Boston Marathon Bombings

[Oso]

Pic of the dead brother:

http://i.imgur.com/0U0ozqt.jpg

I'm not embedding. View at your own discretion.

whoa, I wonder what caused the hole in the side? getting run over?

[Drake]

whoa, I wonder what caused the hole in the side? getting run over?

Bullets can do that.

[Oso]

i guess with the right angle it just ripped across the ribs.

I also guess that they had to try and keep him alive.

[Vash]

I hate to be one of those guys that posts an "I heard that" info line, but . . .

I read an article earlier today which stated the bomber who was taken into custody was not read the Miranda rights, and was going to be tried as an enemy combatant. Is this true?

[Syn7]

Yes at first. But since they have and he will have a real trial. Death penalty case, I'm sure.

And I'm glad he was read out. It's a slippery slope when we start picking and choosing like that. He was an american and he was not affiliated to any other gov agency or terror group. Case closed. This is a straight up law enforcement issue.

And don't get me started on the whole shutting down the city thing. Won't be long till they start using LAV's to clear out rowdy college parties.

[Vash]

That's a good thing. We're too good a country to throw away that kind of freedom.

Not related, but there is a trial going on in Little Rock, Ar concerning the Occupy Little Rock movement. There was a law on the books making any group of two or more people who were on public land (parks, sidewalks) to be ticketed or arrested for not having purchased a permit. This included birthday parties, according to a police officer on the stand.

[Brule]

I hate to be one of those guys that posts an "I heard that" info line, but . . .

I read an article earlier today which stated the bomber who was taken into custody was not read the Miranda rights, and was going to be tried as an enemy combatant. Is this true?

Don't quote me on it but it had to do with the fact that the feds felt there to be an imminent threat to it's citizens so they delayed in reading the Miranda in order to extract as much info as possible. Not sure, but I think they introduced that after 9/11. From what I understand they read him his Miranda a day or two ago. All this could have gone for not as he could have just lawyered up right away.

I hate doing this without a source but I can't seem to find it anymore but I thought I read that the younger brother actually ran over his older brother with the stolen vehicle after the gun fight and in custody, resulting in his death. Can anyone else confirm this?

[sanjuro_ronin]

Don't quote me on it but it had to do with the fact that the feds felt there to be an imminent threat to it's citizens so they delayed in reading the Miranda in order to extract as much info as possible. Not sure, but I think they introduced that after 9/11. From what I understand they read him his Miranda a day or two ago. All this could have gone for not as he could have just lawyered up right away.

I hate doing this without a source but I can't seem to find it anymore but I thought I read that the younger brother actually ran over his older brother with the stolen vehicle after the gun fight and in custody, resulting in his death. Can anyone else confirm this?

Yes to all the above from what I gather.
The running over incident was due to his brother being held down by 2 police officers when the younger brother drove towards them, they jumped out of the way and he ran over his older brother.

They were not prepared to make their escape at all it seems.

[Syn7]

Ibragim Todashev's father: FBI 'bandits' murdered my son

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...ed-fbi-inquiry

[GeneChing]

In 2011 Murder Inquiry, Hints of Missed Chance to Avert Boston Bombing
By SERGE F. KOVALESKI and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: July 10, 2013

WALTHAM, Mass. — It was the most brazen crime in the memory of this Boston suburb: three men murdered with knife slashes to their throats in a second-floor apartment at 12 Harding Avenue; each corpse precisely positioned, stomach down, head turned a quarter to the right, marijuana sprinkled on top.

The case has remained unsolved since the bodies were discovered on Sept. 12, 2011. It is now back in the investigative spotlight as evidence mounts, according to law enforcement officials, that one of the suspects in the April 15 bombings at the Boston Marathon, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, participated in the killings.

On Wednesday, Mr. Tsarnaev’s younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, the surviving suspect in the bombings, appeared in court for arraignment, the first time he had been seen by the public since he was discovered, covered in blood, hiding in a boat in a Watertown, Mass., backyard. He pleaded not guilty to all 30 counts against him.

But the emerging evidence against his brother, who died on April 19 after a shootout with the police, has led some law enforcement authorities to contend that if the local murder investigation had been more vigorous it could have led to his apprehension well before the bombings left 3 dead and more than 260 wounded — in short, that the bombings might never have happened.

