good things in our community," Johnson said.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Nov 29, 2012 1:33 am

see link for full story

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... iew-395133
Informant: Film Review
11/28/2012
Jamie Meltzer's doc is an in-depth portrait of Brandon Darby that both complements the earlier film "Better this World," and is engrossing on its own.

NEW YORK — Last year's festival standout doc Better this World (broadcast on PBS's POV) told the story of two young idealists, David McKay and Bradley Crowder, whose plans for non-violent protest at 2008's Republican National Convention went awry: They wound up being charged with domestic terrorism, an outcome many blame on undercover FBI informant Brandon Darby, whose alpha-male anarchist posturing goaded them into contemplating the use of Molotov cocktails.

Now comes Jamie Meltzer's excellent Informant, an in-depth portrait of Darby that both complements the earlier film and is engrossing on its own. Activist groups of all stripes will want to see it, but the force of Darby's personality -- a rich stew of righteousness, arrogance and self-delusion -- gives the doc a psychological appeal independent of politics. The Grand Jury Prize winner in DOC NYC's Viewfinders competition, it deserves a theatrical run.

We meet Darby at home, on his own terms: As he stands to speak into the camera, halting to restart an account of the "direct death threats" he has received since being exposed, viewers may suspect they're in for an apologia -- that Meltzer thinks Darby is unfairly maligned by the radical Left. In fact, the filmmaker is willing to let Darby have all the time he wants onscreen -- but most viewers will come away feeling he has taken all that film and fashioned his own noose.

What makes Darby's story so compelling, and makes his work with the FBI so surprising, is who he was when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. Already politically-minded with an anarchist bent, the Texan drove to New Orleans hoping to find a friend stuck there. He recalls a standoff with Army Rangers who tried to stop his rescue attempt, the first of many experiences that lead him to say "if I'd had an appropriate weapon, I would have attacked my government for what they were doing" in New Orleans. (That's far from the most reckless-sounding thing he says here.)

Instead he helped launch Common Ground Relief, an action-oriented nonprofit whose effectiveness at delivering food, water, and medical help eventually earned the group (and Darby) the respect of the people they were criticizing -- like the police chief Darby would later call for advice when he believed he was being approached to help fund a Palestinian terrorist organization. That contact would eventually lead this radical to work for the FBI, in a chain of events that Darby tries to explain.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Nov 29, 2012 2:08 am

see link for how taxpayer funded FBI agents protected dirty politicians and corporations

http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/11/29 ... story.html
Kevin White’s FBI files released

November 29, 2012

It was 1971, and trash companies were angling for a lucrative prize: a new round of contracts with Boston. A representative from one outfit, eager to bolster its chances, spoke with a friend of Mayor Kevin White, who suggested that a contribution to White’s upcoming campaign would “be a good move.” The contract, the friend added, did not have to go to the lowest bidder.

When the individual met with White in his City Hall office, according to allegations detailed in the former mayor’s newly released FBI file, he allegedly gave White an envelope with $5,000 cash and a promise of $5,000 more.

White took the money, the individual told FBI investigators, and noted that other contractors had not done the “right thing.” Calling them “sons of bitches,” White vowed that he would “fix them.”

White was never charged with wrongdoing. But the allegations, which spurred a 1975 FBI inquiry into alleged bid-rigging by the White administration, emerged in new detail Wednesday after MuckRock, a website devoted to open records, posted White’s FBI file.

The group, which is independent but works in The Boston Globe’s media lab, received the 500-page file after lodging a public records request in February. White, who served as mayor from 1968 to 1984 and is credited with leading the city through the school busing crisis, died in January at age 82.

White’s administration was the target of a wide-ranging federal corruption investigation, and the FBI file details ­inquiries on several fronts.

The FBI also looked into claims that White pressured the John Hancock life insurance company into donating more than $4 million to Boston University in exchange for changing a development agreement with the city, and that he misused his office in a dispute with the City Council. Several lesser claims were also explored.
The documents are often heavily redacted, and most names are blocked out. They feature source testimony, internal memos, handwritten notes, and copies of newspaper stories. They span more than a ­decade, from the launch of the bid-rigging inquiry in 1975 to the conclusion of the Hancock investigation in 1987, when the US attorney’s office declined to prosecute “due to a lack of evidence to substantiate and prove a federal violation.”
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Nov 29, 2012 2:32 am

couple of reads about the current Sheriff of San Diego William Gore.
NOTE FBI Supervisor Larry Potts has been identified as Timothy McVeigh's FBI handler before the Oklahoma City bombing
google potts nichols trentadue fbi


see links for full story


1st read
http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/show ... p?t=167834

"Four FBI agents, including the ex-head of the bureau's Seattle field office [[William Gore, APPOINTED San Diego Sheriff']], invoked their Fifth Amendment privileges against self-incrimination yesterday during Senate hearings into a shootout in northern Idaho that left three people dead....In a closed session, the four FBI agents, citing their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, refused to answer questions put to them by senators,

He said senior FBI official Larry Potts [above Gore in chain of command]....had approved an order under which FBI snipers were to shoot on sight any adult male seen with a weapon on the Weaver property.

....Richard Rodgers, head of the team. Rogers [below Gore in chain of command] helped formulate controversial "rules of engagement" for the siege that critics say amounted to a "shoot on sight" order for all armed adult males on the Weaver property.

FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi opened fire just a few hours after the rules of engagement were approved, wounding Randy Weaver and then killing his 43-year-old wife [head shot on mother holding her infant]...

....Justice Department probe of an alleged FBI cover-up of its conduct at Ruby Ridge...”

http://www.seattlepi.com/archives/1995/9509200047.asp


More: http://www.byington.org/Carl/ruby/ruby4h.htm


Tell me this guy wouldn't order Katrina-style gun confiscations, including use of deadly force, and other outrageous acts against the Constitution.

Who will help uncover more truth about this guy WHO WANTS TO BE the next elected Sheriff in San Diego??

2nd read



San Diego County sheriff refuses to release drone documents
‘Very little public benefit’ in disclosing UAV inquiry paper trail

by Shawn Musgrave on Nov. 15, 2012, noon

FOI Requests:

San Diego County, CA Sheriff's Department Drone Documents

As part of MuckRock and Electronic Frontier Foundation’s ongoing Drone Census, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department received the same Freedom of Information request sent to agencies across the country.

Like many agencies, the Sheriff’s office responded that they had no documents relating to drones. But in this case, MuckRock discovered there were responsive documents — which were only released by a different city.

These documents detailing San Diego’s drone interest were received from the Seattle Police Department, which, while detailing its own aerial drone program, showed clear evidence of drone interest from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.

Seattle Police Department released more than 250 pages of emails, internal memos and contracts, including sales quotes from four manufacturers of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). A November 2011 email from a Datron World Communications sales manager to the Seattle Police contact included a sales quote prepared for the San Diego County Sheriff's Department earlier that year for a Scout UAV.

The Datron representative explained that a San Diego County Sheriff's team had “visited Datron's facility and experienced the [drone] system with all three cameras,” and that the team “left with a flashdrive full of personal footage and a new found [sic] purpose for submitting their wish-list early.”

He encouraged the Seattle Police Department to use the sales quote sent to San Diego County “as a reference point for configuring [its] system.”

The estimate is dated July 28, 2011 and addressed to a sergeant in the Special Investigations Division of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office. Estimated costs total $131,087 for one Datron Scout UAV system, including a thermal imaging camera package and operator training for four students at Datron's facility in Vista, CA.
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The San Diego County Sheriff's Department was not on the list acquired by EFF of public agencies that had applied for Federal Aviation Administration authorization to fly drones in domestic airspace.

It was, however, among the agencies submitted by MuckRock users through the Drone Census page, and MuckRock sent a request to the San Diego County Sheriff for documents related to the department’s use, interest in and purchase of drone technology on July 12, 2012.

On July 19, 2012, a legal advisor from the San Diego County Sheriff's office indicated that it had no documents related to drones or UAVs. The email stated clearly that the department had “no records that are responsive [...] pertaining to aerial drones.”

Until the Seattle Police Department passed along its documents in late August, MuckRock had no reason to doubt the San Diego Sheriff's response.

On Sept. 4, MuckRock sent a follow-up email to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department seeking an explanation of the Datron sales quote, as well as confirmation that no further documents were available related to the Sheriff's interest in purchasing a drone.

The Sheriff's legal advisor sent a response by mail on September 13, indicating that the department “declines to comment on the sales quotation referenced in your September 4, 2012 letter.”

As is true in most states, California’s public records law provides that documents related to equipment purchases are matters of public record unless exempted by statute. Accordingly, the San Diego County Sheriff and other public agencies have the latitude to justify denial of public records requests, but not to “deny comment” when faced with such a request.

Upon an appeal to this effect, the San Diego County Sheriff confirmed that the department “does not maintain drones, nor are we in the process of acquiring them,” and that the department had chosen not to purchase drones following an “inquiry as to the type of drone equipment that is available to public safety agencies, the cost, and the expected performance.”

The Sheriff refuses, however, to release any communications related to the sales quote or test demonstration alluded to in the Datron emails to Seattle police. The Sheriff’s office says these records are exempt as part of the deliberative process, since the department “must be free to gather information and weigh alternatives in confidence before arriving at a course of action.”

The Sheriff’s legal advisor also says that “there is very little public benefit in the release of such records” since its inquiries into Datron’s drone unit did not result in purchasing any equipment.

But public records law puts the burden of evidence not on those who seek disclosure, but on those who would keep them from public view. Evidence Code section 1040 of California’s disclosure law, which the San Diego County Sheriff’s office has invoked as a basis for its denial, provides that public agencies may refuse to disclose official information in the case that such disclosure “is against the public interest because there is a necessity for preserving the confidentiality of the information that outweighs the necessity for disclosure in the interest of justice.”

The onus is on the Sheriff to demonstrate how releasing the documents sought by MuckRock would injure the public interest.

While the San Diego County Sheriff declined to purchase drones, other police departments have conducted similarly confidential inquiries and ended up acquiring UAVs without the benefit of public scrutiny. Police in Seattle, for instance, recently apologized for going ahead with drones purchases without adequately consulting the city council, much less the general public. The Alameda County Sheriff also faced vocal protest and concern when its plans to employ drones became public.

The public has a right to know when and how government agencies use potentially invasive technologies such as drones. The public also has a right to be consulted when agencies consider adopting the technology in the first place, and should have a say as to what restrictions are put in place to prevent its misuse.

Interested in using the power of the Freedom of Information Act to find out more about what your government is doing? MuckRock makes it easy for anyone to publicly request, receive and publish government documents under Freedom of Information law: Register today.


3rd read
V. SPECIFIC ISSUES INVESTIGATED

H. Law Enforcement Operations at Ruby Ridge From August 22, 1992 Until August 31, 1992.

1. Introduction

Following the death of Deputy Marshal Degan, the FBI assumed primary jurisdiction over the investigation of the events relating to his death. The FBI's handling of the investigation at Ruby Ridge has been criticized on several grounds: that the FBI's command and control of the crisis site was not handled properly in that insufficient emphasis was placed on negotiations to resolve the crisis; that the FBI failed to coordinate law enforcement components properly; and that false information was knowingly given to the media to cover up the cause of Sammy Weaver's death, Vicki Weaver's death, and Kevin Harris' and Randy Weaver's injuries.

Soon after learning on August 21, 1992 about the shooting incident at Ruby Ridge, U.S. Attorney Maurice Ellsworth authorized Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Howen to travel there to assist law enforcement personnel with legal matters. Howen arrived late in the evening of August 21st and spent the next ten days with law enforcement personnel who had responded to the crisis.

