PLAYING THE DEAD MAN’S HAND:

Are the Boston Marathon Bombings Tied To The Murder of Three Young Men And The FBI’s Anti-Terrorism Program?

By Paul DeRienzo

On Monday, April 15, 13, Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts, the Boston Marathon was the scene of a despicable twin bombing. The bombs went off 12 seconds and 630 feet apart near the finish line, at about ten minutes to three that afternoon, killing three and injuring about 264, including fourteen victims who lost limbs.

Over the following four days, a manhunt for two young brothers suspected in the bombings ended with the death of a police officer and one of the suspects and the capture of the other, who now faces murder and terrorism charges. Revelations of a subsequent police investigation allegedly linking the older brother to a brutal triple murder of a young marijuana dealer and his two friends in 11 and the killing by police of the main suspect in the triple murder a month after the bombings have raised questions as to whether the FBI or other agencies might have known more about the alleged bombers and are covering up a relationship with an informant.

THE OFFICIAL STORY

The bombing suspects, 27-year-old Tamarlan Tsarnaev and his 19-year old brother Dzhokhar, known as Jahar to his friends, were named by police three days after the Marathon bombing, when, on April 18, after car-jacking a Mercedes SUV, they were cornered in a ferocious gun battle with police in Watertown, Massachusetts. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed, but Dzhokhar managed to escape, allegedly running over his mortally wounded brother in a frenzied escape. Dzhokhar was captured the next day in Watertown while hiding in a boat in a backyard.

AFTERMATH

It was three days before grainy security camera pictures of the suspect brothers were made public. Originally named suspects 1 + 2 (or “black hat” + “white hat”), the FBI said that the suspects had “acted differently” after the explosions, staying to watch the aftermath and walking away “casually,” rather than fleeing after the bombings. unlike most of the terrified people at the scene.

During the first days of the manhunt, about a dozen tweets from Jahar were mostly mundane missives that took on deeper meaning after the shootout in Watertown. “There are people who know the truth but stay silent,” was tweeted on his account seven hours after the bombing, adding “There are people who speak the truth but we don’t hear them cuz they’re the minority,” and lyrics from Jay-Z: “There ain’t no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people.” He also re-tweeted the picture of an injured woman from the bombing in the arms of a man with an incorrect caption. Jahan tweets back, “Fake story”.

Meanwhile, the FBI distributed images of twisted pieces of metal that they said were from two identical 6-quart steel pressure cookers filled with gun- powder scavenged from fireworks. The FBI claimed that computers seized from Tamerlan’s apartments indicated his visits to an extremist website featuring a pressure cooker bomb recipe titled “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom.” A month later, the story changed after prosecutors filed legal papers admitting that the bombs would have been “difficult for the Tsarnaevs to fabricate successfully without training or access from others.”

No suspects were named until a news conference on April 18 when photographs and surveillance videos from the scene of the bombings were released by the FBI. They showed two suspects wearing backpacks.

Events unfolded rapidly after the news conference. The first reports that would be used to link the bombings to the Tsarnaev brothers came that night, when Cambridge police reported that a 7-Eleven store had been robbed. At a press conference, Boston police commissioner Ed Davis released a security-video image from the 7-Eleven robbery and incorrectly named a person in a hoodie as a bombing suspect. The police would later claim they had erroneously linked the robbery to the two bombing suspects because it occurred coincidentally with the shooting of MIT police officer Sean A. Collier about a mile away.

Collier was reportedly shot “multiple times in the head” a few minutes after the 7-Eleven robbery. Though there is video of two men approaching Officer Collier’s car, according to the New York Times, “three law enforcement officials” said there is no clear view of the men’s faces. Investigators said they believed the men were the two suspected bombers and that they were attempting to rob the officer’s gun. “He had a triple-lock holster, and they could not figure it out,” a law enforcement official told the Times.

“DANNY’S” STORY

Meanwhile, as police were responding to the shooting of officer Collier, a 911 call reported the car-jacking of a Mercedes SUV “by two men claiming to be the marathon bombers.” The SUV’s owner, a Chinese national and entrepreneur identified as “Danny” in order to protect his identity, had reportedly been kidnapped by the two men.