Even before Ibragim Todashev, his friend and boxing partner, implicated himself and Mr. Tsarnaev prior to being killed during an F.B.I. interrogation in late May, federal investigators had been gathering information against Mr. Tsarnaev using “old-fashioned” police work, a senior law enforcement official said. They “went through his phone, did interviews, got his contacts — a combination of all that.” They believe the two men targeted the victims, one of whom was a close friend, in a drug-related robbery.

Relatives and friends of the Waltham murder victims — Brendan Mess, 25, Erik Weissman, 31, and Raphael Teken, 37 — have long contended that the authorities were too quick to write off the murders as the unfortunate outcome of a low-level drug dispute and that they failed to do basic policing work that could have solved the case.

Mr. Mess, a popular martial arts instructor, was believed to have been running a drug-dealing operation from the apartment. Mr. Weissman, a chess player and Chinese food lover who was a founder of a glass pipe company and had been temporarily staying at the apartment, was working on a plea deal stemming from an earlier drug arrest. Mr. Teken, known as Rafi, was a 1998 graduate of Brandeis University.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was, by many accounts, one of Mr. Mess’s closest friends and a frequent visitor to the Harding Avenue apartment. But three law enforcement officials familiar with the case said that Massachusetts state troopers and the Waltham police, working under the auspices of the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office, never questioned him — either as a potential suspect or as someone who could provide valuable information about the victims.

Several friends said in recent interviews that they told the police about Mr. Tsarnaev when they were questioned. “The police wanted to know who all the friends were in the group, and I told them about Tamerlan,” said one close friend of Mr. Mess, adding that at least three other friends gave the authorities Mr. Tsarnaev’s name, as well.

When Mr. Tsarnaev did not show up at either Mr. Mess’s funeral or memorial service, the friend became uneasy.

“We did mention Tamerlan again to the police after he was not there for Brendan’s services,” said the friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the notoriety of the case. “I felt that the police were not really looking in the right places.”

In the immediate aftermath of the murders, investigators theorized that the killings had been the work of professionals, based on the savageness of the attacks on the three victims, at least two of whom were adept at martial arts, and the lack of evidence at the scene. One early theory was that the assailants might have been part of a “cartel” that felt betrayed by one of the men, according to two law enforcement officials. They said that at least two people had been at the apartment near the time of the deaths, that the killers most likely knew their victims, and that the homicides were not random.

Since the bombings, some Jewish publications have speculated that because the bodies were discovered the day after the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, that they could have been a hate crime, particularly since both Mr. Weissman and Mr. Teken were Jewish. “I told the police that there were only two Muslims I knew of who hung around the group of friends, and because of the 9/11 date, the fact that Tamerlan and Brendan’s last girlfriend were Muslim stood out,” the friend said.

Mr. Weissman’s mother, Bellie Hacker, recalled meeting with investigators about 10 days after the murders, describing them as “honest in their assessments, but passive and waiting.”

“The police told us, ‘This is what we think may happen.’ That in the future, someone with information might come forward and admit it and seek a plea deal,” Ms. Hacker said.

Gerry Leone, who oversaw the Waltham investigation as the district attorney until leaving his post in mid-April to join a law firm, declined to comment on the inquiry, as did a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office and a spokesman for the state police. One law enforcement official close to the case denied that anyone suggested that they look at Mr. Tsarnaev in the aftermath of the killings: “Don’t you think if someone had told us to take a look at him and that he had information, we would have talked to him?”

At the Brookline Lunch diner in Cambridge, where Mr. Mess was a regular (often eating there with Mr. Weissman and sometimes with Mr. Tsarnaev), investigators failed to show up. They “never called us over here at his hangout place or came to ask questions,” Jamal Abu Rubieh, who owns the diner with his wife, Manal. (One of their dishes, Brendan Benedict, was posthumously named for Mr. Mess, and a photo of Mr. Mess with relatives and friends hangs on a wall in the restaurant.)

continued in next post

[GeneChing]

No one came to the Wai Kru mixed martial arts gym either, where Mr. Mess worked out occasionally with Mr. Tsarnaev. In the days after the bombing, federal authorities came to ask questions, however — first about Mr. Tsarnaev, and later about Mr. Mess and the Waltham case.

John Allan, the gym’s owner, said that he was struck by Mr. Tsarnaev’s unemotional reaction to Mr. Mess’s murder. In an interview, he recounted a conversation a few days after the killings.

“As I said something, there was kind of a smile on Tamerlan’s face, and he laughed it off,” Mr. Allan recalled. “He laughed off the fact that he was murdered, like: ‘Aw, man. It’s crazy right? Huh huh. It’s crazy right? I guess if you do that, that’s what’s going to happen.' ”

Mr. Allan said there was no hint of grief. “That really shocked me.”

