I'm getting tired of running with the Globe.
"Bombing case casts shadow over Waltham triple murder" by Michael Rezendes | Globe Staff, June 08, 2013
WALTHAM — Investigators quickly realized that the three men must have known whoever slit their throats in the early evening hours of Sept. 11, 2011. They also concluded that the grisly scene inside the Harding Avenue apartment — each victim laid out in a separate room, the bodies partially covered with marijuana — had to be the work of multiple killers.
“We know there were at least two people who are not in that apartment now who were there earlier,” Gerard T. Leone Jr., then Middlesex district attorney, said on the following afternoon, explaining that there were no signs of forced entry at the apartment. “We should have other developments that we can reveal either late tonight or tomorrow early morning.”
But there were no further developments. Investigators immediately compiled a list of individuals known to the three victims, including deceased Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but never released additional information about the slayings.
And for the next 18 months the investigation seemed to go nowhere, the killings written off by many as a cautionary tale of three low-level drug dealers who must have gotten in over their heads.
Now, in the days since an FBI agent fatally shot a Florida man just as he was allegedly confessing to the killings and implicating Tsarnaev, the case is suddenly part of the Marathon bombing investigation. The renewed interest has given hope to the families of the Waltham victims, but it also has raised a troubling question: If local investigators had solved the triple slaying, could they have arrested Tsarnaev and prevented four deaths and more than 260 injuries at this year’s Marathon?
A definitive answer to the question remains elusive because law enforcement officials have refused to discuss details of the case, and because friends and relatives of the victims are reluctant to publicly criticize police or draw the attention of a killer if one is still at large.
Nevertheless, it is clear that investigators looking into the Waltham homicides, the worst crime in the city in more than a decade, initally had reason for optimism. Friends and relatives of the victims interviewed by the Globe said they readily provided police with the names of individuals who may have been familiar faces at the Waltham apartment, including Tsarnaev’s.
They also underscored the date of the slayings and its significance to jihadists, the 10th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, although they did not realize at the time that Tsarnaev was adopting increasingly radical Islamic beliefs.
Some friends and relatives also were able to estimate the time of the crime, shortly after 8 p.m. on Sept. 11, because their text messages and e-mails were not returned after that, a fact that might have allowed investigators to significantly narrow the pool of potential suspects.
Moreover, on the day the bodies were discovered by the girlfriend of one of the victims, the manager at Gerry’s Italian Kitchen, a Watertown takeout restaurant, told investigators that someone at the Waltham apartment had ordered food in the early evening of Sept. 11, and that no one answered when a delivery woman arrived at the door.
“It was around 8:30 or 9 o’clock, something like that,” restaurant manager Mina Askander said in a Globe interview.
Ah, a new piece of bulls*** for the cover-story puzzle.
But without an eyewitness or definitive forensic evidence, such as a telltale DNA sample, investigators were never able to identify a probable suspect in the killings of the three men: Brendan H. Mess, 25; Erik H. Weissman, 31; and Raphael M. Teken, 37.
I'll have one later, but first who are these kids?
"Boston police searched Weissman’s Roslindale apartment and seized more than $21,000 in cash, along with drug paraphernalia and a wide assortment of drugs, including marijuana, hashish, cocaine, and Oxycontin.... Teken attended Brookline High School and Brandeis University and his father, Avi Teken, is the spiritual leader of a Jewish congregation in Newton."
Now what would radical Islamist jihadists be doing with a bunch of drug-dealing, gun-running Jews?
“It was not because of a lack of effort; it was a lack of evidence,” said Gary J. Marchese, a Waltham city councilor who represents the ward where the killings occurred and who spoke with investigators. “There were no eyewitnesses and it was a very difficult murder scene.”
Still, some friends and relatives of the victims say that State Police, who were leading the investigation, and Waltham police had enough information to focus on Tsarnaev because of his close friendship with Mess and the fact that he did not show up for a well-attended memorial service for him at Ryle’s Jazz Club in Cambridge.
