Saturday, April 20, 2013

I call "bullshit" on this one

Now we are told that Dshokhar Tsarnaev is "clinging to life."
When he was taken into custody from the bottom of a boat in the backyard of a Watertown home Friday night, the suspect was bleeding badly and too weak to resist any longer, officials said.

Police believe Dzhokhar Tsarnaev he was initially wounded Thursday night in the gunbattle that killed his brother.
It is unclear whether Tsarnaev was hit again during a final volley before his arrest in the boat.
What they aren't talking about is the evidence that cops who first showed up on the scene were trigger happy. Allow me to repeat a bit that appeared in one of yesterday's posts, taken from this ABC account:
"That boat's his baby. He takes care of it like you wouldn't believe. And they told him it's all shot up," Pizzuto said. "He's going to be heartbroken."

Erik Thompson, who lives across the street from the Henneberry's home, said he heard gunshots and saw law enforcement rush to the scene.

"There was some gunfire earlier which was almost immediately stopped. People were yelling to cease fire, and it seems to be focused on some homes across the street from where I am, which I think is the western side of the street," Thompson said.
It seems likely that Dshokhar was hit during that burst of gunfire. I pause to let the reader contemplate the absurdity of firing on a guy hiding in a boat.

On the other hand, I don't really blame the first responders for being jumpy, considering all that had happened. But the police must be honest about these matters -- otherwise, the conspiracy theorists will seize upon any falsehood, however small or face-saving, and use it to "prove" that everything we've read in the news is wrong.

10 comments:

Scott said...

He probably does not have much desire to live.
He lost a lot of blood since he was in the boat for many hours. With no will to live even saying he is "clinging to life" is an exaggeration.

Tiro said...

When the boat owner looked behind the canvas and first saw the kid, he wasn't moving, and was apparently unconscious or nearly unconscious.

Twilight said...

I thought it significant when someone at one of the later press conferences said that only the FBI will be reporting on the suspect's condition, not doctors or hospital health care officials. Hmmmm!
They were probably not pleased how the doctors reported fairly openly on condition of suspect #1 previously.

By the way - thanks for all your hard work and posts on this topic.

Michael said...

Excuse me. I blame them. Several things should have been clear to everybody by now: He was wounded and bleeding. He didn't have a car full of explosives. And most importantly, if we were to EVER understand what happened, how, and why, we needed to take him alive if at all possible. If the first responders couldn't figure that out on their own, they should have received orders. But no, they swarmed the place, guns-a-blazing. They wanted him dead. We need an investigation.

Anonymous said...

Nervous cops trigger happy?

Chris Dorner comes to mind and nothing makes cops mad more than turncoat cops and terrorists.

Didn't you see and hear the video? Almost continuous fire for 5-10 seconds. It was far too dangerous for law enforcement to approach because of the fear of bombz.

I think they were hoping to blow any ordinance before they got to extracting him from the boat.

Ben

Anonymous said...

dang, I would have shot him and I am a sweet old lady.

Anonymous said...

"Federal investigators are hurrying to review a visit that one of the suspected bombers made to Chechnya and Dagestan, predominantly Muslim republics in the north Caucasus region of Russia. Both have active militant separatist movements. There are concerns in Congress about the F.B.I.’s handling of a request from Russia before the trip to examine the man’s possible links to extremist groups in the region."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/us/boston-marathon-bombings.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Michael said...

The initial gunfire was entirely unnecessary. Most likely the later round too. I would be surprised if the kid even had a gun. They should have made every attempt to coax him out, and ultimately they did, thank god.

Anonymous said...

This is America's Reichstag moment. Time to wake up boys and girls. Or GET OUT.

b said...

It is ludicrous for the FBI to say they are now looking at Tamerlan's trip abroad to find out whether he might have "met with extremists" or "received training from them", when, before he went, they were asked for information about him by a foreign intelligence agency (probably Russian, possibly Israeli - other possibilities very unlikely), which they helpfully went and gathered before passing it over.

Here's the question: given all that, why was he allowed back into the US?

Didn't the FBI, y'know, contact the foreign intelligence agency which owed them a favour, and say 'Hey, he wants to enter the US again now. Anything happen when he was on your patch that we should know about?'

Ain't there any border control?

And now they say they're going to review his trip. How? What springs to mind is that they go to the said foreign intelligence agency and say 'Hey, you remember that guy you asked us about, before he left the US, and we went and interviewed him on your behalf, and gave you a load of information about him? Well, guess what! He's gone and blown up the Boston marathon. We didn't ask you to help us when he came back into the US, so the immigration boys just let him in, no questions asked. Because, y'know, we always give possible terrorists the benefit of the doubt. But anyway, guys, any idea who he might have associated with when he was over on your territory? Any idea whether he got any help with planning the Boston job?'

Fucking cloud cuckoo land, all that.

The possibilities are:

* the FBI thought it owned these guys

* the FBI were told to lay off, this being someone else's stuff

* the FBI thought they weren't the kind who'd get involved in terrorism

The 3rd possibility there contradicts what we've heard - especially the 'leader' stuff regarding Tamerlan - so the first two seem more likely.

I am fucking fed up of hearing about terrorist bombers who were already known to the domestic security agencies.