Mr. Tsarnaev’s wife, Katherine Russell, too, was perplexed by how untroubled her husband seemed about the death of his close friend, according a person with direct knowledge of the situation. She found out about the murders through local news reports, and when she spoke to her husband about the tragedy, he speculated matter-of-factly that they were the result of a drug deal gone awry, the person said.

The gym was also an occasional hangout for Mr. Todashev, whom Mr. Tsarnaev introduced to the facility. Mr. Allan said that he believes he was the first one to tell the authorities about Mr. Todashev and his relationship with Mr. Tsarnaev. Summing up his reasons, Mr. Allan said, “He’s got a bad temper, he clearly has anti-American sentiment, a radical-style Muslim who was training with Tamerlan at this gym, and at the end praying towards Mecca with him.”

One person whom investigators did interview on several occasions was Mr. Mess’s most recent girlfriend, a Muslim like Mr. Tsarnaev. Some friends and relatives of the victims are suspicious of her, and in an interview for this article, she acknowledged that she had a fiery relationship with Mr. Mess at times and had once thrown a bottle of balsamic vinegar at him.

The girlfriend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she did not want her name associated with the case, insisted that she had no part in the murders and had hoped to marry Mr. Mess, whom she started dating about nine months before his death. She said that she believes she told investigators that Mr. Tsarnaev, whom she knew as “Tam,” was a regular guest at the Waltham apartment, but that the authorities never followed up with her about him.

She added that parts of her boyfriend’s relationship with Mr. Tsarnaev were cloaked in mystery, citing as one example a conversation the two men had shortly before she left on a trip to Miami the week before the killings.

“Tam asked Brendan, ‘Are we going to do that thing?' ” she recalled. “And I asked Brendan what that was, and he told me not to worry about it.”

A Massachusetts legislator who talked to neighbors the day the bodies were found and has closely followed the case, Representative John J. Lawn, asserted that the investigation was “thoroughly done.”

Since there were no signs of forced entry, “it had to be someone they trusted to let them into that apartment,” he said. But the lack of clues fueled what he called “the consensus” that developed about the murders. “It was very professionally done,” he said.

One law enforcement official said the murders were part of a “drug rip-off.” The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said the authorities were able to put together “a lot of circumstantial pieces” that they used to pressure Mr. Todashev into implicating himself and Mr. Tsarnaev.

Investigators have been helped by DNA evidence taken from Mr. Tsarnaev after his death that they are using as part of the Waltham investigation, according to the official, who believes that local investigators did not have such forensic evidence before the bombings. Another friend of Mr. Mess said that after the bombings, investigators told him “they have info that may have placed Tam with Brendan the day before or night of the killings.”

An F.B.I. agent investigating the bombings interviewed Mr. Todashev about Mr. Tsarnaev in his Orlando, Fla., apartment in May and he began to provide information about the Waltham case. To get him to talk, the investigators “made him believe he’s done, and the only way he could help himself is confess and lay out the details of what had happened,” a law enforcement official said. Mr. Todashev “flipped out” and attacked the agent and was then shot at least a half-dozen times in circumstances that still remain unclear.

The senior law enforcement official said that at the time Mr. Todashev was shot, two Massachusetts state police investigators had left the room to inform a prosecutor that Mr. Todashev was admitting he and Mr. Tsarnaev had carried out the Waltham murders. This official said that Mr. Tsarnaev “was more of a wannabe drug dealer than a big one. He was dealing dope, marijuana, low-level stuff.”

The nature of Mr. Todashev’s sudden admission and shooting have left some close to the victims skeptical about the official account of what happened. But it has also stirred frustration about what they saw as a lackluster investigation after the 2011 murders.

Susan Zalkind, a friend of Mr. Weissman’s and a freelance journalist who has been looking into the case since 2011, said she remains surprised how few friends of victims the police talked to. “Despite being one of the most gruesome and unusual crimes of the year, I saw the least amount of public outreach,” she said.

William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting from New York, Michael S. Schmidt from Washington, and Jess Bidgood from Boston. Sheelagh McNeill, Alain Delaquérière, Lisa Schwartz and Kitty Bennett contributed research.

such a shame.

[Syn7]

Just goes to show how much damage biased assumptions can really do. It's pretty sad.