Questions have been raised as to whether it was appropriate for Howen to have been at Ruby Ridge and whether some of his activities were improper and conflicted with his role as the federal prosecutor in the case. Foremost among these allegations is that he was an active participant in tactical decisions, negotiations, and searches which transformed him into a witness in the investigation at Ruby Ridge.

2. Statement of Facts

a. Removal of Law Enforcement Personnel From the Mountain Following Horiuchi's Shots

When the personnel carriers were near the Weaver cabin delivering the initial announcement and installing telephone communications equipment, worsening weather conditions were reported on the hill. HRT Gold Team leader Love reported to HRT Sniper Coordinator Hazen that visibility was poor and getting worse and that optical equipment was beginning to fog. Several of the snipers were suffering from hypothermia. [FN771] Hazen recommended to HRT Commander Rogers that the sniper/observers be removed from their positions and return to the lower command post.[FN772]

Rogers and Special Agent in Charge Glenn agreed to withdraw the sniper/observers and establish an inner perimeter around the cabin area the following morning. Glenn concluded that the weather and poor visibility made it nearly impossible even for people with knowledge of the terrain, like the Weaver/Harris group, to move about without being detected. On the basis of the available intelligence, Glenn believed that the only way that Weaver and his group could leave the cabin area was by a road that passed through the FBI command post area. The sniper/observers were withdrawn after dark on Saturday evening, August 22.

During the night, Glenn deployed FBI SWAT teams around the command post and controlled access to the road leading to the Weaver compound. He was confident that these measures would prevent any of the Weaver group from fleeing.[FN774] According to Hazen, the sniper/observers were also withdrawn for debriefings on the tactical and geographic information they had gathered while observing the Weaver compound.[FN775]

Upon returning to the command post after the shooting, the HRT sniper/observers were debriefed and were instructed to document their actions and observations in FD-302 investigative reports. Glenn had reported the shooting incident to FBI Headquarters earlier in the evening.

b. Command and Control Structure

The death of Deputy Marshal Degan entailed violations of federal criminal statutes that gave the FBI primary jurisdiction over the investigation.[FN776] Eugene Glenn, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Salt Lake City Division, was assigned primary responsibility for managing the federal law enforcement response to the crisis. He was initially assisted by William Gore, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Seattle Division. As of August 23, Glenn was also assisted by Robin Montgomery, Special Agent in Charge of the Portland Division.

In addition to intelligence gathering, the primary concerns of local and federal law enforcement were to rescue the surviving marshals, along with the body of Deputy Marshal Degan, apprehend the subjects without further loss of life, and prevent their reinforcement by sympathizers.

State and local officers and a few representatives of the Marshals Service and the border patrol were the first law enforcement officials on the scene. two FBI agents, Larry Wages and Thelma Campos, who were attending personal matters in the area, heard about the shooting and responded. Soon after, a group of interested citizens began to gather.

Following Deputy Marshal Hunt's calls for emergency assistance, in which he reported that a Deputy Marshall had been shot and that others were pinned down, local law enforcement agencies responded promptly and established a controlled access point at the bridge leading to the Weavers' cabin. Idaho State Police officers and a dispatcher arrived before their local commander, Captain E. Glen Schwartz arrived at 3:00 p.m. Captain Schwartz described the command structure as a "unified command" with each agency in charge of its own personnel.[FN777] On August 21, 1992, Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus declared a state of emergency in Boundary County, proclaiming that:

the nature of the disaster is the occurrence and the imminent threat of injury and loss of life and property arising out of the standoff situation in Boundary County.[FN778]

This proclamation allowed law enforcement agencies on the scene to use certain emergency services, such as Idaho National Guard resources.[FN779]

Although Deputy Marshal Hunt was viewed as having the predominant law enforcement interest because the case was his and he was responsible for the marshals on the mountain, local law enforcement leaders believed that Hunt's decision making capacity had diminished due to stress. They have asserted that they would not have permitted Hunt to make ill-advised decisions.[FN780]

Glenn arrived at the crisis site at approximately 9:30 p.m. on Friday, August 21, followed by Gore approximately one and a half hours later. They both arrived before the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team (approximately 50 agents) and the Marshals Service Special Operations Group (approximately 58 agents). In Glenn's view, the Idaho State Police, commanded by Major Strickfaden, appeared to be coordinating the law enforcement response before his arrival. [FN781]

When Glenn arrived, the primary goal of the law enforcement effort was to rescue the marshals on the mountain and stabilize the situation until additional federal resources arrived. Glen ordered that a perimeter be established around the command post/staging area to ensure safety, to prevent Weaver and his associates from coming into the area during the night, and to contain a crowd of Weaver sympathizers and supporters.[FN782}

Glenn and Gore were unfamiliar with the crisis site. The command post/staging area was located in a flat area at the base of the mountain on which the Weaver cabin was located. Glenn and Gore directed FBI technical personnel to establish telephone communications at the command post.[FN783]

Once the command post was secure, Glenn and Gore set about gathering information about the Weaver group. When Richard Rogers, Commander of HRT, and Duke Smith, Associate Director of the U.S. Marshals service, arrived early Saturday morning, August 22, Glenn and Gore briefed them on the situation.[FN784]

The command post log entry for August 26 shows that power to the cabin was cut off on Saturday night, August 22. On Sunday morning, a 360 degree inner perimeter around the Weaver cabin site and a forward command post near the cabin were established, and they were maintained for the remainder of the crisis.[FN785]

On August 23, Special Agent in Charge Robin Montgomery from the FBI's Portland Division reported to the Ruby Ridge site and took charge of the forward command post near the cabin were established, and they were maintained for the remainder of the crisis.[FN785]

On August 23, Special Agent in Charge Robin Montgomery from the FBI's Portland Division reported to the Ruby Ridge site and took charge of the forward command post in alternating twelve-hour shifts with Gore. Rogers and the hostage negotiators were also in the forward command post with Gore and Montgomery. The forward command post was the central point for both tactical and negotiations efforts.[FN786]

Investigative and intelligence functions continued at the rear command post, but the establishment of the forward command brought about a change in the control of the massive resources gathered at Ruby Ridge. Glenn remained at the rear or lower command post to marshal the many law enforcement agencies, coordinate with the leaders of those agencies, and maintain liaison with FBI Headquarters and the press.[FN787]

Glenn retained ultimate approval authority for negotiation and tactical efforts proposed by his subordinates. If emergency tactical action were necessary, Glenn authorized Gore and Montgomery at the forward command post to act. A representative of the Marshals Service was also assigned to the forward command post to ensure immediate access to information gathered during the previous fugitive investigation that might assist in formulating negotiation strategies.[FN788]

c. Tactical Operations and Discovery of Sammy Weaver's Body

On Sunday morning, August 23, Rogers, with Glenn and Gore's approval, took two teams of HRT personnel to the vicinity of the Weaver compound in armored personnel carriers. Using a bull horn, Rogers made repeated announcements to the Weaver cabin for about 30 minutes to convince the occupants to negotiate.[FN789]

FBI Hostage negotiator Frederick Lanceley asked to accompany Rogers, but Rogers told him that he was not needed.[FN790] As a consequence, Lanceley was not present during this attempt to communicate with those inside the cabin.[FN791]

According to Lanceley, on Sunday afternoon, after Rogers and his team returned, Rogers told Lanceley that he had "delivered an ultimatum to the effect that if they don't come out, [Rogers] would begin to knock down the outbuildings and then start knocking down their house."[FN792] Rogers asserted that he now had to knock down the buildings because he could not back down from the ultimatum. [FN793] Lanceley told Rogers that the destruction of the buildings would limit negotiations strategies.[FN794]

FBI hostage negotiator E. MacArthur Burke was astounded upon hearing that the outbuildings were to be removed because this might escalate the situation before negotiations had begun. Although he was aware of the tactical advantage to their removal, he agreed with Lanceley that it would be detrimental to the negotiations effort.[FN795]

On Sunday evening, August 23, with the approval of Glenn, Gore, and Montgomery, personnel carriers began to remove outbuildings, such as the birthing shed and the water tanks, near the Weaver cabin to protect tactical personnel, should it become necessary to mount an emergency assault on the Weaver cabin. Removal of the outbuildings would also tighten the inner perimeter around the cabin by removing visual and physical obstructions to HRT and SOG personnel.[FN796]

During the clearing of the birthing shed, the body of Sammy Weaver was discovered unexpectedly.[FN797] There is no evidence that law enforcement personnel knew of Sammy Weaver's death before this discovery.[FN798]

FBI negotiators reported to the FBI's Special Operations and Research Unit on the morning of August 24 that "the mood among the commanders and HRT appeared to be to mount an assault on the Weaver residence no later than the evening of 8/24".[FN799] The discovery of Sammy weaver's body brought about renewed efforts to negotiate with the Weaver group. The discovery also brought aggressive tactical actions, such as removal of the outbuildings, to an end. It was believed that the Weavers would break their silence to express their wishes for the handling of their son's body and funeral arrangements. However, there was no response from the Weaver cabin.[FN800]

d. Change from Rules of Engagement to the FBI Standard Deadly Force Policy

On Wednesday, August 26 at 10:53 a.m. (PDT), the Rules of Engagement in effect since the arrival of the Hostage Rescue Team were revoked. At Glenn's direction, the FBI's standard policy became the guideline for the use of deadly force by law enforcement personnel deployed on the cabin perimeter.[FN801]

On Sunday evening, August 23, after Sammy Weaver's body had been discovered, Glenn began to reevaluate the intelligence he had received at the command post. The cabin's occupants had not acted aggressively since the apparent attempt to fire on the helicopter about 24 hours earlier. A personnel carrier had been to the front of the cabin and had not been challenged, and outbuildings had been demolished without fire from the cabin. An inner perimeter had been established, and booby traps had not been found. Glenn believed that law enforcement personnel on the scene were adequately protected. He concluded that those in the cabin were not as threatening as originally believed or that their resistance was weakening. He did not entirely dismiss their propensity for violence, but concluded that the threat had diminished by Sunday evening.[FN802]

For these reasons, Glenn changed the Rules of Engagement to the FBI's standard deadly force policy. He did not solicit Headquarter's advice on the change because it was not necessary. [FN803]

Glenn stated that he made the change some time around midday Monday, August 24. This contradicts the HRT sniper log, which shows that the change occurred on Wednesday, August 26. The Strategic Information and Operations Center ("SIOC") Log at FBI Headquarters reflects the change on August 26 at 12:30 p.m. EDT.

Within a day or two of the discovery of Sammy Weaver's body, Glenn told Gore that FBI agents assigned to the crime scene had reported that some of the early assumptions about the Degan shooting were in question and had not been substantiated by the crime spans. Glenn also told Gore that the debriefings of the marshals involved in the shooting and a review of the BATF case had raided other questions. According to Gore, the entire predicate of the federal effort was in question. Gore observed that the crisis situation had been stable for several days and that the Weaver group had not engaged in aggressive action. Glenn then decided to return to the FBI's standard policy on the use of deadly force. [FN804]

Robin Montgomery arrived at the crisis site on August 23 and learned of the Rules of Engagement. Montgomery believed that the Rules were close to an authorization to shoot on sight. He did not believe that the Rules supported the negotiation effort, and he discussed them with Glenn, Gore, Duke Smith of the Marshals Service, and possibly two other members of the Marshals Service. Shortly thereafter, the Rules of Engagement were changed. [FN805]

Rogers stated that by Wednesday the level of threat had diminished because the subjects had fired no shots since the original firefight and they had not committed any aggressive acts. HRT personnel had established well protected positions, completely surrounding the Weaver cabin. The subjects posed no immediate threat, and consequently the Rules of Engagement were changed to the FBI's standard deadly force policy. Rogers denied that the revocation of the Rules was related to the discovery of Sammy Weaver's body.[FN806]

According to an entry in the FBI SIOC Log at Headquarters, on Wednesday, August 26, 1992, at 12:30 p.m. (EDT), Potts and Glenn agreed to change the Rules of Engagement to FBI standard deadly force policy, effective 1:00 p.m. (EDT).[FN807] There is no record of the decision to change the Rules of Engagement in the FBI's command post log at Ruby Ridge. The HRT sniper/observer log shows that Rogers changed the Rules of Engagement to the FBI standard deadly force policy on Wednesday, August 26, at 10:53 a.m. and that each sniper/observer position acknowledged the change at 10:54 a.m.[FN808]

e. Evidence of Vicki Weaver's Death

On Friday, August 28, at approximately 5:00 p.m., Bo Gritz, a nongovernmental negotiator, started a series of discussions that ultimately led to the resolution of the crisis without additional violence. Gritz was the first person to be told that Weaver's wife was dead and the first aside from those in the cabin to observe Vicki Weaver's body.