“Pretty much every single one of us gave them Tam’s name, especially after he didn’t show up for the funeral,” said a close friend of one of the victims.
But others said that although they gave investigators Tsarnaev’s name, they never suspected him of killing the three men, especially his workout partner, Mess, until much later, when investigators named him as a prime suspect in the Marathon bombing.
“It does surprise me. It does shock me,” said a friend of one of the victims when asked if Tsarnaev could have killed Mess. “But it does make sense if he was the Marathon bomber.”
A law enforcement source with knowledge of the Waltham investigation said for the first time in a Globe interview that friends and relatives of the victims never encouraged police to take an especially hard look at Tsarnaev.
Why would they have to encourage police? I thought investigating was their job. Obviously, the victims considered him innocent.
“Tamerlan’s name came up in a very wide net during the course of the investigation,” the source said. “But there was never any evidence or anything offered to investigators that led to his being considered anything other than one of a group of friends.”
Until he was dead and they could pin an unsolved case on him.
Tsarnaev was killed during a shootout with police three days after the Marathon bombing. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, the second Marathon bombing suspect, was captured the next morning and faces a possible death penalty. He is being held and treated for injuries at the Federal Medical Center Devens.
By the time of the Waltham homicides, Tamerlan Tsarnaev had already been investigated by the FBI for possible ties to terrorists in Russia. Although the FBI concluded that there was no basis for the alert from authorities in Russia, Tsarnaev’s name was reportedly added to a terrorist watch list accessible to State Police working on the Waltham case through the local Joint Terrorism Task Force, an FBI unit in Boston.
However, an FBI spokesman said he could not disclose whether Tsarnaev’s name was on the list at the time of the Waltham investigation because the names on the list are confidential.
HA HA!
Some friends of victims who spoke to police said investigators never appeared to be especially impressed by the fact that the killings took place on a date of great significance to Jihadists, or by the ritualistic nature of the slayings. According to one friend with knowledge of the crime scene, the victims were laid out in separate rooms, face down, their torsos covered with marijuana and their throats slashed.
“The feeling was, ‘Holy [expetive] , this is 9/11. There’s no way this is a drug deal gone bad,’ ” said one of the friends who spoke with the Globe. “Why are they trying to hush that away?”
Intelligence operation and hit!
In hindsight, friends and relatives of the victims have said they believe Tsarnaev and Todashev — an accomplished amateur boxer and mixed marial arts fighter, respectively — could be responsible for the Waltham homicides in part because only persons with significant physical strength could have overpowered the three victims without a shot being fired.
Maybe they were drugged first?
Both Mess and Teken were known for their accomplishments in the martial arts, while Tamerlan was a champion amateur heavyweight boxer and Todashev was an amateur mixed martial arts fighter.
But even now, questions remain about whether Tsarnaev and Todashev should be considered prime suspects.
Not one of the victims’ friends and relatives interviewed by the Globe had even heard of Todashev before he was fatally shot by an FBI agent on May 21, during an interview at his Orlando apartment.
And while Tsarnaev’s violent streak now seems clear, several friends were at a loss to explain why he would kill a group of men that included Mess, a former neighbor he had once called his best friend. Even an Islamic-inspired protest against marijuana seems unlikely, since the Globe could find no evidence that Tsarnaev stopped smoking it himself.
The radical Islamist jihadist was stoned?
And while some friends and relatives of the victims discount the possibility that the killings were committed by rival drug dealers, others say it’s possible that the three victims were attempting to make bigger drug transactions and could have offended other dealers.
In fact, in January 2011, eight months before the triple homicide, Boston police searched a Roslindale apartment where Weissman was living and seized more than $21,000 in cash, along with a drug ledger, a currency counter, digital scales, and a wide assortment of drugs, including marijuana, hashish, cocaine, and Oxycontin.
Weissman also was a partner in a small business called Hitman Glass, which manufactured and sold glass bongs used to smoke marijuana, according to a Facebook remembrance page, interviews, and public records.