In a Today show interview, “Danny” said that Tamerlan Tsarnaev approached his parked car. Thinking that the stranger was asking directions, he rolled down his window. “Danny” said that Tsarnaev then reached through the window, opened the door, got in and demanded money, aiming a gun “right at my head” asking if “Danny” had heard about the Boston “explosion,” adding, “I did that and I just killed a police officer in Cambridge.” “Danny” is the only witness to this alleged confession and he remains the only source behind the official account of who is responsible for the bombing and its aftermath

According to the official story, “Danny” told police that after being hijacked, he was forced to spend an hour driving around the area “looking for an ATM machine.” At one point, “Danny” said that he was made to pull over as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev got out of a Honda that was following his SUV and transferred bags of material to the trunk of the SUV. “Danny” said the three men then drove in the SUV toward Cambridge. “Danny” said that when Tamerlan Tsarnaev pulled the vehicle into a cash-only service station and unlocked the doors to the car, he saw his chance and quickly unfastened his seatbelt and fled across the street to another gas station, begging the surprised proprietor to call 911.

However, independent researchers, such as Russ Baker of whowhatwhy.com, say that “Danny’s” story has “inconsistencies that call into question whether the authorities now prosecuting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for murder are leveling with the American people.” The inconsistencies are each small, but taken together, they undermine confidence in the story that “Danny” recounted to law enforcement.

The questionable statements begin with the car-jacking itself, which “Danny” said happened at a location in Alston, which is nearly three miles from the Cambridge location indicated in the initial statement by Middlesex County District Attorney Gary Leone. “Danny” said he was held hostage for 90 minutes before making his escape at the gas station, but there are two conflicting versions. The first, from the prosecutor and police in a joint statement, is that “Danny” was “car-jacked at gunpoint by two males and was kept in the car with the suspects for approximately a half hour.” The second version, from the Associated Press, citing the Cambridge Police Department, is that “Danny” was held “for a few minutes” and then let go. The Wall Street Journal also reported the suspects stole the Mercedes SUV, “briefly holding the driver hostage.”

“Danny” said that he made his escape when Tamerlan Tsarnaev was momentarily distracted, according to the Boston Globe, NBC and CBS. In the first of two conflicting versions broadcast on ABC affiliate WMUR, “Danny” walked away when the brothers were outside the car, leaving “Danny” alone. In the second version of the getaway, given by the Associated Press and Cambridge Police Department, they left him by the roadside after a few minutes, confiscating his vehicle. In this version, “Danny” had almost no interaction with the brothers, which, according to Baker “raises questions” about their alleged confession to the bombings.

Adding to the confusion are three different accounts of how “Danny” managed to escape the brothers. In the first story, broadcast over WMUR, “Danny” tells the interviewer that while Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was paying for the gas and Tamerlan pumping, he quickly unbuckled his belt and made a run for it. In the second version, with John Miller of CBS News, “Danny” claims Tamerlan was in the car sitting next to him when “Danny” said “I jump out of the, jump, jump out of the, the vehicle, and I close the door, and I can feel, Tamerlan was trying to grab me, he didn’t touch me, but I could feel him trying to grab me.” In a third conflicting version, reported by the New York Times, from a “unidentified law enforcement” source, the car-jackers “threw him out of his car around 1:00am.”

Reading these disparate stories, a picture emerges of an official story built out of cherry-picked facts that bolster the narrative of vicious terrorists. If the suspects were vicious enough to kill a cop to supposedly seize his gun, why wouldn’t they just shoot “Danny” and eliminate the only witness s to what happened?

SHOOTOUT

Police were soon chasing the stolen Mercedes SUV, using its GPS system though the streets of Watertown, Massachusetts. Within minutes, police from numerous agencies were descending on the area, eventually engaging in a wild gun fight with the brothers that injured 16 officers, including one who was critically wounded by “friendly fire”.

A study by Harvard University said that the police tactics “put the public at excessive risk during the shoot-out.” Between 200–300 rounds were fired and several “crude grenades” were thrown. Police claimed that the suspects had an “arsenal of guns,” but later it was reported that the suspects had only one firearm, a Ruger 9mm pistol, with serial numbers defaced. During the shoot-out, Dzhokhar allegedly drove the vehicle toward police, running over his own brother to make an escape.

A Watertown resident and witness quoted in the New York Times said the car “went right through the cops” and continued west. The witness said an explosion during the gunfight was caused by a “large, unwieldy bomb” the “gunmen had.” He said it looked “like a pressure cooker.”