Law enforcement personnel state that the initial evidence that Vicki Weaver was dead came in the first few moments of the first conversation Gritz had with Randy Weaver on August 28. [G.J.]

[FN809] This conversation also confirmed that Harris had been wounded by HRT rifle shots on August 22. At the conclusion of the conversation, Gritz briefed Rogers and Glenn. Later that day, he also informed a group of sympathizers gathered near the crisis site.

The efforts of Gritz and Jack McLamb, another nongovernmental negotiator, were successful, and on Sunday, August 30, between mid-morning and noon, Harris agreed to surrender, an important development for several reasons, not the least of which was that for the first time Gritz talked face-to-face with Randy Weaver. When Gritz and McLamb met Harris at the rear door of the residence and helped hi down the stairs, the cabin door opened, exposing Weaver and the interior.

Later, Gritz saw Vicki Weaver's body on the kitchen floor, partially under a table.[FN810] A cloth had been placed over the top half of the body, leaving the lower half exposed. The feet were positioned near the front door, with the head and torso toward the interior. The manner in which the body was positioned was consistent with a backward fall from the front doorway. It appeared to Gritz that the body had not been moved after the shooting.

[G.J.]

[FN811]

A review by the FBI of all audio and video tapes of the events at Ruby Ridge shows that no information had been received by the FBI or other law enforcement personnel about Vicki Weaver's death before Gritz' conversation with Randy Weaver on August 28. Interviews of personnel from the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, Idaho State Police, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and local agencies at the scene during the standoff do not reveal any earlier knowledge of Vicki Weaver's death. No notations concerning Vicki Weaver's death were found in any official log of the events or in any other records made during the standoff. [FN812]

f. Initial Steps Toward Negotiation

On August 22, Glenn and Rogers focused much of their energy on the procurement and outfitting of two armored personnel carriers with a telephone and enough line to reach the command post from one Weaver compound, a distance of approximately one mile.

Glenn believed that resolution of the crisis through dialogue and negotiations was the most desirable and usually the safest outcome. He stressed that the FBI tried every proposed negotiation option from the beginning of the crisis.[FN813]

Gore also believed that the objective was peaceful resolution of the crisis. In his view, tactical personnel first had to establish a means to communicate with the Weaver group in the cabin, which did not have a telephone. The objective of the operations plan was to establish a perimeter for containment of the crisis site and to get close enough to establish communications. [FN814]

FBI senior hostage negotiator, Frederick Lanceley was notified of the situation at Ruby Ridge Friday afternoon, August 21. He traveled with the main group of HRT personnel from the Washington, D.C. area to Idaho, arriving early in the morning on Saturday, August 22. He received no request for consultation on negotiations until mid-afternoon Saturday, August 22, when he was called to the command post and asked to write a negotiations addendum to the proposed operations plan. He was not consulted before the submission of the initial plan, which FBI Headquarters rejected because it did not contain a negotiations component.[FN815]

Early in the crisis, Lanceley was not a party to the discussions among command personnel. Nevertheless, he believed that they intended to resolve the crisis tactically. He was unaware of discussions between Glenn and other command personnel concerning negotiations. He strongly criticized the tactical actions taken, and he regretted not being more aggressive in voicing his objections on Saturday, August 22, and again on Sunday evening, August 23, when he opposed removal of the outbuildings. [FN816]

The initial negotiations strategy was to approach the Weaver cabin, read a surrender statement over a loudspeaker, and attempt to resolve the crisis through the surrender of the Weaver group. The surrender announcement was to be read after tactical personnel had established a 360-degree perimeter around the Weaver compound. If the Weaver group did not surrender following the announcement, a hostage phone was to be delivered and telephone wire was to be laid down the mountain from the cabin to the command post.

Immediately after Horiuchi's shots, HRT Commander Richard Rogers decided to drive two armored personnel carriers to the cabin area to deliver a telephone and establish communications with those inside the cabin.[FN817] When the carriers were within 30 to 50 feet of the cabin, Lanceley made the following surrender announcement at approximately 6:30 p.m. on Saturday night:

Mr. Weaver, this is Fred Lanceley of the FBI. You should understand that we have warrants for the arrest of yourself and Mr. Harris. I would like you to accept a telephone so that we can talk and work out how you will come out of the house without further violence. I would like you or one of your children to come out of the house, unarmed, pick up the telephone and return to the house.[FN818]

There was no response to Lanceley's message. The telephone was placed approximately twenty yards from the cabin. Both carriers left, laying wire for the phone as they returned down the mountain. Continuous attempts to contact the Weaver group by ringing the telephone were made throughout the night. There was no response.

g. Continuing Efforts of the FBI Hostage Negotiators

In mid-morning, Sunday, August 13, following the return of the HRT sniper/observers to their positions, Rogers took the two carriers back to the position near the Weaver cabin where they had been the previous night. The telephone was in the same position they had left it the night before. This required all communication with the cabin to be made by bullhorn or megaphone. Rogers spoke to the group in the cabin for approximately 30 minutes encouraging them "to come out, pick up the phone, establish dialogue, and let's move on with this and establish some kind of communications". [FN819] Rogers claims to have heard no response from the Weaver cabin.

Two assault teams were deployed from the carriers to establish a 360-degree cordon around the cabin. According to Rogers, the assault personnel could not be seen from the cabin. After this deployment, between 20 and 21 assault personnel were around the cabin continuously until the resolution of the crisis on August 31.[FN820]

The nature of Commander Rogers' message to the Weaver group on Sunday morning is at issue. According to Lanceley, before Rogers and his team ascended the mountain, Lanceley asked Rogers if Lanceley could accompany him to the cabin area. Rogers told Lanceley that he would not be needed.[FN821]

[G.J.]

[G.J.]

[FN822]

[G.J.]

There was no response from the cabin.[FN823]

During Bo Gritz' discussions with the Weaver group later in the week, Weaver and his daughters told Gritz that they had developed an intense hatred for Lanceley because of remarks directed to Vicki Weaver and questions he asked about what they were having for breakfast. Weaver said these remarks "pissed them off" and strengthened their resolve in the cabin."[FN824]

On August 21, the HRT supervisors told behavioral scientists in the FBI's Special Operations and Research Unit about the HRT deployment and provided them with the limited information available. On August 23, the behavioral scientists were given incomplete additional information. When FBI Supervisory Special Agent Clint Van Zandt developed the profile, he was not aware that shots had been fired on August 22; that Vicki Weaver had been killed [FN825]; or that anyone had been wounded. He said that the shooting incident would affect the way in which the Weaver family perceived attempts by the government to negotiate.[FN826]

The behavioral scientists sent an assessment to the crisis site on August 24. This assessment included several observations and suggestions for dealing with the Weaver group: the Weavers will not trust negotiators connected to the federal government; Randy Weaver's resolve would be strengthened if he has contact with local supporters; third parties should be considered to assist the negotiations; the Weaver group, including Vicki Weaver, her children, and Harris, could be expected to meet any attempt to enter the residence with armed resistance; if Vicki Weaver believed that efforts to overwhelm them physically or otherwise drive the Weavers from their home would be successful, she could be expected to kill the children and commit suicide; as those inside the cabin became fatigued, the Weaver group could resort to a suicide attack directed against federal law enforcement officials, if they believed the perimeter was too close to the cabin.

On Tuesday, August 25, FBI negotiators continued their efforts, which included statements directed at Vicki Weaver and expressing concern for the family's welfare. The Weaver group was repeatedly asked to surrender, and they were assured that they would not be harmed. There was to response.[FN827] The command post log states that water to the cabin was cut off on August 25.

The first contact with Randy Weaver occurred on Wednesday, August 26. In mid-morning, Lanceley told Weaver that the personnel carrier would approach the cabin to transfer the telephone to the robot and that the robot would approach the cabin with the telephone to improve communications weaver was also told that the robot would try to push the telephone through a cabin window, breaking the cabin window in the process. Weaver shouted "Get the fuck out of here" and made other statements that could not be understood. In the afternoon, Weaver said that he would not take the telephone.

h. Efforts of Nongovernmental Negotiators

[G.J.]

[FN828]

[G.J.]

[FN829]

[G.J.]

[FN830]

On Friday, August 28, Marnis Joy again unsuccessfully tried to establish contact with her brother. Later that day, Randy Weaver stated that he would talk to Bo Gritz.[FN831] Glenn approached Gritz, and he offered to assist in negotiating with Weaver. Gritz convinced Glenn that because Gritz and Weaver had a common background in the Special Forces, Gritz had a better chance of talking to Weaver than anyone else on site. After conferring with Rogers and Headquarters, Glenn agreed to Gritz' participation. [FN832]

On Friday afternoon, Gritz was briefed by Rogers and FBI negotiators. At dusk, he went up the mountain toward the Weaver cabin.[FN833] After trying unsuccessfully to communicate with Weaver using the robot and then a bullhorn from the personnel carrier, Gritz walked to the cabin. Through a window, he began to talk to Weaver. When Gritz asked if everyone was "OK," Weaver said, "No...My wife was shot and killed last Saturday."[FN834] At that time Gritz also learned that Weaver and Harris had been wounded. [FN835]

Law enforcement components at Ruby Ridge told us that they first learned that Weaver, Kevin Harris, and Vicki Weaver had been shot and that Vicki Weaver was dead from Gritz' conversation with Weaver on August 28.[FN836]

On Saturday morning, August 19, Gritz received permission to return to the Weaver residence with Jackie Brown, a friend of the Weaver family, and Chuck Sandelin, a local minister. Weaver yelled at Sandelin to get off the property. Sandelin left and was not used in negotiations again.[FN837]

Rogers tried to discourage Jackie Brown from approaching the cabin. According to Brown, Rogers told her that, if she did not come out of the Weaver cabin within a reasonable time, he would assume that she had joined the Weavers or had been taken hostage and that HRT may have to come in to rescue her.[FN838]

Gritz and Brown went to the cabin. Gritz spoke throughout the day with Weaver, his daughters, and Harris through the cabin wall. Gritz believed by the sound of Harris' voice that he was in need of medical attention. In addition to suggesting that Harris needed medical attention, Gritz conversed casually with Weaver about the military, spoke philosophically to him, and prayed with him. [FN839]

On Sunday morning, Gerald McLamb, a retired Phoenix police officer who was assisting Gritz in his campaign for President, began assisting Gritz in the negotiations. Both negotiators focused their conversations with Weaver and Harris on Harris' need for medical attention. In mid-morning, Harris decided to surrender.[FN840]