Related: "The Globe was unable to obtain [his] death certificate"
I think we just found our suspect.
The bongs are available at local stores where pipes used to smoke marijuana are sold. In addition, one friend of the victims said that Mess was considering investing in an illegal marijuana-growing business.
Nevertheless, several friends of the victims noted that each of them had been selling drugs for years and could only recall one episode of violence: Mess was once severely beaten after coming up short in a payment to a drug supplier.
“They had all been [selling drugs] peacefully for a long time without a problem,” one friend said.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm!!
Smelling like intelligence agency assets more and more!
But what stands out for friends of the victims struggling to make sense of the possibility that Tsarnaev and Todashev were the killers is the friendship shared by Mess and Tsarnaev. The two young men grew up in the same Cambridge neighborhood, attended the same high school, and often worked out together.
“They loved each other,” one friend said. “It just doesn’t add up.”
No, it doesn't, but that is the hallmark of a crap cover story and lie.
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Remember, breathe through your nose, keep your mouth closed:
"FBI tight-lipped on Todashev killing" by Maria Sacchetti | Globe Staff, June 06, 2013
One afternoon in October 2009, the FBI descended on a warehouse in Dearborn, Mich., and confronted a Muslim cleric with a criminal record, allegedly unloading televisions he thought had been stolen. Agents said he shot and killed their dog and fired at them. He died in a hail of FBI bullets.
Like the FBI shooting of Ibragim Todashev on May 22 in Orlando, the cleric’s death unleashed a storm of criticism from Muslim groups and the imam’s family and friends.
But one difference is stark: The day of the shooting, the FBI told the public that the man had fired a gun, so they shot him, justifying the use of deadly force. County officials also soon told the public he was shot multiple times.
It's an all too familiar story for murder by authority.
But in the Todashev case, the FBI has refused to say if he was armed or to describe the violent confrontation they say led a Boston agent to kill him. And the agency has barred the medical examiner’s office from saying how many times he was shot.
They told us it was a blade, then a broomstick, then nothing.
“I want to know what their hesitation is,” said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Michigan. “If he was doing some sort of threatening act, then tell the public what it was. You just can’t shoot citizens or legal residents and say, ‘Oh, we killed him, but we’re not going to tell you why.’ If we accept that as Americans, what makes the FBI any better than the old KGB in Russia or any other totalitarian security force?”
Actually, they can and do every day here in AmeriKa.
The FBI’s refusal to provide details of the Todashev case contrasts sharply with past shootings involving agents, including one 12 days before in Illinois. Within 24 hours, the FBI issued a press release saying agents shot and killed Tony Starnes, 45, when he allegedly rammed an agent’s vehicle with a stolen Honda Civic.
In May 2010, the FBI quickly reported that an agent shot and killed Ronald J. Bullock, a 61-year-old Army veteran from Hanson, at a military base in Tampa when he allegedly approached the agent with a knife.
See: The MacDill Mysteries
Everything you see in the paper is one.
Yet more than two weeks after Todashev’s death, the agency has remained unclear about what led to the supposed confrontation and why the agent shot the 27-year-old mixed martial arts competitor with a criminal record....
They have said they will not be saying anything more about it.
The day of the Todashev shooting, FBI spokesman Greg Comcowich issued a brief press release saying that an agent, Massachusetts State Police, and other law enforcement were interviewing an individual later identified as Todashev in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings. He said that Todashev initiated a “violent confrontation” and was killed.
Details seeped out through anonymous sources, including FBI agents, befuddling the public with sharply differing accounts.
WHO LEAKED?!?!
The Globe and others initially reported that Todashev had a knife and that he had been questioned about a 2011 triple slaying in Waltham.
A week later, on May 29, the Washington Post reported that Todashev was unarmed. The FBI issued another press release that day merely identifying Todashev and his address.
The next day, The New York Times reported that Todashev had knocked the FBI agent down with a table and charged him with a metal pole or perhaps a broomstick.
Perhaps?