[GeneChing]

Some martially-relevent follow up...

Why the Boston Marathon bombing made me watch mixed martial arts
PRI's The World
Reporter Andrea Crossan
April 21, 2014 · 3:00 PM EDT


Credit: Monica Campbell
Khabib Nurmagomedov is a renowned MMA fighter, from the Caucasus region.

On April 19, 2013, the city of Boston was under lock down.

Overnight, there had been a shooting, a carjacking, a chase, a gun battle with police. The Tsarnaev brothers had been identified as suspects in the marathon bombings.

Tamerlan was dead and police were looking for his brother, Dzhokhar. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick asked Boston residents to shelter in place.

"In other words," he said. "Stay indoors with [your] doors locked and [don't] open the door for anyone other than a properly identified law enforcement officer. And that applies here in Watertown where we are right now, also Cambridge, Waltham, Newton, Belmont and at this point all of Boston, all of Boston."

And so I sheltered in place. During the course of that day, images of the Tsarnaevs were everywhere on TV. Many of the photos were of Tamerlan sparring at a mixed martial arts gym called Wai Kru. I knew the Wai Kru gym.

I live above it.

It made me wonder how many times I may have walked my dog past Tamerlan going in to train. Before that day, I'd never had an interest in that gym below my apartment. But now, I wanted to know what drew Tsarnaev to Wai Kru and to mixed martial arts.

What I discovered was, for young men like Tamerlan, MMA fighting was an obvious outlet.

The sport is huge in the Caucasus region. And for those who are good at it, it can be a ticket to the American dream.

That's how I discovered Khabib Nurmagomedov.

Nurmagomedov is a mixed martial arts fighter. Like the Tsarnaev's, Nurmagomedov has roots in the North Caucasus. He's Muslim and from the same native ethnic group, called Avar.

But that's where the similarities end. Nurmagomedov is a success story. He trains at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, California. Javier Mendez is his coach.

"He's very dedicated, a very hard worker, extremely focussed and extremely talented," Mendez said.

Nurmagomedov is in the lightweight division for the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

He currently has one of the longest undefeated streaks, with 22 consecutive victories. Nurmagomedov, called "The Eagle," is known well in the US and in his home of Dagestan.

He said he chose the Eagle nickname because it's the symbol of his home. It's also why he wears a huge lambskin hat before his bouts.

“The Papakha is the symbol of my people," said Nurmagomedov. "All the elder people wear it — not just my people but all the people of the Caucasus. I know that the UFC is more than just a sport, it's a business. You need to have a show. For Americans, the hat is exotic. Many think it's a wig. No, it’s not a wig. I tell them it's the symbol of my people.”

There are about 9 million people in the North Caucasus. And they breed fighters.

Nurmagomedov has been fighting since he was a child. There's a video set to music of an eight-year-old Nurmagomedov wrestling with a bear cub.

The adults stand around and watch as the 8-year-old grapples with a bear larger than he is. Nurmagomedov laughs off the bear wrestling. But he's dead serious about his career.

Mixed martial arts combines Thai boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and the Russian martial art called Sambo. Like most MMA fighters from Russia and the Caucasus, Nurmagomedov's strongest discipline is Sambo. Sambo was created by the Soviet Army to improve soldiers' hand-to-hand combat abilities.

Nurmagomedov says eventually he wants to open an MMA gym back in Dagestan. Fight fans might not know that 'The Eagle' is from Dagestan or where Dagestan is. He's just that fighter who wears that crazy white wig.

“They say 'are you from Pakistan, or Kazakhstan?' I'm always explaining that Dagestan is a republic of Russia and that it’s in the south of Russia near the Caspian Sea," he said.

For young men like Nurmagomedov, the mixed martial arts gym is a home away from home. It's a community where they fit in. They can meet people who speak their language and understand their culture.

I don't know why Tamerlan Tsarnaev liked going to the Wai Kru gym. I don't know if he imagined having the success that Nurmagomedov has achieved. And I still don't know that much about mixed martial arts.

But I follow The Eagle.

On April 19, 2014, he fought a Brazilian fighter, Rafael dos Anjos. Nurmagomedov won. It was a unanimous decision.


Young UFC Fighter Khabib Numagomedov wrestling with a bear!


Credit: Monica Campbell
Khabib Nurmagomedov came to the US to compete in MMA.
IMG_4102.JPG

Andrea Crossan is a Boston-based senior producer for The World. She follows all things Canadian and has a dog the size of a small horse.