Gritz resumed conversations with Weaver, who agreed to the removal of Vicki Weaver's body from the cabin. When Gritz and Brown returned to the cabin with a body bag, Gritz wore a transmitting device that allowed the forward command post to monitor his conversation. For security reasons, Rogers insisted on this precaution. According to Mr. Gritz, Vicki Weaver's body was positioned in the location or very near the location where she fell at the time of her death. Brown and Gritz carried Vicki Weaver's body to the forward command post.[FN841]

After delivering the body, Gritz saw Brown return to the cabin with some water and begin cleaning blood from the floor. Brown reported that, at her request, she was given two five gallon buckets of water, three white bath towels, and a roll of paper towels. Brown said she cleaned Vicki Weaver's blood from the cabin floor because she did not want the Weaver girls to have "to deal with cleaning the blood of their mother."[FN842]

Gritz resumed speaking with Weaver and learned that the Weaver family was convinced that the law enforcement personnel wanted to kill each of them.[FN843] Weaver told Gritz that he wanted to surrender, but that his daughters would not let him. While in the cabin Gritz noted the armaments available to the Weavers and the configuration of the cabin structure. He relayed this information to Rogers.[FN844]

According to Gritz at some point on Sunday, Rogers told him that, regardless of the day's events, HRT was going to assault the residence on Monday and that the assault would involve blowing out the windows and doors. Gritz disagreed with this plan and was disturbed because he felt negotiations were going well and because he was concerned about the possibility of injuring those in the cabin. Gritz discussed strategy with Rogers that involved "physically taking down" Weaver and his daughters, if an assault was initiated, to protect them from injuries.[FN845] both Gritz and McLamb felt uncomfortable with the assault strategy, but agreed it was the only way to protect the Weavers from being "killed in a tactical assault by HRT."[FN846] At trial, Rogers testified that he vetoed an arrangement with Gritz and McLamb to overpower Weaver, if he did not surrender. [FN847]

On Monday, Gritz and McLamb returned to the Weaver residence. Gritz had the robot and the APC move away from the cabin. After contacting attorney Gerry Spence, Gritz told Randy Weaver that Spence would represent him. Gritz also carried a handwritten note from Assistant U.S. Attorney Howen to Weaver that agreed to allow Weaver to present his account of the situation to a grand jury. The Weaver family surrendered on August 31. [FN848]

i. Decision to Send Howen to Ruby Ridge

In the afternoon of August 21, U.S. Marshal Michael Johnson informed U.S. Attorney Ellsworth about the shooting at Ruby Ridge.[FN849] Shortly thereafter, Ellsworth informed Howen, the Assistant U.S. attorney to whom the Weaver matter had been assigned, about the incident. The Marshals Service gave Ellsworth and Howen an additional briefing.[FN850] Based on this information, Ellsworth and Howen believed that a team of marshals had been involved in an undercover operation at Ruby Ridge, that there had been a confrontation in which Deputy Marshal Degan had been killed in an exchange of gunfire, and that several marshals were still "pinned down" at the scene of the shooting.[FN851]

After having been apprised of the crisis, Howen drafted an application for a search warrant with a supporting affidavit. [FN852] Howen soon realized that it would be difficult to draft this affidavit as well as subsequent applications in Boise when the supporting factual information was 400 miles away at Ruby Ridge. Howen suggested to Ellsworth that he travel to Ruby Ridge. Ellsworth agreed.[FN853]

Ellsworth envisioned that, at Ruby Ridge, Howen would assist in drafting applications for search warrants and supporting affidavits, as well as prepare applications for electronic surveillance. He did not intend that Howen play an investigative or tactical role.[FN854] Although Ellsworth did not recall giving Howen specific directives, he noted that the standing directive in his office was that assistants should not engage in activities that would make them a witness in a case.[FN855] Howen believed that his presence at the scene would allow him to see matters first hand and prepare his case. In addition, Howen considered himself to be the representative of the United States Attorney and as such responsible for reporting to him about events at the scene.[FN856]

j. Howen's Activities at Ruby Ridge

At Ruby Ridge, Howen was involved in preparing criminal complaints, applications for arrest warrants, search warrants, and emergency electronic surveillance applications with supporting affidavits.[FN857] He denied that he assumed an investigative role or that he directed the activities of the FBI. Howen insisted that he did not conduct any interviews while at Ruby Ridge.[FN858] Nonetheless, Howen conceded that he was not a mute observer. For example, Howen was present at the Boundary County Sheriff's Office when Deputy Marshals Roderick and Cooper were interviewed. Other than asking a few questions, Howen stated that he was not an active participant in these interviews and he was unable to recall if he took notes.[FN859] Howen said that at these interview he "basically the marshals and asked question, but he did not consider these exchanges to be interviews.[FN861]

Howen denied being involved in formulating strategy or participating in negotiations between law enforcement personnel and Weaver. However, he did write one of the notes sent to Weaver during the negotiations.[FN862] FBI Agent Rampton told investigators that Howen was not involved in the negotiations process and that Howen told him that he should remain separated from that process. [FN863]

On August 24, Howen was present at the search of the Y. [FN864] Special Agent Venkus told investigators that he invited Howen to go on the search and that Howen did not find any evidence.[FN865] Howen also participated in the walk-throughs that occurred later in the week of August 24. With the exception of the walk-through with Deputy Marshal Norris, in which Howen participated completely, Howen believed that he only participated in parts of the walk-throughs. He could not recall if he took notes.[FN866] However, he conceded that he may have taken notes during the searches and walk-throughs when he heard something of interest.[FN867] Special Agent Wayne Manis recalled that Howen participated in the walk-through with Hunt and that Howen asked questions and took notes. Manis thought that Howen's conduct was appropriate.[FN868] Special Agent George Calley recalled Howen as a member of the grou that participated on an August 30 walk-

[[ PAGES 255-262 UNAVAILABLE ]]

Finally, the profile developed by the FBI's behavioral sciences personnel was based on incomplete information, thus leading to inappropriate negotiation strategy. Initially, the FBI Special Operations and Research Unit was not informed of the HRT rifle shots fired on August 22 or of the fact that Harris might have been wounded. According to the behavioral scientists who compiled the profile, the shooting incident would affect the way the Weaver family perceived negotiations. The scientists reported that their assessment would have been different, had they been told that shots had been fired and that someone might have been wounded. [FN901] This information was critical to the development of an accurate profile of Randy Weaver.

The failure of on-site supervisors to communicate accurate information appears to have had a negative impact on the attempt to resolve the crisis through negotiation.

(2) Balance of Tactical and Negotiation Strategies

In a crisis situation in which a deliberate assault option is considered a necessary part of overall strategy, a written operational plan for the assault must be submitted to the FBI Headquarters for approval. On the other hand, emergency tactical operation, whether or not they will contribute to the ultimate resolution of the crisis, are the responsibility of both the Special Agents in Charge and the HRT command structure at the crisis site.

FBI hostage negotiator Lanceley was critical of FBI crisis management at Ruby Ridge. When he attended Rogers' initial briefing, he was surprised and shocked by the Rules of Engagement and did not believe them to be consistent with the FBI's standard deadly force policy. They were the most severe rules he had seen in hundreds of prior crises. Lanceley described the situation:

[T]here was a barricaded subject at the top of a mountain, no hostages, family present and plenty of cover for perimeter personnel. The [Deputy Marshal] were no longer pinned down and the subject was barricaded at a location which had few of the problems inherent to crises that one would encounter in an urban setting. there had been on gunfire since the previous morning at the time of the firefight with the [Deputy Marshals].[FN902]

Lanceley told this inquiry that, when he heard Rogers tell the group that this would be "no long siege," Lanceley knew that Rogers did not intend to engage in negotiations. Following the briefing, Lanceley conveyed his perception to Rogers and told officer in the HRT command post. Rogers' response, "good," confirmed Lanceley's belief that there would be no negotiations.[FN903]

When he arrived at the command post, Lanceley told Special Agent in Charge Glenn that he was available and proceeded to work on intelligence gathering. Lanceley withdrew from the management structure and was not party to the discussions of command personnel, who he believed intended to resolve the crisis tactically. Lanceley is not aware of discussion among Glenn and other command personnel which considered a negotiations strategy because he was not consulted before the rejection of the operations plan.[FN904] After the plan had been rejected in mid-afternoon on August 22, Lanceley was called to the command post and asked to write an addendum. He understood FBI Headquarters had rejected the operations plan because it did not contain a negotiation component.

Lanceley strongly criticized the tactical actions taken, despite his absence from meetings in which command personnel discussed and approved strategy. Lanceley told this inquiry that he regretted not being more aggressive on August 22 and again on August 23, when he chose not to voice objections to Glenn about removing the outbuildings.[FN905]

Another FBI Hostage negotiator, E. MacArthur Burke, believed that it was Lanceley's responsibility, as senior FBI negotiator, to press the issue of negotiation. Burke concluded that negotiators and SWAT personnel are highly trained and Special Agents in Charge are not as well prepared to handle the often opposing forces weighing in favor of tactical or negotiated resolutions. Burke believed that the negotiation-free operations order showed that the negotiation and tactical elements of the Ruby Ridge response were considerably out of balance.[FN906]

In contrast to Burke, FBI negotiator Wilson Lima spoke of Glenn's commitment to establishing communications with the Weaver cabin from his arrival on the evening of August 21. The next morning, Glenn agreed that a phone should be given to the Weaver group.[FN907]

We are aware that the structure of the HRT and its impressive machinery may tend to overtake the negotiators' role in a crisis situation where an inexperienced commander is in charge. Such a charge has arisen in this case. The lack of balance between the negotiation and tactical efforts created an atmosphere supporting a tactical resolution from the very beginning.

The strong influence of the HRT management team at the scene is reflected in the way Bo Gritz' participation at the crisis site was finally authorized. According to Gritz, Glenn told him that before Glenn would authorize his participation, he would have to confer with Rogers and FBI Headquarters. There is no evidence that Lanceley was consulted before Gritz was permitted to join the effort to resolve the crisis.[FN908]

From the information gathered during this inquiry, it appears that no operations plan was ever approved throughout the entire siege. Unfortunately, FBI records provided during this inquiry do not contain all the operations plans. The records are so incomplete that we can not verify this conclusion.

In our opinion, the available records reflect insufficient consideration of negotiation strategy as compared to tactical approaches.[FN909] We have been told that the lack of a negotiation component in the initial operation plan did not reflect a lack of intent to negotiate, but the understanding that tactical personnel had to establish communications with the Weaver cabin before negotiations could begin. We have been told that the first objective of the operations plan was to establish a perimeter containing the crises site and to get close enough to establish communications.[FN910]

[G.J.]

[FN911 -- G.J.]

While we credit the argument that it was necessary to secure the site before negotiations could commence, we find much evidence that a negotiation strategy was not the highest priority of the FBI crisis management team. We note the following: the failure to consult with a negotiations expert while formulating the initial operations plan; the failure to bring an FBI negotiator along on Rogers' mission to the cabin on Sunday morning; the failure to inform adequately FBI behavioral scientists that shots had been fired and that someone in the cabin might have been wounded; and repeated misinformation form the site that shots had been fired from the cabin on August 22. These facts give weight to the complaint that the management team favored a tactical strategy over a negotiation strategy to resolve the crisis. We find that position disturbing and look to the FBI to establish a mechanism to ensure a more even balance between the two strategies in the future.

d. Evidence of Vicki Weaver's Death

It has been alleged that law enforcement officials knew that Vicki Weaver was dead before Randy Weaver spoke with Bo Gritz on August 28. The allegation accuses the FBI of covering up its knowledge of Vicki Weaver's death in order to conceal that it intentionally shot and killed her. We find no factual support for that position and find that the allegation is totally without merit.