The agent shot him several times but Todashev lunged at him again, drawing more fire.
Then why was he shot in the back?
A federal law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the FBI investigation said the Times account of the confrontation is accurate. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the case is still under investigation, cautioned that the Todashev case is different from past shootings, partly because there are fewer witnesses, only a State Police investigator and the injured FBI agent who shot Todashev.
Translation: they are burying this like a dead body. What a horse s*** account and cover up.
Other state and county agencies have shed little light on the matter. Massachusetts State Police, there to investigate the 2011 Waltham killings, would not comment; the Times reported that Todashev was about to sign a confession implicating himself and Tsarnaev in the deaths. The local state prosecutor in Florida is not investigating the Todashev shooting.
If he was about to sign a confession (allegedly) then he was being pressured by the FBI to sign something that was not true.
The county medical examiner in Florida has refused to divulge the cause of death at the FBI’s request, even though Todashev’s family has released photos of his bullet-riddled body to hold the FBI accountable. The office has confirmed only the manner of death: homicide. Sheri Blanton, the medical examiner’s spokeswoman, said state law bars the agency from releasing information in an active investigation.
“That’s what’s gagging us: We’ve been notified by law enforcement who are investigating this incident that we cannot release anything until they deem it not active any longer,” she said, referring to the FBI. “Our doctor knows exactly what happened, but he’s not able to release it just yet.”
The FBI will keep the case open forever.
In the absence of information, Todashev’s family, friends and the American Civil Liberties Union have called for an independent investigation.
The FBI’s Shooting Incident Review Group, which includes agents and the Department of Justice, is investigating the shooting and whether the use of deadly force was reasonable, as required. The FBI said the process is “thorough and objective.” As time passes, critics say, the FBI’s refusal to release information raises questions about whether they acted properly.
“You can rest assured that the information is not flattering to the FBI; if it was flattering, they’d either release it or leak it,” said Harvey Silverglate, a Boston criminal defense and civil liberties lawyer. “A reasonable person can draw inferences from the FBI’s silence that there was something highly irregular about the way this interrogation was done.”
To say the least.
Also see: Unrecorded testimony
So all we have is he word of the FBI?
But James T. Thurman, a former FBI investigator and now a professor in Kentucky, said providing too much information can endanger an investigation.
Or embarrass the hell out of the FBI and expose a murderer.
“It is way too soon to judge,” he said of the investigation into the Todashev shooting. “They may not know [what happened] fully at this point.”
????????
Others say the FBI should be more forthcoming.
In the Dearborn case, federal and state investigations exonerated the FBI in the shooting death of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah. But Abdullah’s family said in a federal wrongful death lawsuit in Michigan that they believe that the imam was unarmed and defended himself only with his hands when an FBI dog mauled him.
See: FBI Literally Gets Away With Murder of Muslim Imam
The Council on American-Islamic Relations in Michigan has tried unsuccessfully through a lawsuit and formal requests to get investigative documents from the FBI....
It's called a cover-up.
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Related: Still so many questions for the FBI
Even if they answered them I wouldn't believe them.
"Mass. pair sues New York Post over Marathon bombing portrayal" by Maria Sacchetti | Globe Staff, June 06, 2013
A Massachusetts teenager and his 24-year-old friend filed a defamation lawsuit against the New York Post Wednesday in Boston, accusing the tabloid of falsely portraying them as suspects in the deadly Marathon bombings by plastering their photograph on the front page under the headline, “Bag Men.”
The lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court said the photographs and articles published three days after the bombings made it appear that FBI agents were pursuing Salaheddin Barhoum and Yassine Zaimi, avid runners watching the Marathon. That evening, authorities released photographs of the suspected bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
In the complaint, lawyers for Barhoum, a 16-year-old Revere High School student, and Zaimi, a part-time college student from Malden who also works full time, accused the New York Post of libel, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy. They are seeking damages, including unspecified monetary compensation.
