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Community, religious leaders say video shows Rahim not shot in the back, not on his phone at the time

The Herald reports after police and the FBI showed surveillance video to them at BPD headquarters. Officials say they will not release the video publicly until after Usaama Rahim's family gets a chance to look at it.

Statement by Muslim community leaders.

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Comments

Exactly what I thought. He lied. The lie wasn't even believable...

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.......crickets..........

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I'm holding my breath waiting for the apology from Ms. "police state".

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The guy was walking away, while talking on the phone, and peeling an apple w/his pocket knife?

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This guy was planning to BEHEAD police officers, and the hateful anti-police crowd tried to side with him. Can we all agree that they're off their rockers now?

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of anyone other than his brother having tried to side with him.

Here's a hint: Pointing out that the FBI's credibility is weak is in no way siding with anyone.

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If you didn't see it here, you weren't looking.

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I'm pretty sure they've been a huge asset since 9/11. I know arm chair critics like you want perfect law enforcement agencies who never make mistakes, but that's never going to happen. So...

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You live in Whitey's town and you ask why the FBI's credibility is weak?

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That's all you have? What does the Whitey Bulger case have to do with anti-terrorism? Answer: nothing.

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.. or were we discussing the FBI's lack of credibility.

You want more?

FBI agents botched a terrorism investigation in Florida and tried to cover up mistakes, said Justice Department investigators, who also concluded that a high-ranking official retaliated against the longtime undercover agent who pointed out the problems.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/05/AR200512...

Russian authorities warned the FBI in early 2011 that suspected bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have been a follower of “radical Islam,” a revelation that raised new questions in Congress on Saturday about whether the Boston Marathon attacks that killed three and wounded more than 170 could have been prevented.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/2013/04/20/fbi-was-warned-years-ago-all...

n the fall of 2001, a nation reeling from the horror of 9/11 was rocked by a series of deadly anthrax attacks. As the pressure to find a culprit mounted, the FBI, abetted by the media, found one. The wrong one. This is the story of how federal authorities blew the biggest anti-terror investigation of the past decade—and nearly destroyed an innocent man. Here, for the first time, the falsely accused, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, speaks out about his ordeal.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/05/the-wrong-man/308019

Nearly a year before the [Fort Hood] massacre, the bureau intercepted emails between Nidal Hasan and radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki that officials called "fairly benign." They are anything but.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/nidal-hasan-anwar-awlaki-ema...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

http://constitution.org/col/mwswear.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/27/fbi-otherwise-illegal-activity-...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-plots-helped-...

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/senate-investigation-of-fbi-a...

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...for finally answering my question. You probably think that you have me in some sort of "gotcha" moment. I never said they were infallable. And I'm still trying to figure out your anlge here. Are you saying that the dead terrorist, who was intent on beheading police officers, is the victim here?

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I don't in the slightest think I have you, or anyone else, in any sort of "gotcha" moment.

Are you saying that the dead terrorist, who was intent on beheading police officers, is the victim here?

Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. I've written multiple times right here that, based on the info available, this appears to have been good police work and a justified shooting.

My angle here is threefold:

  1. People who want to practice citizen journalism (which is what we're all doing here) should at least educate themselves about basic journalistic practice, and clearly differentiate what you know, from what you have heard someone else claim, from what you guess. . For example, you say right there "he was intent on beheading police officers," but surely that's not something you know, is it?
  2. While the BPD has a pretty good track record of credibility, anything the FBI says should be viewed, not with paranoia, but with a healthy skepticism, until independently corroborated.
  3. You can look all the way back to Roman times and before, and see that government officials trying to scare people with talk of foreign plots against them -- not that such warnings are *always* wrong, of course; Neville Chamberlain having been a dupe and all --- but the practice does not have a very respectable history, and should be viewed with skepticism whenever it is encountered.
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Older Tsarnaev brother was brought to the attention of the FBI JTTF by Russian security services. So that's one thing that directly affected Boston and has to do w/ counter-terrorism. Not to blame the FBI only, but it was a failure. Mistakes were made, we can say.

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...that mistakes do not happen.

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Yes, but you did ask why their credibility might be weak. That is my response, post 9-11.

