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In the boat, Tsarnaev didn't have a gun, didn't shoot himself in the throat
By adamg on Thu, 04/25/2013 - 6:43am
The Globe reports on the final battle at the boat, which turned out not to be a battle (so who fired all those rounds at the end?); looks at possible information lapses at the federal level that may have kept his older brother off the federal radar in the weeks leading up to the bombings.
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Comments
About that name
A few times I've heard as an excuse for why the powers that be didn't know he'd traveled to Russia (though somehow the press discovered this very early on...) was that his name was misspelled. Until recently I spent an excessively large amount of my time checking names against various international watchlists, and the software used was designed to allow you to set a sensitivity level. This was especially important when dealing with names transliterated from a different alphabet. Yes, you have to spend a little time clearing false-positives, but that is what we keep human employees around for, right? Can't get on an airplane without a virtual strip-search (and leave the shampoo at home!), yet they can't get something as simple as a watchlist right. Sigh.
Didn't Homeland Security
Didn't Homeland Security already say they were aware of the trip, despite the misspelling? There are some other issues about length of watch and FBI/CIA coordination, but I thought the misspelled name problem was struck down.
Cue the Alex Jones
Cue the Alex Jones crowd...
...seriously, the police have built up a ton of good will in this area and throughout the country during the past week and a half. In the interest of maintaining this spirit and keeping the waters from being muddied, I hope that law enforcement just comes out and says what happened once they were summoned to the boat. Obviously there was a fire fight with multiple rounds and it looks like the suspect wasn't armed.
Given the circumstances - and the fact that the suspect is still alive - I'm sure most of us will give police the benefit of the doubt here. But if there was some sort of itchy trigger finger or miscommunication that led to the shoot out at the boat, please, just own up to it, apologize for the confusion, commit to improving training to prevent future incidents, and move on. Cover ups are always worse....and they breed crazies.
Exactly- it's like lying is second nature for the police
Even when nobody's really going to question what they did, their first instinct is to bullshit and circle the wagons.
Progressives/Liberals love the police?
Things sure have changed since my youth. The people called by some 'conservatives' or 'reactionaries' and the 'Alex Jones Crowd' sound far more like the liberals of my youth.
In all seriousness, what we experienced last week here was just a preview of what martial law and a police state is like. And it cost a FORTUNE. To catch a 19 year old Cambridge high school wrestler and pothead, and his brother, who should have been well known to our intelligence agencies, especially the monstrosity known as Homeland Security. I certainly hope our intelligence agencies and homeland security don't try taking any of the limelight or credit for the overall excellent local police response, because they should be rigorously grilled by responsible congressional officials. I'd say high up heads should roll, of course that's not going to happen. They'll probably get a promotion.
Of course liberals love the
Of course liberals love the police. The hallmark of liberalism is the belief that government cand and should create and enforce morality and that this process produces a more moral society.
No, it's not
But do go on.
Okay, but:
Would you agree that a central tenet of the left is that government should have a monopoly on the use of force?
i.e., "Only the police should have guns, you rednecks!"
No
But do go on.
Reminds me of that guy who
Reminds me of that guy who shot and killed someone at the Empire State Building a year or two ago. A couple of cops chased him down the street and the guy turns to confront them. Suddenly a couple dozen shots are fired and a bunch of people are hit with bullets or shrapnel. When they get the guys gun it turns out he had only fired the shots which killed his intended victim. He never fired in his confrontation with police. When they saw this guy raise his gun at them they released a huge fusillade of shots which ended up injuring bystanders.
Seems like we have a similar thing here. The cops knew this guy had killed one of their own. They knew he was behind the marathon bombings. So they unloaded at even the hint that he might be about to do something. It was probably just something like him peeking his head out of the boat or somethihng but the cops were so jumpy that they shot at him.
I should add that this report shouldn't exactly be surprising. At least the report I was watching when this went down the reporter said that the gunfire all sounded like it was in a concentrated volly rather than the back and forth you'd expect from a gun fight
That happened last summer,
That happened last summer, and since then...radio silence. I don't know if the police paid off these victims or what, but once it came out that the bystanders were shot by police the story swiftly left the news.
Explains the lock-down
"Everyone shelter in place because there's a good chance if you step out of your house some (understandably) jumpy cop with your annual salary worth of military-grade equipment on him will blow a hole through you."
Like someone else posted - no cover-up, just say that cops aren't superhuman - they can make mistakes when operating under normal circumstances and these weren't normal circumstances. Somebody started shooting at the boat and they probably shouldn't have (he typed from the comfort of his office days after the fact and never having to confront such a situation himself). Happily they didn't kill the kid, and didn't hit anyone else. Can we move on and not give the cellar-dwellers any more conspiracy/masturbatory material?