“The front page would lead a reasonable reader to believe that plaintiffs had bombs in their bags, that they were involved in causing the Boston Marathon bombing,” according to the court complaint. The lawsuit asserts the newspaper subjected the friends to “scorn, hatred, ridicule, or contempt in the minds of a considerable and respectable segment of the community.”
The New York Post declined to comment Wednesday, but editor Col Allan defended the coverage in April, telling the Associated Press they accurately reported that the image was e-mailed to law enforcement officials seeking information about the men. “We did not identify them as suspects,” Allan said.
Barhoum and Zaimi are legal residents who came to the United States from Morocco about four years ago after being granted visas, according to court records and their lawyers....
Max Stern, one of Barhoum’s lawyers, accused the newspaper of racial profiling and said he would ask the court to compel the Post to divulge the source of its information.
“What kind of stereotyping and profiling, what type of reasoning, led the Post to think this was OK to do?” he said. “And would they have ever done this if this was just some white kid from the suburbs who was standing there with the backpack?”
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Newspapers don't have to tell the truth, or so sayeth the Supreme Court.
Besides, it was all a drill.
"Police response training planned, but bombs hit first" by Maria Cramer | Globe Staff, June 08, 2013
The scenario had been carefully planned: A terrorist group prepared to hurt vast numbers of people around Boston would leave backpacks filled with explosives at Faneuil Hall, the Seaport District, and in other towns, spreading waves of panic and fear. Detectives would have to catch the culprits.
Months of painstaking planning had gone into the exercise, dubbed “Operation Urban Shield,” meant to train dozens of detectives in the Greater Boston area to work together to thwart a terrorist threat. The hypothetical terrorist group was even given a name: Free America Citizens, a home-grown cadre of militiamen whose logo would be a metal skull wearing an Uncle Sam hat and a furious expression, according to a copy of the plans obtained by the Boston Globe.
But two months before the training exercise was to take place, the city was hit with a real terrorist attack executed in a frighteningly similar fashion. The chaos of the Boston Marathon bombings disrupted plans for the exercise, initially scheduled for this weekend, forcing police to postpone. Now officials must retool aspects of the training.
Oh NO! It WAS a FALSE FLAG after all!!
“The real thing happened before we were able to execute,” said a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the planned exercise. “We’ve already been tested.”
This would have been the third year for Urban Shield, a 24-hour federally funded training exercise meant to test the response of police and other public safety personnel in a large-scale emergency, such as a toxic spill or a natural disaster.
Last fall, a slew of agencies including Boston police and other police departments, the Coast Guard, and the MBTA joined forces to confront a simulated armed bank robbery in which the robbers were trying to escape with hostages.
For this year’s training, the agencies wanted to test the investigative skills of their detectives, as well as their ability to work with detectives in other cities, and share intelligence, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the planned exercise were confidential.
The training, funded by a $200,000 Homeland Security grant, will probably be rescheduled to early next year, said Transit Police Chief Paul MacMillan, whose agency was slated to participate.
He said he anticipates the new training scenario will be similar to the one already planned.
“Why wouldn’t we do it?” MacMillan said. “Just because we had one event doesn’t mean that we might not have another one. And it behooves us to continually work together to investigate these types of incidents.”
*******************************
Officials from a dozen agencies had been meeting for months to plan the scenario. They behaved much like movie producers, recruiting students from Northeastern University and the Boston Police Academy to play the parts of terrorists and witnesses.
Wow, this a real in-your-face fart blast, folks.
They scouted warehouses and homes around Chelsea and Winthrop that could be used as a terrorist safe house.
The basic plot was this:
The planned exercise has eerie similarities to the police investigation that led to the capture of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev....
In the scenario....
ONCE AGAIN, dear readers, the DRILL went LIVE!
They NEVER CANCELLED URBAN SHEILD!
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Related: Salem Celebrates Halloween in June
Also see:
One Fund deadline nears
Caregivers, Marathon bombing victims have special bond
Newlyweds, both Marathon victims, share gratitude
Watertown grads told to embrace future
Family Mass to be offered in memory of Martin Richard
Mass honors Martin Richard in Dorchester
Fire Dept. culture, management should be focus of hearing
Head of Boston FBI office to retire
Taking a job with a security firm is he?