The foundation for the allegation is speculation. For example, questions have been raised as to why during the electronic monitoring of conversations inside the Weaver cabin did law enforcement personnel not become suspicious when Vicki Weaver's voice was not heard. In our view this can be explained by the poor quality of the audio recordings and by the fact that 16 year-old Sara Weaver's voice may have been mistaken for her mother's.

There were also unconfirmed reports of something resembling a body bag on the back porch of the Weaver cabin. This, according to the allegation, was another indication that law enforcement had earlier knowledge of Vicki Weaver's death. A deputy marshal at the scene reported that he was told by an unidentified individual that "there was something wrapped on the back porch that could possibly be a body, and there was a `smell of death'. It was related to me as adult size." [FN912] The marshal believed that if such a bag were on the back porch, it contained the body of Kevin Harris not Vicki Weaver.[FN913] This would be a reasonable assumption on the part of the marshal in light of Horiuchi's report that he may have shot Harris with his second shot.

It is the conclusion of this inquiry that law enforcement personnel did not know of Vicki Weaver's death before Friday, August 28 when Randy Weaver informed Bo Gritz.

e. Howen's Activities at Ruby Ridge

Howen was present throughout the crisis at Ruby Ridge. We find nothing inappropriate about his presence or his conduct. Indeed, considering the remoteness of the Weaver property and the need for expeditious applications for search warrants and Title III authority, we believe that there was a legitimate need for a representative of the U.S. Attorney to be at Ruby Ridge. Most individuals questioned that it was appropriate for Howen to be a Ruby Ridge and observed no improper conduct.

As the prosecutor in the case, Howen had an understandable interest in learning about the shootings at Ruby Ridge, as well as becoming familiar with the evidence. He was present at some of the interviews of the marshals, but primarily as an observer. The fact that he may have asked some questions and may have taken some notes was not improper. No one characterized Howen as orchestrating or controlling the interviews. Special Agent Caster reported seeing Howen take the marshals aside and talk to them but he had no knowledge of what was discussed.

The only suggestion that Howen may have been a more active participant came from Gore's impression after talking to an agent. Such an impression is not evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. Although others reported Howen talking to individuals on the scene and taking notes, there was no evidence that these conversations were improper. Indeed, Howen needed to obtain information to draft necessary legal documents. Furthermore, as the persecutor in the case, it is understandable and appropriate that Howen took notes of matters that would assist him in preparing the case.

With the exception of drafting legal documents for search warrants and Title III authority, there was no evidence that Howen was in a position of control at Ruby Ridge or that he exercised a decisionmaking function. No evidence was discovered that Howen had any role in the decision to deploy HRT or in the formulation or modification of the Rules of Engagement. Nor was there any evidence that he was involved in tactical or operational planning or decisions or in developing or implementing negotiation strategy.

Similarly, there is no evidence that Howen acted improperly at walk-throughs and searches or that he controlled the searches or selected the investigative methodology. Indeed, Special Agent Davis believed that Howen tried not to interfere with the investigations. Although Howen may have made a few suggestions as to materials the investigators should seize, these suggestions were not orders and appear to have been made to assist the agents conducting the search. The advice Howen provided at these searches appears to have been solicited and was limited to the specific inquiry made. Our investigation uncovered no evidence that Howen's actions impeded investigators at the searches.

We believe that, in the future, serious consideration should be given to including a representative from the U.S. Attorney's Office to law enforcement teams responding to crises like Ruby Ridge. The representative could assist law enforcement personnel in many matters such as participating in resolving the controversy and providing legal advice about issues arising during the crises.

We recognize, however, that in many instances the representative should not be the attorney responsible for prosecuting the case because this could lead to the charge that the prosecutor was a witness to the critical events at issue. With that caveat, we believe that many of the issues a Ruby Ridge could have been avoided, if a member of the U.S. Attorney's Office had been a more active participant in the events.

4. Conclusion

We believe that questionable decisions by HRT managers unintentionally contributed to circumstances that required removal of HRT personnel form the mountain overlooking the Weaver cabin on August 22 after the two rifle shots were fired.

The FBI management team favored a tactical strategy and gave insufficient consideration to negotiations as a means to resolve the crisis. Negotiation experts at the site were not adequately informed and consulted during the crisis. The failure of onsite supervisors to communicate accurate information to the FBI's behavioral sciences personnel appears to have had a negative impact on attempts to resolve the crisis through negotiation. the late decision to use third party non-governmental negotiators was a sound management decision that displayed flexibility on the part of FBI management. Finally, Howen's conduct was proper and consistent with the roe of a federal prosecutor. Indeed, it may have been advisable for a member of the U.S. Attorney's Office to have participated more actively in some of the events at Ruby Ridge, thereby possibly avoiding some of the problems that arose.

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FOOTNOTES (SECTION IV, PART H
)

771 Sworn Statement of Lester Hazen, November 19, 1993, at 13-14. HRT personnel did not bring their "cold weather package" that included clothing better suited for the conditions because HRT supervisors did not anticipate cold weather in August. See Sworn Statement of William Luthin, November 18, 1993, at 3.

772 Hazen Sworn Statement, November 19, 1993, at 13-14.

773 HRT Commander Rogers testified that he originally planned to keep the sniper/observers on the mountain until 10:00 p.m. or midnight. Because of the weather, he ordered them off the mountain at approximately 8:00 p.m. Rogers Trial Testimony, June 2, 1993, at 78.

774 Glenn Sworn Statement, January 12, 1994, at 24-26.

775 Hazen Sworn Statement, November 19, 1993, at 14.

776 Local authorities maintained jurisdiction over the investigation of the other deaths and injuries that occurred at Ruby Ridge.

777 FD-302 Interview of E. Glen Schwartz, October 21, 1993, at 4. Major Edwin Strickfaden of the Idaho State Police assumed command of his personnel upon his arrival some time between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m. Strickfaden stated that Glenn arrived about the same time he arrived. The Idaho State Police had about 50 people at or near the crisis site. This included additional patrols in nearby Bonners Ferry, Idaho who were placed there at the request of city officials. FD-302 Interview of Edwin Strickfaden, October 7, 1993, at 4.

778 See Undated Proclamation signed by Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus, August 21, 1992.

779 However, it should be noted that the delay in deployment of the HRT sniper/observers could be attributed in part to the refusal of the Governor's office to release armored personnel carriers to the site.

780 For example, Captain Schwartz stated that Hunt wanted to take some officers and rescue the remaining marshals. Schwartz and tow deputy sheriffs talked Hunt out of this with a little "arm twisting." Schwartz FD-302, October 21, 1993, at 3.

781 Glenn Sworn Statement, January 12, 1994, at 2-9.

782 Id. at 9. Glenn and Gore ordered the Salt Lake City and Seattle SWAT teams to establish the perimeter. Sworn Statement of William Gore, November 3, 1993, at 4-5.

783 Id.

784 Id. at 5-6.

785 Rogers Trial Testimony, June 2, 1993, at 82-90.

786 Glenn Sworn Statement, January 12, 1994, at 20.

787 Id. at 20-21.

788 Id. at 20.

789 Rogers testified that he was trying to "get them to come out, pick up the phone, establish a dialogue, and let's move on with this and establish some kind of communications." Rogers Trial Testimony, June 2, 1993, at 82.

790 Lanceley FD-302, October 19, 1993 at 4.

791 Rogers Trial Testimony, June 2, 1993, at 82-83.

792 Lanceley FD-302, October 19, 1993, at 5.

793 Id.

794 Id.

795 FD-302 Interview of E. MacArthur Burke, October 5, 1993, at 2.

796 Rogers Trial Testimony, June 2, 1993, at 94.

797 Glenn stated that the discovery of Sammy Weaver's body was the first evidence that anyone in the cabin had been injured. Glenn Sworn Statement, January 12, 1994, at 28-29. This is inconsistent with HRT reports that Horiuchi's second shot might have hit an adult male.

798 Rogers Trial Testimony, June 2, 1993, at 106. The only evidence that law enforcement knew that Sammy Weaver had been struck during the exchange of gunfire of August 21 is the interview of Marshals Service Director Hudson, who stated that Deputy Director Twomey informed him that "it was believed that Sammy [Weaver] had been wounded." FD-302 Interview of Henry Hudson, November 15, 1993, at 4. Twomey reported that he told Hudson there was no indication Sammy had been shot. See FD-302 Interview of John Twomey, November 26, 1993, at 3. None of the FBI personnel at Ruby Ridge appears to have known that Sammy Weaver had been wounded or killed during the fire fight on August 21. Initial reports of the location of the wounds on Sammy Weaver's body were incorrect. For example, the Marshals Service Crisis center Log contains an entry on Sunday night that gunshot wounds were discovered on his head and left breast. An entry, less than two hours later, corrects the information, explaining that he had been shot once in the back and once in the arm. Crisis Center Log, August 23, 1992, at 11:03 p.m. (EDT) and August 24, 1992, at 12:48 a.m. (EDT).

799 FD-302 Interview of Clint Van Zandt, December 21, 1993, Attachment, at 1.

800 Gore Sworn Statement November 3, 1993, at 16.

801 HRT Sniper Log, August 26, 1992; FBI SIOC Log, August 26, 1992, at 12:30 p.m. (EDT) (Potts and Glenn approved the change).

802 Glenn Sworn Statement, January 12, 1994, at 28-29.

803 Id.

804 Gore Sworn Statement, November 3, 1993, at 15.

805 Sworn Statement of Robin Montgomery, October 25, 1993, at 2.

806 Rogers Trial Testimony, June 3, 1993, at 74-75. Duke Smith, Stephen McGavin, William Luthin, and Lester Hazen were not involved in the decision to revoke the Rules of Engagement but were advised of the decision.

807 SIOC Log, August 26, 1992, 12:30 p.m. (EDT), at 31. Potts does not recall this change.

808 HRT Sniper Log, August 26, 1992, 10:53 a.m. and 10:54 a.m., at 22. HRT and SWAT team members deployed at the time of the change to the FBI standard deadly force policy reported to this inquiry that they received radio notice of the change from Rogers. Each observation point was required to acknowledge that it was "on the air" before Rogers announced the change to the standard FBI policy and that it had heard and understood the change. An HRT member told HRT and SWAT personnel who began the next shift that the standard deadly force policy was in effect. Each briefing subsequent to the announcement included a reminder that the standard policy on deadly force was in effect.

809 [G.J.]

810 Gritz was asked during this inquiry whether, at any point leading up to Harris' surrender, he had detected odors associated with a dead body. Gritz said that he had not detected such odors and explained that he was very familiar with the odor of death, due to extensive service in Viet Nam. Gritz retired from the Special Forces at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1979.

Soon after Harris' surrender, Gritz persuaded Weaver to allow him and Jackie Brown to come inside the residence and remove Vicki Weaver's body. He obtained a body bag and, with Randy Weaver's assistance, placed Vicki Weaver's body in the bag. Gritz detected only minimal odor and was unable to explain why the very recognizable odor usually associated with a several-day-old corpse had not permeated the residence. When Gritz placed the body in the bag, he removed what he described as a holstered nine millimeter semi-automatic pistol.

811 [G.J.]

812 It was rumored among law enforcement personnel that, after the second shot, a body, possibly Harris', could be seen on the front or back porch of the cabin. FD-302 Interview of Luke Joseph Adler, January 7, 1994, at 2-3. One marshal was told that there was something wrapped on the back porch "that could be possibly a body." Sworn Statement of Mark Jurgensen, February 7, 1994, at 16-17. None of the HRT personnel in mountainside observation positions reported seeing Harris' body or any other. The Crisis Center Log reported that the rumor was "completely false and unfounded." Crisis Center Log, August 25, 1992, at 2:51 p.m. (EDT).