As far as not tracking the older brother after being told twice by the Russians.... yeah, maybe you checked him and out and he seemed ok, but we're spending all this money and dealing with so many privacy intrusions, etc. you could at least get it right. (And who knows how often they have gotten it right and we don't know...seems like the cases they do trumpet are lame entrapment cases of losers. In fact this schmuck would have been a good candidate for such an entrapment case....oops, I think I'm making an argument for the wrong side....)
Where does it say there was no gun in the boat?
Regarding Islamic Terrorist #2, the Globe story says that "he was struggling to remain conscious, and had no weapon on him". It says nothing about whether there was a gun on the boat, in fact in TV interviews, Watertown Chief Deveau said that the boat wasn't immediately searched for fear it may contain more bombs. Chief Deveau said he wouldn't have the info on what was on the boat until the feds were done processing the crime scene. Regardless, after killing four and maiming 200+, the terrorist was reportedly non-compliant for 20 minutes, requiring a negotiator to be summoned. More than enough justification to shoot him. My understanding from friends on the scene was that he was able to shield himself behind the engine block, which unfortunately absorbed most of the rounds.
Unfortunately?
Why - because a dead kid will not be able to reveal the incompetence of DHS, FBI and others who paid no attention to warnings about the Older Brother?
Because a dead kid can be slotted into one of your simplistically idiotic stereotypes far more easily than a live reality of a white American terrorist who might know something important for future safety?
Because a dead terrorist can be made into a scary monster of the sort that guarantees more employment in your trade and less questioning of their behavior, legal or otherwise?
Do tell.
BTW, that terrorist has a name. It isn't "islamic #2". Deal with it.
Nothing but sheep on this
Nothing but sheep on this page apparently....the Feds lie to you and u idiots find justification for it....what happened to holding their feet to the fire....government agencies can be evil....seems a lot of you have already forgotten that......Nazi germany???? Wake up people.
Nice try, fake sock-puppet birther/truther/boater
Come on, everybody knows it's
WAKE UP, SHEEPLE.
Sheesh.
kitchen table
Hi there!
hey...
...I thought it was a dining room table?
Not so fast on the FBI
When Russia is trying to feed our intelligence on their political enemies, we need to walk a very careful line. Even Chechnya disavowed these two immediately.
It's kinda like complaining that we didn't get the sandy hook guy earlier, or Loughner. Or the multitude of others angry young men that committed heinous acts against their communities.
This one seem to have a Jihadist flavor, but it seems to be a lot more complex than that. These guys were loner Americans, as much as we want to solely pin it on their religion.
Perhaps
I understand the potential for a "political enemies" situation - but the failure to pick of the extensive travel, the fireworks purchases, the youtube channel, etc. after the warnings?
It is very different than those other situations you mention in that manner. Although Loughner could have been snagged in appropriate and sane gun laws, as he wasn't being shielded by wealthy parents with their own gun fetishes.
In no way defending the guy
Or blaming or exonerating anyone -
but I believe I read there were 795,000 names in ONE of the databases they have. Not sure anything the guy did prior to that rose to the level of "this guy's a terrorist" - travel to see your parents - lots of people do that every day (how were they to know the details of his daily travels), fireworks don't require any reporting, youtube channel - maybe - but you'd be the first one to argue about infringing on his freedom of speech rights if they randomly kept tabs on everyone who set up a nutjob youtube channel.
This guy fell through the cracks - improvements can be made, but there are balances and sadly tradeoffs we make for living in a free society. Rather than looking for blame - let's learn and get better at identifying these people - and recognize as you point out - there are many, many that we will never find in advance.
That said - agree with you wholeheartedly on better NATIONAL gun laws - but I'd be long dead if I were holding my breath on that one.
Loughner wouldn't have been
Loughner wouldn't have been snagged by new laws when he wasn't picked up by police over existing ones. There's a big coverup in his case that the local PD had reason to take him in and dropped the ball. Same deal with the Aurora shooter, local police in both cases had the chance to do something and dropped the ball.
Well
Thats kinda the point here. These two had no record of any importance. Thats the problem with crime, it's not a crime until your break the laws there that are in place as both a deterrent and a means of punishment.
DB#2 seems to have shown no signs and led a pretty normal life in other circles that didn't flag anyone. DB#1 seems to have locked himself in his house and planned this all on his own, not leaving a trail of outside contacts that could be used to raise suspicion.
We can never be 100% safe, ever, especially with the liberty and rights we hold dear. If someone wants to kill, they can easily ind a way to do so. That was life before 9/11, and it'll be the same going forward.
We need to find the balance of prevention, law enforcement activities, and not giving up our liberties and just be vigilant that this is a reality.