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As he was shot in the back. While talking on his cell phone.

Does this mean that man of religion lied to us?

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I presume the father told the son in Cali. he was on the phone with his brother in Roslindale. Maybe we'll get more info about this soon.

I found it interest to learn from the Globe that the man in Cali. spoke out against the Tsarnaev marathon bombing when it happened.

The Globe is also reporting the man in Everett and the man JTTF killed in Roslindale were engaged in a plot to behead a policeman Tuesday! I'd like to see the evidence and I wonder why it wasn't probable cause to make an arrest.

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maybe that's what they planned on doing after they spoke to him...you know, before he pulled a knife on them.

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Yes, brandishing a lethal weapon is probable cause for arresting the person for violating that law and probable also attempted murder.

An officer at the scene today said the evidence JTTF has--evidence of a plot to kill a police officer by decapitation-- exists and is convincing. He said that the two sources of that info the Globe cited shouldn't be leaking the info. He also said the brother in Cali. is the one with credibility issues. He said listen to all sources critically and skeptically. Good advice.

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An officer at the scene today said the evidence JTTF has--evidence of a plot to kill a police officer by decapitation--

I don't doubt that.

But in that case, the fact that they sent two officers without backup and that they didn't have a warrant for his immediate arrest means somebody screwed up.

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have you read a a newspaper article about this? Did you even read the statement linked in Adam's post? There were more than two people, and there was no lack of backup. This was exemplary preemptive action by law enforcement. You have lost all credibility.

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no matter what the police did, to say they should have done something different.

I'll criticize the police if - when - they do something wrong, but there's nothing to criticize here.

A person who's been saying stupid jihadi crap on the internet for months says he's heading out to kill some cops today. He steps down to the corner with a massive pigsticker he's been bragging about. The LEOs think now's a good time to talk to him, but he pulls it on them. He refuses to back off or put it down, but instead advances on them swinging. So they put a few in him and he dies.

The dirtbag got his just desserts, and I for one am not sorry he missed his main course on the way.

His brother Ibrahim made up the phone call to daddy out of whole cloth because he's a lying sack of shit. He wanted to use his brother's suicide by cop to raise hatred. He put everything in there but a bag of skittles.

Sorry, bro, there's video. And it shows you made that all up. Go back to Oakland if they'll have you.

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Men of religion lie to us on a daily basis.

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This trend by BPD (and in this case, possibly the FBI) of immediately involving community leaders in the aftermath of these kinds of incidents is encouraging. No better way to nip the rumor mill in the bud. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and so on...

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And Baltimore

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yeah its real great. Until there is no available video. Then the 'public' automatically assumes the the police must be hiding a video because of what it shows.

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Between CCTV and bystander video, I think this is going to be less and less common. One of the enduring facets of the Tsarnaev trial for me was the near omnipresence of camera footage of the defendant -- Boylston St., the Shell station, grocery store, etc. And for better or worse, we can only expect the amount of security cameras (private and public) to grow.

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You're arguing that, in the case where a police officer shoots and kills someone and there's no video of it, that the POLICE OFFICER is the one who suffers the presumption of guilt?

Can I buy some of whatever you're on?

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... was that it seemed to subtly reference three or more high-profile shooting / police brutality cases. "I can't breathe" -- Eric Garner's last words. Shot in the back -- multiple recent police shootings. On the phone -- Trayvon Martin. Yes, many police shootings seem to happen in similar ways -- and for similar, disgusting reasons -- but a collage of high profile cases is almost too "on" to ring true.

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First off, to hopefully belay the (perhaps inevitable) blowback from the reactionaries - it certainly sounds like this Rahim guy was a dangerous nutcake. As the BPD has been fairly controlled in their use of deadly force lately, I hope that this was a case where there was no better alternative for the two officers.

However, I just looked at the Herald page you ref'ed, Adam, and the embedded video says nothing about the consensus of community/religious 'leaders' - while the accompanying text says, in its entirety:

"Hub community leaders today were shown video footage of yesterday's shooting death of a 26-year-old Roslindale man who was being monitored by terror investigators -- spurring some to dismiss claims by his family that he was shot in the back by police, while others reserved judgment, calling the video 'vague.' " (emphasis mine)

That seems quite a bit more ambivalent than what you've got at the top of the page there.