813 Glenn Sworn Statement, January 12, 1994, at 17-18. 814 Gore Sworn Statement, November 3, 1993, at 8-9.

815 Lanceley FD-302, October 19, 1993, at 3-4.

816 Id. at 3-5. Wilson Lima, hostage negotiator for the FBI's Salt Lake City Division, was deployed with the Salt Lake City SWAT. Line spoke of Glenn's commitment to establishing a means of communication with the Weaver cabin from the time of his arrival on Friday evening, August 21, 1992. Lima recalls Glenn reiterating the need to get a phone to the Weaver/Harris group again on Saturday morning, August 22, 1992. FD-302 Interview of Wilson Lima, October 12, 1993, at 1-2.

817 Rogers Trial Testimony, June 2, 1993, at 67-69.

818 Lanceley FD-302, September 2, 1993, Attachment A, at 1.

819 Rogers Trial Testimony, June 2, 1993, at 82.

820 Id. at 83, 90-91, 93.

821 Lanceley FD-302, October 19, 1993, at 5.

822 [G.J.] ; Lanceley FD-302, September 2, 1993, Attachment A, at 2-4. Earlier in the day, a carrier ran over and broke the line to the hostage telephone.

823 [G.J] ; Lanceley FD-302, September 2, 1993, Attachment A, at 4-8.

824 Gritz FD-302, November 17, 1993, at 15.

825 Although the FBI at the scene did not know that Vicki Weaver was dead, they knew that shots had been fired and had substantial information that the second shot had at least injured, if not killed, Kevin Harris.

826 Van Zandt FD-302, December 21, 1993, at 1-2.

827 Lanceley FD-302, September 2, 1993, Attachment A, at 8-11.

828 [G.J.] ; Lanceley FD-302, September 2, 1993, Attachment A, at 11-19.

829 [G.J.]

830 Command Post Entry for August 17, 1992; FD-302 Interview of James Scanlan, January 12, 1994, at 12.

831 Mr. Gritz was an independent candidate for President of the United States at the time.

832 Gritz FD-302, November 17, 1993, at 4-5.

833 Id.

834 Transcript of conversation intercepted from microphone placed under floor of Weaver residence, August 29, 1992, at 7:39 p.m. (PDT). According to Gritz' version of the conversation, Weaver asked, "Bo, is that you?" Weaver then stated, "They have killed my wife, they have killed Vicki, and they won't tell anyone" or words to that effect.

835 Gritz Fd-302, November 17, 1993, at 6.

836 Lanceley FD-302, September 2, 1993, Attachment, at 31-32. Lanceley's notes, generated at that time, state that he first learned that Vicki Weaver, Kevin Harris, and Randy Weaver had been shot as a result of Weaver's statement to Gritz.

837 Id., Attachment, at 32; Gritz FD-302, November 17, 1993, at 7.

838 FD-302 Interview of Jackie Brown, October 5, 1993, at 2.

839 Gritz FD-302, November 17, 1993, at 7-8.

840 Id.

841 Id. at 10-11

842 Jackie Brown FD-302, October 5, 1993, at 3.

843 The conversations Gritz had with the Weaver family on August 30 reveal that Weaver believed that the shotgun on the robot would be used to kill him if he attempted to pick up the telephone to negotiate. See Tape Channel 1. at 61-62 and Tape 2 at 5.

844 Gritz FD-302, at 11-12.

845 Id. at 12-14.

846 McLamb FD-302, January 13, 1994, at 6.

847 Rogers Trial Testimony, June 2, 1993, at 167-68 and June 3, 1993, at 108.

848 Gritz FD-302, at 12-15

849 Interview of Maurice Ellsworth on December 15-16, 1993, Tape 2, at 31 (hereinafter cited as "Ellsworth Interview").

850 Ellsworth believes that the Marshals Service representative were Michael Johnson, Ronald Evans, and possibly Warren Mays. Id. at 31-32.

851 Howen Interview, Tape 4, at 23-27; Ellsworth Interview, Tape 2, at 31-32.

852 It was decided that Warren Mays, who had close contact with Dave Hunt, would be the affiant. Howen Interview, Tape 4, at 28-29.

853 Howen Interview, Tape 4, at 28-29; Ellsworth Interview, Tape 2, at 34-35.

854 FD-302 Interview of Maurice Ellsworth, October 29, 1993, at 5; Ellsworth Interview, Tape 2, at 42.

855 Ellsworth Interview, Tape 2, at 42.

856 Howen Interview, Tape 4, at 29-30.

857 Id., Tape 5, at 54; FD-302 Interview of Gregory Rampton, October 18-19, 1993, at 7.

858 Howen Interview, Tape 6, at 52.

859 Id., Tape 5, at 23.

860 Id. at 17, 22.

861 Id., Tape 6, at 52.

862 This note, which Howen gave to Glenn, was not found when the cabin was searched after the standoff. Rampton believes that the note articulated the Government's prosecutorial position, if Weaver surrendered. Rampton FD-302, October 18-19, 1993, at 17.

863 Id.

864 Howen Interview, Tape 6, at 9-10.

865 FD-302 Interview of Joseph V. Venkus, October 18-19, 1993, at 6.

866 Howen Interview, Tape 5, at 23; Tape 6, at 6-7.

867 Id., Tape 6, at 17.

868 FD-302 Interview of Wayne F. Manis, October 5, 1993 at 2.

[Editor's Note: Footnotes 869 through 901 are unavailable.]

901 FD-302 Interview of James Wright, December 21, 1993, at 1-2; FD-302 Interview of Clint Van Zandt, December 21, 1993, at 1-2.

902 Lanceley FD-302, October 19, 1993, at 2.

903 Lanceley FD-302, September 2, 1993, at 2.

904 Lanceley FD-302, October 19, 1993, at 3.

905 Id. at 4.

906 Burke FD-302, at 2.

907 Lima FD-302, October 12, 1993, at 2.

908 Gritz FD-302, November 17, 1993, at 5.

909 See, for example, entries in the FBI SIOC Log concerning the proposed operations plan and strategy on the first day.

910 Gore Sworn Statement, November 3, 1993, at 8-9.

911 [G.J.]

912 Jurgensen Sworn Statement, February 7, 1994, at 16.

913 Id.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Thu Nov 29, 2012 1:40 pm

see link for full story
http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editori ... 86446.aspx

Special Agent G. Clayton Grigg on the FBI's Approach to Knowledge Management
Nov 29, 2012
Sandra Haimila



G. (Gurvais) Clayton Grigg, a special agent with the FBI (fbi.gov) since 1997 and chief knowledge officer for almost six years, discusses the agency's approach to knowledge management. In a session at the 2012 KMWorld Conference, Grigg says KM is all about outcomes, which for the FBI involves: keeping people safe, preventing bad things from happening and finding out about those that did.

KM is all about improving performance, according to Grigg. He asked audience members what they would do if they wanted to know something: query a database or ask someone who knows? The majority of people always respond that they would turn to someone they know, he says. Yet, organizations often look to buying technology instead of investing in helping people find the people who have the knowledge they need.

"It's great to help people find data, but it's even better to help people find people who know the data," Grigg says.

The FBI is always adapting and evolving because its threats and enemies are, Grigg says. It has to be a learning organization. Lives, freedom and the citizenry are on the line. With those at stake, the FBI also cares about what it knew years ago, because that knowledge could help identify current threats.

In talking about knowledge networks and challenges, Grigg explains, "We have been doing network analysis for a long time, but how often do we use these same techniques to help ourselves internally to figure out who are the key people in our network, who knows the most about Topic X, who is authoring or co-authoring more documents about that or has that experience. So that's one of our knowledge management challenges."

Grigg reports that the FBI is undertaking a number of KM initiatives, which include: a federal KM community, a
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Fri Nov 30, 2012 1:06 am

couple reads. You do know what to do,eh?


1st read
see link for full story
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/ ... ss_vi.html


FBI records show randomness, viciousness of civil right era violence
November 29, 2012


By Ben Wallace

In the annals of civil rights era violence, one Louisiana case proved especially brutal because of its seeming randomness and almost choreographed nature. But recently released FBI records demonstrate the terror of white on black attacks -- and the relative impunity in which those attacks often were carried out.
No charges were ever filed against Raleigh "Red" Glover despite eyewitness identification and statements he made to FBI informants. FBI files

It was during the waning hours of Feb. 13, 1964, when Raleigh "Red" Glover of Vidalia parked his car in the middle of the B.B. Beard Road near Monterey, Louisiana, popped open the hood and waited.

The car didn't have engine trouble, but he and at least a half-dozen armed, hooded men, lurking in nearby bushes, had set up the scene to appear that way.

Nearby, two locals, Robert Earl Watkins and Richard James, had just finished installing mufflers and repairing the rear bumper of a neighbor's Cadillac. The two black men left the home of G.R. Stewart around dusk, headed for home.

Neither Watkins nor James reached his intended destination. The FBI has recently declassified more than 35,000 civil rights era investigative files as part of an ongoing effort to clear unsolved murders that appear to be racially motivated.

Students from the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication have pored over many of these documents, released by the FBI in response to numerous public information requests. Many of these cases remain open and unsolved -- cold cases, they are called.

Others, like the case involving Red Glover, Robert Watkins and Richard James, have been closed because of statutes of limitations. Yet these FBI investigative documents offer a frank, often chilling insight, into the nature of race-based crimes in the 1960s and earlier -- and an instructive lesson regarding life in the Jim Crow south.

On that February evening, James said he saw a 1950's Ford parked in the middle of the road and pulled over to help.

A white man, whom one of the black men later identified as Glover, said his car was having engine trouble. When James bent over to look under the hood, Glover pulled out a pistol.

"This is a holdup. There isn't anything wrong with the car," said Glover, a member of the Ku Klux Klan and widely recognized as the leader of an infamous Klan subset called the "Silver Dollar Group," which was rumored to be responsible for many acts of racial violence in the Concordia Parish, La., and Natchez, Miss., areas.

At that moment, a group of hooded and masked men emerged from the bushes with what appeared to be sawed-off shotguns, ordering Watkins and James into Glover's car, the FBI documents said.

"If you want to live, don't yell," Glover said, according to James' FBI interview three years after the incident.

The men piled into the vehicle, with Watkins and James forced into the middle of the front and back seats, respectively. Members of the so-called "wrecking crew" placed hoods over the two men's heads and bound their hands behind their backs.

According to James, they drove about three miles before emptying out near an abandoned oil well, where two 12-gauge shotgun shells were later recovered. Glover ordered Watkins and James to strip off their clothes and lie down on the dirt. Nude and exposed, the men had Klan members pin them down as they awaited their whippings.

James received six to eight lashes, according to his interview, before being told by Glover to get dressed and run.

He took off and after about 30 yards heard gunshots, which James thought meant Watkins had been shot. He lie down and waited a few minutes before running to the nearby home of Nelson Flaherty.

Nelson's wife heard the gunshots but thought they were from hunters.

Shortly after her husband returned from a meeting at the Baptist Church of Harrisburg, James showed up at their doorstep.

After tending to his lashes and lacerated hand, James was able to return home.

Watkins did not talk to the FBI, so it's unknown how he ended up at his parent's house several miles away. A week after the beatings, Watkins boarded a train in Brookhaven, Miss., en route to Chicago, with $29 from his mother and sister on which to survive until he found work.

Watkins, unlike James, heeded the warning of Glover and his Klansmen to leave Monterey or they would be killed.

Many local residents, including Watkins, according to interviews with his family members, believe the beatings were a result of a phone call Watkins had placed to the wife of R.W. "Dub" Beard earlier day.

