The third anniversary of April 15, 2013, the date of the Boston Marathon Terrorist Attack (MTA) will soon be upon us. The clock to bring suit against those who may be liable for the damages caused by the attack is ticking away. That attack saw the death of three individuals, the severe maiming of hundreds others, and injuries of varying types to thousands more. The enormity of the action by Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is well-known; what is not known is the involvement of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in bringing it about.
The FBI will not voluntarily disclose its full involvement with Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It is in its great interest not to be embarrassed by it; and also in the interest of the Government not to have it known. Imagine the extent of damages that our Government would be face if it were to be shown that the FBI’s actions or negligence were a direct cause of the bombing.
We have seen how generous the federal judiciary has been in handing out damages to people harmed by the FBI in the cases involving the victims of Whitey Bulger. More so have we seen it in cases involving the Mafia where four families were awarded more than 25 million each even though for two of them there was no basis for giving them anything.
We have also seen how the federal government deprived people of any money. It asserted that some of the civil actions by victims’ families were filed too late. It alleged they should have known the basis for their action earlier.
That is the situations facing the victims of the MTA. There is enough out there to alert them that the FBI may have some responsibility for the attack. Should it come out five years down the road that in fact it did, then it will have been too late for them to sue.
It is imperative that any victim who wishes to explore all options to be compensated for his or her loss to act now. It will be a long battle to get at the truth. Many agents will need to be deposed. The FBI and the Government will fight you tooth and nail at each step because the consequences to them are so dire that they will have no other alternative.
Keep in mind it was not until the courageous actions by Judge Mark Wolf in Boston who required the FBI’s Boston office to open its files in the Whitey matters that we learned of the FBI’s sordid involvement with those men. Only that led to the victims’ compensation. The victims of the MTA also need a courageous judge who will allow them to explore the FBI’s actions that may have led to the terrorist bombing.
Here is the little we do know about the FBI’s involvement. It was advised that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a potential danger by the Russian Security Forces. It did send out its agents to follow-up on that information. It is believed that they met with him and possibly his mother. We do not know the full extent of this.
We know from other cases that the FBI actively tries to recruit young Muslim men to become informants. It is one of the major way in which it is combatting potential terrorism. The agents put great pressure on them. Did they try to recruit Tamerlan? Was he recruited to go back on his trip to the countries in the Caucasus? Did that trip turn him into a double agent?
Beyond that, there are other things that cast great suspicion upon the FBI suggesting that in the aftermath of the bombing it engaged in a cover-up. Once they identified Tamerlan and Dzhokhar in the video why didn’t it seek out the agents who interviewed Tamerlan to identify him? That seems to be the natural first step rather than going public with the video and alerting the culprits that you know who they are which would prompt their flight.
Yet, there is evidence that the FBI did know who they were before they went public. There were teams of FBI agents in Cambridge near and about the home of Tamerlan prior to the time he was allegedly identified. Why? The FBI said it was for some other purpose. How could it be that in the time immediately following a great terrorist attack teams of FBI agents were doing something other than trying to track down the terrorists?
The innocent victims of the Marathon Terrorist Attack deserve to be compensated by the federal government if the malfeasance or negligence of its agents brought about their injuries. Time is not on their side.
I have often wondered whether the reason why the FBI could not turn over docs related to Tamerlan was because the DEA may have had the file. That would explain his connection to the Waltham triple homicide, which claimed the life of his best friend (also a friend of Todashev’s.)
Either way, we are a population who appears to be too stupid to figure out who is screwing them, and we are going off the cliff like lemmings in a cesspool of “Boston Stupid.” A jury of Tsarnaev’s peers just sentenced him to death based on a sketchy narrative from an agency that is working overtime to shut down every inquiry into what the hell happened. It speaks volumes when Ed Davis goes to Washington to pan handle for BPD funding the week after Tsarnaev’s bungled capture, but he doesn’t remember that an “info sharing” BPD officer sat on the JTTF at the time of the Marathon attacks. Then Robert Mueller gets razed by Congressional oversight committees for lack of candor about what his workforce is doing with current funding.
In all of this, cop hero fever has become virulent to the point where we are not able to critically assess law enforcement’s professional conduct and respond appropriately. Not a single agent or officer has been disciplined or fired as a consequence of their misconduct on the Marathon case—Unless you count the State police photographer who was suspended for leaking the boat capture photos.
But honestly, I see no point in suing the government for money because it ultimately victimizes the taxpayers a second time. In all of this, we have learned that the victims are currently being compensated out of the State’s Victim Compensation Fund, leaving me wondering what the purpose of the One Fund was?
Oh yes, that’s right legal fees to file false claims suits against people making claims to the one fund. So that’s that. Far be it me to suggest the One Fund be used to actually give victims of the MARATHON attacks justice instead.
One reads of multi-million dollar settlements for very low value individuals. We all pay. Not the perpetrators. The payouts oft seem to resemble lottery hits. The least the government should do is in part fund these giveaways out of forfeited pensions of the “rogue” agents. As it stands there is no connection between wrongdoers and the wrongs. Any reform of the system should start with accountability and financial consequences.
Tadzio,
What do you think thirty-plus years of wrongful imprisonment is worth to an individual or their family (if they died in prison)?
Low-value, high-value…..still citizens with rights.
It’s not the “rogue agent” that is the problem…..it’s the system in which he operates.
Agree on the accountability, and the fact that we all pay, but how do you single out one person when it is a whole system that is broken?
Thanks.
Matt,
Just curious why you say that for two out of the four mafia families “there was no basis for giving them anything.”
Is it because two of them died before the rancid, disgusting, putrid, poisonous…….. REAL “unholy alliance” ( O’Neill, Lehr 2001) between Barbozo + Bureau= benefits the Bear ( & belatedly Benji) was exposed and they were exonerated?
IMO these four are the very first victims of the TEI program and they deserve every dime.
Thanks.
More to add.
The “victim’s families” lawsuits were “filed too late”…..never mind that the information that they were based on didn’t come to light until the S.O.L. was almost up. Disgraceful the way the government has treated the “victim’s families.
No qualms paying Miss Iceland a chilly 2 MIL on 90 day net terms, though…
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-crime-bulger-idUSTRE7981FU20111010
Sharp, an 18-year-old singer from Montana, claimed in an interview that Finicum had gotten out of the crashed truck and walked toward officers with his hands up, daring them to shoot.
“He’s like, just shoot me then, just shoot me — and they did, they shot him dead,” Sharp said. “They shot him right there, he was just walking — I saw it. I swear to God, he was just walking with his hands in the air.”
McConnell who was not there but in a second vehicle said he heard from Shaina Cox that Finicum charged at the police. Sharp’s account, a first person account, describes him only as walking towards the police with his hands up.
Stay tuned . . . .
The FBI-State Police killing of LaVoy Finicum is described as the murder of a man with his hands up, and the subsequent shooting of 100 bullets into a car with two women and one man inside. No shots were fired from the car. No weapons were displayed by anyone in the car. Here is victoria sharp’s, the 18 year old passenger’s eyewitness audio account. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y92PvMFL0Eg&feature=youtu.be
Add in the Waltham triple murder, and, the pill trade to the fighting gyms between Tsarnaev, and, the dead Chechen guy in Florida. Stir, vigorously. A new narrative will begin to appear in the mix.