Is there a more specific breakout somewhere of what individuals present at the screening thought of the video, or a description of what it shows?

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The Globe account it less ambivalent than the (last time I checked) the Herald one.

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All the viewers agree that he was not on a cell phone, he was not shot in the back, and he was advancing on police when he was shot.

The ambivalence is as to whether they see the shooting as justified and whether they can see the knife in his hand at that moment.

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He was planning on beheading police officers and he was armed. It was justified. Period.

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He was planning on beheading police officers

Are you reporting this as a fact personally known to you, or is the attribution missing from your statement?

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Those charges were filed against his co-conspirator who stated that beheading police officers with was the plan.

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OK, so you can say "He is charged with planning to behead police officers."

You can say "An affidavit by police officers says he was planning to behead police officers."

You can say, "Witnesses, whom the police say are credible, say he was planning to behead police officers."

You can say "The police say that call intercepts, social media transcripts, and other evidence suggest a plot to behead police officers."

All of those would be statement of facts known to you, the author and independently verifiable.

"He was planning to behead police officers," on the other hand, is not.

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Bob, Bob, Bob. We've been over this ad nauseum: when you're blaming the dead guy, and he isn't a white Christian, you're allowed to state all rumors, beliefs, or crazy shit you think because you're an ex-cop who took one too many blunt-force traumas to the head as though they're engraved on stone tablets by the almighty Himself.

If you want to question the motives of police officers, you need to have your story independently corroborated by at least three witnesses and video tape, and you have to be ready to have each of those witness's credibility questioned.

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Your ignorance is breathtaking. And when confronted with publicly available, heavily reported facts, you criticize the manner in which your ignorance is remedied.

Shall I bring a spoon to the next discussion?

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The FBI can't detect it's way out of a paper bag without dragnet warrantless surveillance, cash payoffs to snitches and a huge organized effort to coercively turn people into active informants. When even that fails they go out and make their own "plots".

This has been pretty clear in almost all of their recent "terror" arrests where the arrested peeps were mostly losers who would/could have done very little without the helpful informant egging them on and often providing the weapon/bomb/whatever

I admit to having a horrible suspicious mind but my first thought after learning that the shooting involved the FBI was that the dude they shot was someone they were cultivating coercively to be an informant who ended up snapping and attacking the people who were trying to "make him an offer he can't refuse..."

Looks like my horrible thoughts are wrong though (and I'm happy about that). I'm still mildly interested in how he came to the task force attention. An informant would be the easy answer but it's also equally likely that this dumbass was doing stupid stuff on the internet and came to their attention that way ...

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In roughly 24 hours from the incident, he's got the community people in watching video that apparently corroborates his (apparently accurate) initial description of the incident, and the community folks are out saying (more or less) yup, what the Commish said is what happened.

This goes to what I have said before (in a more thoughtful and detailed way) on UHub - that our police are simply better trained than the police in a lot of other places in the country.

On a related note, to my recollection, this is the second consecutive time that this type of speedy transparency has been delivered after an officer of the BPD was involved in a fatal shooting. This will go a very long way toward providing a store of goodwill when the BPD needs it next (e.g., when, as someone else pointed out, there is another use of deadly force and there is no video). The value of this should not be underestimated.

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And apparently an even better cop.

We are lucky to have him.

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our police are simply better trained than the police in a lot of other places in the country.

I agree. More restrained in use of lethal force. Work to deescalate situations. Leadership knows how to work responsibly with the community. Good crisis management.

I've liked Commissioner Evans since I watched him decamp occupy. He's seems focused on putting respect at the center of his work with the public. I've seen him veer of course here and there but he's committed.

There are some reforms on the table by state legislators to address specific concerns. I hope the Mayor will work with the union to produce the best possible policies the parties can agree to.

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I said it yesterday here. I'll take Evans, from Dorchester and the BPD, every day of the week. The guy is the real deal, and we're lucky he's here and in that position.

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Evans is a hard working cop who knows the streets inside and out and has the lifelong respect of the rank and file. Good man.

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I basically trust the BPD and generally believe that they are a classy, highly professional outfit.

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Community leaders? When was the election?

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