According to the FBI documents, Watkins called Mrs. Beard, a white woman, to tell her that some of her cattle had escaped from her property and were in danger of being killed by angry neighbors if she failed to retrieve them soon enough.

In an FBI interview with the woman's husband, he said Watkins made no such phone call. He did not allow investigators to interview his wife, saying she would have told him had someone made such a call.

However, nearly everyone else interviewed claimed the phone call was the reason for the whippings, meaning that James was mostly in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Glover told an FBI informant that the leader of the Monterey KKK chapter, Wesley Warren, had called in Glover and his crew to take care of Watkins.

"He needed beating," Warren later told investigators, still adamantly denying any connection to the whippings.

The report stated that Glover "was for killing the Negroes and he was not going to just beat any more Negroes and have it reported."

Glover told FBI informants the men involved in the beatings were Tommie Lee Jones; James Lee; and James Scarborough. All were members of the Silver Dollar Group, according to FBI informants.

Then-Concordia Parish Sheriff Noah Cross told the FBI he did not believe the beatings were conducted by any Klan organization, going as far as saying "there is not or never has been any Klan group activity in Concordia Parish."


2nd read
The FBI crime family organization model is that of a Death Squad. Every major American city has a FBI " racial squad" made up of FBI agents whose goal is to neutralize black leaders by any means necessary.
Retired FBI agent Wesley Swearingen has written about this program in his /book called FBI SECRETS published by South End Press.
Swearingen also appears in a 4 DVD collections of videos released by Vermont Filmaker Roz Payne see website here http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2006/pa ... 60706.html
When interviewed by Roz Payne , FBI agent Swearingen discusses being a member of the San Fransisco FBI Racial Squad who helped put away black activist Geronimo Pratt in prison for 27 years. Pratt was later found to be innocent by a judge and released from prison. The book by Jack Olsen LAST MAN STANDING details the case. The judge said that FBI agents had fabricated false evidence against Pratt. Swearingen details the function of the FBI Racial Squad Death Squad in his video interview with Roz Payne. Professor Kenneth O'Reilly has written a book about the files the FBI keeps on black america. One of the files is called Racial Matters the title of O'Reilly's book. The book Tainting Evidence by John Kelly details how the FBI lab analyzes criminal evidence so it targets people of color.
Attorney William Pepper has authored two books that lays out the evidence he presented
to a Memphis jury in 1999 where the jury concluded that FBI agents organized the assassination of Martin Luther King. The books are called ORDERS TO KILL and ACT OF STATE.


3rd read


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =104074962

Ex-Agent Accuses FBI Of Retaliation Over Race Suit

by Dina Temple-Raston

May 13, 2009

A former FBI agent at the center of one of the biggest discrimination cases in the agency's history has filed a new lawsuit, in which he says the FBI continues to exact retribution for a case he settled back in 1990.

Donald Rochon was 37 years old when he filed his landmark discrimination suit against the FBI. Rochon, who is black, was a young agent in Omaha, Neb., when some troubling things started to happen. In one incident, Rochon returned to his desk to find that someone had put a picture of monkey over his son's face in a family photograph.

Another episode took place shortly after Rochon learned to scuba dive. "Their ideology [was that] blacks couldn't swim," he says. "And they put up a photograph of me and another black person swimming in a garbage dump."

The situation escalated when Rochon and some of his tormentors were transferred to Chicago. He started getting death threats. In one instance, white agents said they would cut off his genitals. Then, about a week later, a death and dismemberment insurance policy appeared on Rochon's desk.

"That was traced back to an FBI agent," he says. The agent forged Rochon's signature on the policy.

The FBI supervisor said it was harmless fun and wrote the incidents off as pranks.

In separate investigations, the Justice Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission saw it differently. They found that Rochon was humiliated by agents because he was black. The former special agent in charge of the Omaha office told the EEOC that he considered the pranks to be "healthy" and a sign of "esprit de corps." He said he was aware of Rochon's racial harassment complaints, but he didn't take any formal action.

4th read
http://www.finalcall.com/national/1999/ ... 2-7-99.htm

Court documents reveal a 1998 FBI plot against Mayor Barry

WASHINGTON—A federal government plan to entrap former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry in a cash-for-job scheme backfired when the secret arrest of the informant the government was to use against Mr. Barry was leaked to the media, recently unsealed court documents reveal.

The revelation has renewed fears among Black leadership that the government targets Black elected officials more often than whites and that unscrupulous methods are used to bring Blacks down. The recent court documents bring back memories of Cointelpro, the notorious FBI program used against Black leaders and organizations under the late FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover.

"The FBI and federal government have a history of harassing Black public officials. It’s not just me. There is example after example. This is no surprise," said the former mayor in an interview with The Final Call. "I think they (government) never got past 1990 when they weren’t able to put me away in jail for a long time. They’re determined to find a way to harass me for doing something illegal. But that won’t happen," he said.

In 1990, Mr. Barry was videotaped using the drug crack. He was convicted of a drug charge in the case that was brought as a result of a government covert operation.

According to the court papers, the most recent operation went like this:

D.C. police lieutenant Yong H. Ahn, was arrested in February 1998 on charges that he accepted $8,000 in bribes from illegal massage parlor operators. FBI agents approached him about helping them to target Mr. Barry and enlisted the help of Mr. Ahn’s wife Azita. In the court papers Mrs. Ahn quotes a FBI agent as saying "they would get him (Barry) with a felony and he would never get away with this."

The court papers, released by U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan after Mr. Ahn’s trial, detail how Mr. Ahn and his wife agreed to work with investigators. The plan was for Mrs. Ahn to meet privately with Mr. Barry at the home of an acquaintance.

The FBI had prepared a phony resume for her to use to get a job with the city. Mrs. Ahn was to secretly videotape Mr. Barry receiving an envelope with $5,000 from her as down payment for a job. She then was to make him believe that he would receive another $5,000 once she was on the payroll.

According to Mrs. Ahn, the plan was targeted for April 1998 but fell apart when the arrest of Lt. Ahn was leaked to the news media.

As more information about the plot comes to light, law enforcement officials are trying to absolve themselves of responsibility. U.S. Attorney Wilma A. Lewis has said the sting would not have happened even if Mr. Ahn’s arrest had remained secret, saying she never authorized the operation.

However, the lead agent on the case, William H. Spivey Jr., a 16-year FBI veteran, said he had support from top supervisors and kept them informed along the way. "I don’t think anyone believes that just being an agent, I would be able to run or conduct an investigation of this nature on my own," he said.

That kind of cooperation for such an operation from top government brass is what has Black leaders worried.

"The fact that we are paranoid about the FBI doesn’t make us wrong," said retired U.S. Congressman Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Calif.). He pointed out that the investigation of a cover-up of government involvement in the Waco, Texas, fire that killed members of the Branch Dividians offers a "new opportunity to look into this web of deceit and corruption buried within the permanent bureaucracy of the Department of Justice (DOJ)."

A former California lieutenant governor, Mr. Dymally said he was once the target of successive, unsuccessful attempts by the FBI and DOJ to entrap him from 1974, when he was elected to the California State Senate, to 1992, when he retired from Congress. Mr. Dymally now heads his own consulting firm, Dymally International Group, Inc., in Inglewood, Calif.

His experiences with the FBI/DOJ apparatus included office burglaries, surveillances, media investigations that stemmed from "leaked" information, bugged telephones, public records stored by University of California archives removed by the FBI, and investigations by the California state attorney general and state grand jury.

Former FBI agent Dr. Tyrone Powers, a 10-year veteran of the bureau, quit in1994 in part to expose what he characterized as systemic racism within the bureau.

Now a full-time professor at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Md., and author of the book "Eyes to My Soul: The Rise or Decline of a Black FBI Agent," Dr. Powers suggested that one would be naive to believe FBI denials about Operation Fruehmenschen, the alleged government operation that mirrors Cointelpro.

"When we conclude that an agency that has no problem burning white children (in Waco) will have no problem targeting Black people, their leaders, and their organizations, we will know that Cointelpro (Fruehmenschen) is alive," Dr. Powers said. "We keep looking for evidence that the FBI has shown they are experts at hiding. So we continue to be targeted and the FBI maintains their motto of ‘Admit Nothing, Deny Everything, and Use a Pencil.’ "

This isn’t to suggest that Black officials are incorruptible, those interviewed said.

"The problem is that when the government throws a fish net (under Fruehmenschen), it gets some very innocent sardines along with the occasional sharks," Mr. Dymally said.

Observers noted government stings such as Operation Incubator, where Michael Raymond, a convicted killer, was sent into Chicago to try to set-up Harold Washington, the city’s first Black elected mayor.

On January 27, 1988, Mr. Dymally, then chairman of the CBC, testified before Congress about a sworn affidavit given by attorney Hirsch Friedman, who had worked with the FBI in Atlanta. Mr. Friedman alleged that the FBI had an established official policy that initiates investigations of Black officials without probable cause. That policy was called "Operation Fruehmenschen", a German word for "early man."

Mr. Dymally said that while the affidavit offered "irrefutable proof" of government corruption, Congress took no action, which was one of the reasons he left Congress.

According to attorney Friedman, Fruehmenschen holds that Black politicians are inherently immoral, unethical and illiterate, to the extent that they can not lead people of a "high moral" order (Caucasians) and are incapable of high-level governing.

Patterns of harassment of Black officials usually begin with an interplay that takes place between the news media and law enforcement agencies, usually beginning with a rumor started by the FBI or by an ill-founded news report. This usually spirals into a "trial by media," criminal investigations and sometimes culminates in an indictment. The indictment typically results in acquittal, or in a conviction which is ultimately overturned on appeal.

"The reality is that both the FBI and the U.S. Attorney work hand and hand," Dr. Powers said. "If the FBI wants a case prosecuted the U.S. Attorney rubber stamps it."

Concerning Mayor Barry, Mr. Powers noted the bigger issue is why the FBI was even involved in the 1990 case against Mr. Barry since the offense was a misdemeanor crime.

"They never could have answered that question," he said. "That in and of itself is an indication of the continuation of Cointelpro."

In 1994, the FBI ended a five-year probe of alleged political corruption in the predominately Black city of Compton, Calif., that subsequently sent former U.S. Representative Walter R. Tucker III (the former mayor of Compton), and former City Councilwoman Patricia A. Moore to prison for extortion. Both have claimed that the government entrapped them.

"The FBI tried so many times to entrap me," said current Compton Mayor Omar Bradley, 42, whose harassment began six days after he was elected into office in 1993. "They bugged my house, hid transmitters under my cars. Everywhere I went, the same people would show up to try to bribe me."
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Sat Dec 01, 2012 3:17 pm

FBI supervisors tried to have FBI Lab Whistleblower Fred the Fed Whitehurst committed to a psychiatric hospital after he blew the whistle on how bad the FBI lab was run.
see
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... aries.html

I guess germany thinks it can do better.
Oh by the way, Fred the Fed PhD Chemistry , JD(lawyer) appears in the new documentary A NOBLE LIE detailing the evidence for FBI agents Larry Potts and other creating the Oklahoma City bombing.

see
http://www.anoblelie.com/


Whistleblower committed to a psychiatric hospital after he blew the whistle
http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2012/no ... aims-fraud

Wednesday 28 November 2012 13.04 EST
German man locked up over HVB bank allegations may have been telling truth

Gustl Mollath was put in a psychiatric unit for claiming his wife was involved in money-laundering at the Bavarian bank. But seven years on evidence has emerged that could set him free
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Sun Dec 02, 2012 3:40 pm

Taxpayer funded FBI agents would never set up this man, eh?


http://www.timesledger.com/stories/2012 ... _29_q.html





December 2, 2012 /
Cleared of FBI charges, Baysider mulls next step
By Phil Corso



After being cleared on FBI charges of sending a death threat to one bank in Pennsylvania, a Bayside man said he was weighing whether to take action against the government in civil court.