4 shot to death in Mexico City gym
Must have been Tsarnaev and Todashev.
"Man arrested after barricading himself inside home
A Topsfield man was arrested Sunday morning after allegedly assaulting two family members and then barricading himself inside his Washington Street home and making bomb and arson threats, according to Topsfield Police Chief Evan E.J. Haglund. Daniel P. Morley, 27, was charged with two counts of domestic assault and battery and one count each of threatening to commit arson and communicating a bomb scare, Haglund said. When police searched the home, he said, they found guns, knives, and a pressure cooker they feared was a bomb, though it was determined not to be an explosive. No one was injured in the standoff, which began at about 2:46 a.m. and ended when Morley was arrested around 6 a.m. Morley is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Ipswich District Court in Newburyport, Haglund said."
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"MBTA sets up disaster training center in tunnel" by Martine Powers | Globe Staff, June 12, 2013
BOOM. The unmistakable sound of an explosion shatters the make-believe tableau. A few beats of silence, then a crescendo of screams. Lights flicker as smoke pours out of the train and onto the platform.
“The sense of realism here is very high,” said Randy Clarke, the MBTA’s senior director of security and emergency management....
This is so in your face for all those who have investigated Boston and found them to have been staged and scripted crisis drills gone live. This is so in-your-face by the mouthpiece media it is almost beyond belief.
On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is set to unveil its new $10 million emergency training center, a federally funded project designed to help emergency responders learn how best to react to dire situations within the T system....
There is never a dime spared when it comes to the $urveillance $tate in 21st-century AmeriKa.
The underground training center, about the length of three football fields, includes a Silver Line bus, a Green Line train, and a Blue Line car, all of them immobile, along with high-tech special effects devices that will allow training staff to mimic the circumstances of a tunnel fire, shooting rampage, medical emergency, or terrorist attack.
And when they are ready to go live.... ???
And the center will not just be used by MBTA staff: Police, fire, and emergency medical response units from around the region will also use the space to train for a disaster in a subway tunnel.
Though the project has been in the works for several years, officials said the Boston Marathon bombings have underscored the need for preparedness training that closely replicates the chaos and confusion of a real-life emergency situation.
“The fact that it just happened in Boston probably gives this even more realism,” said MBTA Transit Police Chief Paul MacMillan. “Now we know it did happen here, and we know it can happen here.”
Sadly, I no longer believe my agenda-pushing paper presents reality. They present a distorted image of illusion that is contradicted by ones own experiences.
*********************************
After bombings on metro systems in Madrid and London a decade ago, T officials became increasingly aware of the need to train for emergency situations on trains and buses....
Those bombings in London were at the same time a security drill mimicking the actual events was occurring. Same with the 9/11 war games, and nearly every other "terrorist" incident.
In the past, training for emergency responders could only take place in tunnels in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, before the system got up and running for passengers. The new facilities will allow for more scheduling flexibility. They will also be available for nonemergency uses: People with disabilities seeking to start riding the T will be brought into the center to learn how to board and ride the train....
After they took their ride away due to budget debt.
The sound system plays the sound of explosions, gunshots, and screams. Each of the cars has smoke machines and surveillance cameras, connected to a command center where supervisors can watch the emergency response unfold on computer screens and from behind one-way mirrors. In an adjacent classroom, trainees can review their performance on smart boards.
Is that what we saw at the finish line? BOOM and smoke?
“It’s kind of like we’ve turned it into Disneyland for first responders,” Clarke said.
It's all for your amusement, Americans.
How insulting a statement about alleged tragedies.
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I feel like I'm stuck in the tunnel called the Boston Globe.
UPDATE: Insurance settlement cuts into Watertown police Marathon bombing expenses
Cost taxpayers $250,000 for that section of the scripted and staged exercise.