Last month, a jury in Brooklyn Federal Court took less than one hour to acquit Michael Chung, 52, clearing him on charges of sending a malicious message to a Sovereign Bank in Pottsville, Pa.But the Bayside man still spent nearly three months behind bars as prosecutors said he was unfit for bail due to his alleged affiliation with the Sovereign Citizen Movement, which claims not to believe in federal law nor paying taxes and has been classified as a terrorist group by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“I don’t know how practical it is to try to have a ‘dialogue’ without forcing the issue with a lawsuit,” Chung said. “I want to show restraint and appreciation for the good aspects of the government and see where that goes.”

The U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District in Brooklyn had no comment on the case.

Though Chung denied he was part of the radical group, which has been linked to Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, his lawyer Ephraim Savitt said he did have some identification with its philosophy. His affiliation with them, however, ended at his dislike for taxes and never led to violence, Savitt said.

Chung said in his three months awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, he saw both the dark and lighter sides of the justice system from his initial arrest in August to when he was tried and found innocent Oct. 25.

“My wife and family suffered incredibly,” Chung told TimesLedger Newspapers. “Other than that, I think I am better for the wear, and learned a lot from the time.”

The FBI accused Chung of sending a threatening fax to his Pennsylvania bank Aug. 6 because of a $179,000 debt left on a home equity loan issued by the bank, preventing him from selling his Bayside condo. In the criminal complaint filed by the U.S. attorney’s office, the FBI said the fax referred to Chung’s Second Amendment rights to eliminate the debt as a “deadly force to protect my interests as a national citizen,” which could have sent him to jail for up to five years.

But aside from the copy of the fax, which the FBI said appeared to include Chung’s signature, the jury’s chief evidence came from a surveillance video taken when the fax in question was sent from a Bayside Staples store. Though the footage appeared to show an Asian man sending the fax, several of Chung’s neighbors testified that it was not him.

Looking ahead, Chung said he wanted to consider his options before committing himself to another legal battle against the U.S. attorney’s office and FBI. He said he would try to pioneer new ways the government could pursue cases like his and establish some sort of dialogue to determine the most appropriate way to balance the books with the government.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Mon Dec 03, 2012 9:21 pm

If you control Hollywood through blackmail and intimidation
like the FBI does you control what Hollywood says about you.
ABSCAM had a backstory you won't see in this film soon to be made.
The 1970's Senator Church Committee hearings exposed the death squad activities of taxpayer funded FBI agents. see
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg ... m%2066.pdf


Congress was set to act on the Church Committee findings when FBI agents launched a war of sting operations against members of Congress called ABSCAM.
Congress got the message and dropped all their reform legislation.
This occurred at the same time FBI agents launched their October Surprise against President Jimmy Carter to make sure he never got re-elected .
google danny casolero jimmy carter fbi october surprise


see link for full story
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/ ... a-20121203

Exclusive: David O Russell Says His FBI Abscam Film Will Be An “Intense, Insane, Colorful & Funny Crime Drama”
News
by Rodrigo Perez
December 3, 2012 2:55 PM


Many have posited that when F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives, he meant, we cannot escape our pasts. Someone who has proven that maxim wrong is director David O. Russell. As he said at the THR directors' roundtable recently, the latter half of the aughts landed in the filmmaker in a tricky place.

The challenging comedy “I Heart Huckabees” wasn’t a hit upon release, projects came and went without fruition, and the satirical comedy "Nailed," with Jessica Biel and Jake Gyllenhaal, actually shot in 2008, but the plug got pulled and it was never completed thanks to a shady financier. But the “Three Kings” director is on a critical and creative tear of late and has successfully segued into the second stage of his career that he calls more “mature.”

2010’s limber and thrilling “The Fighter” was a major comeback and was awarded as such with 7 Academy Award nominations (winning co-stars Christian Bale and Melissa Leo an Oscar each). Much of that success is being repeated this year, with the filmmaker's latest "Silver Linings Playbook," a raw, offbeat romantic comedy starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro, all of whom look likely to figure, along with Russell, in this year’s awards season.

And by his account, Russell’s next project, the untitled 1970s, FBI/Abscam film, formerly known as "American Bullshit," and starring Cooper, Bale, Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, will continue in the vein of this second era. Family has been his recent preoccupation and the theme has been center stage in his last two pictures. And so in the same way that “The Fighter” was more than just a boxing movie, and how ‘Silver Linings’ goes beyond mere mental illness drama, The FBI/Abscam is more than just crime flick. On the surface, it’s about a sting operation in the 1970s (called Abscam) that led to the conviction of United States Congressmen, but it’s got plenty more offbeat detours than that.

"It's a crime drama that's really about some very high end financial con artists who are very colorful, strange characters,” he told The Playlist in an interview this week. “And it's about the FBI -- but Bradley [Cooper’s] like an ethnic FBI guy from the Bronx and it's about the [eventually indicted] mayor of Camden, New Jersey, Angelo Errichetti, who is Jeremy Renner. Camden was mostly a black and Puerto Rican community at that time. Very amazing, interesting world of New York at that time. It’s very exciting."

Russell's always had a canny eye for casting actors in unexpected parts -- see Amy Adams' tough girl in “The Fighter,” or the way Mark Wahlberg took to comedy in ‘Huckabees’ -- and he’s taking a similar path with this new film, placing his heavyweight cast in usual casting slots.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Tue Dec 04, 2012 1:18 am

see link for full story

http://www.wjla.com/articles/2012/12/ke ... 82698.html





Keith Dietterle, FBI analyst, accused of distributing child pornography
By Jennifer Donelan
December 3, 2012 - 05:37 pm


An FBI analyst has been accused of distributing child pornography in a disturbing case that's left his neighbors wanting answers.

Continue reading

A task force made up of FBI agents and D.C. police officers busted Keith Dietterle. The 28-year-old will appear for a preliminary hearing Tuesday.

Dietterle is accused of sending child pornography to another man he met in a chat room frequented by individuals who have a sexual interest children. But the person Dietterle was allegedly speaking with was a D.C. police detective.

According to court documents, agents say Dietterle thought he was communicating with a man who claimed to be sexually abusing a 3-year-old nephew and 12-year-old daughter. The detective wrote he and Dietterle discussed a possible meeting with the "children" for sex. Over a two week period, Dietterle sent three images via Yahoo instant messenger depicting child pornography, court documents state.

Dietterle is accused of later sending multiple links, including a 13-minute video, images and six separate videos of underage children all being sexually abused.
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Re: FBI WATCH MAKING CRUELTY VISIBLE

Postby fruhmenschen » Tue Dec 04, 2012 1:44 am

see link for full story

http://nyaltnews.com/2012/12/grimms-fun ... aud/40442/




Grimm’s fundraising robust despite accusations of campaign fraud
12/02/2012
By Russ Choma, OpenSecrets.org

Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) has been operating under a shadow since shortly after his election in 2010, accused of participating in major campaign finance wrongdoing. But even as his legal troubles continue to mount, Grimm has seen his fundraising efforts thrive and won re-election in his Staten Island district earlier this month.

Michael Grimm
Grimm, 42, has not been charged with any crime, but on Monday, the House Ethics Committee announced it would launch a probe of his campaign finance operation after the Department of Justice completes its own investigation. Grimm is accused of accepting as much as $500,000 in improper donations — nearly half of what he raised for his 2010 race. Much of that was allegedly funneled into his campaign with the help of Ofer Biton, an Isreali citizen currently facing federal charges for visa fraud and money laundering. Biton, who was close to prominent Jewish Orthodox Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, allegedly pressured Pinto’s followers into making donations — some substantially more than legally permitted — and encouraged people who were not U.S. citizens to give as well. Pinto is now under house arrest in Israel pending an investigation into a bribery and money-laundering case there.
Some donors have told reporters that to get around limits and rules against donations by foreign nationals, Grimm and Biton used a system of straw donors — donors whose contributions were reimbursed by others who weren’t eligible to give, which is illegal.

Grimm, a former FBI agent, has denied any wrongdoing.

Even setting the allegations aside, Grimm has an unconventional fundraising history.
The list of his top donors in 2010, when he was running for an open House seat, is striking for its lack of prominent brand names. In fact, one of his top sources of campaign cash was a company called 539 Gates LLC. Records show the company’s owner Rafal Maman and his wife contributed $12,000 (which appears to be $2,400 more than legally allowed). Maman and several other top Grimm donors have been connected to the adult film and sex toy industry.
Many of Grimm’s biggest donors that year also appear to be first-time contributors to any federal candidate or committee — something that may be a red flag to investigators searching for possible straw donors. One of Pinto’s followers told the New York Times that at the request of Biton he had picked up $25,000 from an Israeli citizen and delivered the money to the Grimm campaign, which listed the money on a Federal Election Commission report as having been given by five different individuals.
A number of Grimm’s top donors from that campaign cycle have connections to each other. For example, the sixth largest source of cash for Grimm in 2010 was the law firm Goldberg & Rimberg PLC, where three attorneys contributed a combined $9,800. One of the lawyers, Steven Weg, recently represented a man named Daryl Hagler. Hagler owns a number of nursing homes with another Grimm donor from 2010, Kenneth Rozenberg, who gave $4,500. Another top donor was Fred Harari, whose only contribution in the last three cycles was $3,800 to Grimm’s 2010 campaign. Harari reported that he was employed by Concept 9 LLC — a company that was recently represented in yet another lawsuit by a Goldberg & Rimberg attorney, and lists the law firm’s address as its own location in corporate filings.
Numerous other top donors from the 2010 cycle appear to be small real estate developers from the Brooklyn, Staten Island and northern New Jersey areas, many of them with ties to the local Jewish community. According to a search of OpenSecrets.org data, a number of them haven’t made any other political donations on the federal level in the cycles before or since 2010, and gave only to Grimm.
Turnaround
In 2010, Grimm was endorsed by prominent establishment Republicans, such as George H.W. Bush, and by Tea Party favorites like Sarah Palin. Still, he raised just $1.2 million, less than $1.5 million raised by the average winning House candidate that year. More strikingly, 80 percent of his money came from large individual donors (people who gave more than $200) compared to 48 percent for the average House Republican. Just 6 percent of his contributions came from small ($200 or less) donors; congressional candidates generally raise close to 15 percent from this group.
If Grimm underperformed in 2010, he made up for it in the 2012 cycle, raising $2.1 million — a fair bit more than the $1.8 million raised by the average Republican House member trying for another term. And while he received just 12 percent of his money from PACs in 2010, that number soared to more than 50 percent in 2012, making him the 54th biggest recipient of PAC money (out of 408 House candidates tracked by OpenSecrets.org). It likely didn’t hurt that the House leadership had given Grimm a coveted spot on the Financial Services Committee, a magnet for contributions.
Leadership PACs run by prominent fellow lawmakers poured money into Grimm’s reelection race. He also enjoyed fundraising help from top Republicans: Though federal charges against Biton made news this summer and in early fall, House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) turned out for a Grimm fundraiser at the Hilton New York, in Manhattan, in early October.
In 2010, the real estate industry was the top source of campaign cash for Grimm. By the next cycle, it was again a leading donor, but the securities and investment industry became a prominent supporter. The hedge fund Elliot Management became his No. 1 contributor. Donors listing Elliot or the affiliated Elliot Associates as their employer gave Grimm’s campaign more than $38,000 in 2011-2012.
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