Left behind was Tamerlan Tsarnaev. He was handcuffed, unconscious, and in cardiac arrest. The Emergency Room team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center was unable to resuscitate him, and pronounced him dead at 1:35 the following morning.

CAPTURED

Early on April 19, Watertown residents received reverse 911 calls asking them to stay indoors. Authorities ordered citizens of Watertown and adjacent cities and towns to “shelter in place”, meaning that they were to collect children and animals and stay indoors, closing windows and locking doors. “Shelter in place” orders have been used in shooting incidents, as well as for toxic spills and refinery fires and weather emergencies. In a door-ro-door manhunt, thousands of law enforcement officers, including FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Department of Homeland Security, National Guard, Boston and Watertown police and Massachusetts State Police, searched a -block area of Watertown. This show of force was reportedly the first major field test of the interagency task forces created in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001.

Later that day, believing the suspect had escaped, the order was lifted. Shortly after, a homeowner with a boat named the “Slip Away II” stored in his backyard noticed something askew. Climbing in to investigate, he saw someone hiding inside. Police were called and surrounded the boat. Reports of a shoot-out at the boat were later proven false E2 80 93after police shot a large volume of bullets at the boat, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, badly wounded and bleeding, was captured, unarmed, without a fight.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE

The FBI was aware of the Tsarnaev brothers, having interviewed Tamerlan in January 11, after Russian authorities informed the FBI that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was connected to Islamic radicals. The FBI said that Tsarnaev wasn’t a potential threat at the time and has claimed the Russians withheld crucial information that would have caused agents to watch Tamarlan more carefully. Tsarnaev returned to Russia in spring 2012 for six months, traveling to the troubled area known as Dagestan, near Chechnya, where the Russian military has launched two major wars in the past years, killing hundreds of thousands of local residents.

Journalist Trevor Aaronson is the author of the book “The Terror Factory,” which outlines the FBI’s use of informants to manufacture a war on terrorism. The bureau spends $3.3 billion on counter-terrorism each year, the biggest slice of its $8.2 billion annual budget, which is half a billion dollars more than it spends combating organized crime. A central facet of FBI tactics has been sting operations against would-be terrorists using informants and internet surveillance. Aronson researched legal filings in numerous terrorism cases and saw a pattern of often low-functioning, penniless losers and hapless bystanders being snared into terrorism stings by relentless and highly-paid government informants.

Is it possible that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was being used as an informant or provocateur? The question remains open and the government’s heavy handed treatment of Jahar’s Boston schoolmates and friends in the weeks after the bombings has deepened the mystery.

While no other conspirators were charged or named by prosecutors in the bombing, friends of Jahar who were not involved in the bombing were charged with disposing of evidence. A backpack and fireworks with gunpowder were removed from Jahar’s dorm and recovered by police. Since the bombing, friends of the Tsarnaevs have been arrested, harassed and some deported on minor charges, leading to complaints filed against the FBI by the ACLU. One friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed a month after the bombing while in FBI custody.

TRIPLE MURDER

As police searched for the bombing suspects, a parallel “investigation” began on social media sites that played out with tragic consequences. A troubled American student at Brown University named Sunil Tripathi, who had gone missing a month before the bombings, became one of several people misidentified as a bombing suspect on social media. On April 23, 2013, Tripathi’s body was found floating in a river in Rhode Island, an apparent suicide. The online site Redditt eventually apologized for encouraging an “online witch hunt”, and “wrongly accusing innocent people.”

Even more disturbing than the death of Tripathi was the connection made by police between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and the bloody murders of three men whose throats were slit, while cash and drugs were left on the bodies, in Waltham, Massachusetts in 2011. The three friends were Erik Weissman, Brendan Mess and Rafi Teken. Weissman and Mess were both established pot dealers, Teken was a friend who was visiting the night they were murdered. A Waltham investigator called the murders “the worst bloodbath I have ever seen in a long law enforcement career.” Their throats had been slashed with such force that their heads were nearly decapitated.

Brendan Mess, an experienced mixed martial artist who trained in jujitsu, was the only victim who had fighting wounds. There was $5,000 in cash and more than eight pounds of marijuana in the house, including two pounds scattered over the corpses. Middlesex County District Attorney Gerry Leone told reporters that there was no evidence of a break-in and the assailants and victims probably knew each other. “Assailants, plural?” a reporter asked. Leone replied that there were “at least two people who are not in the apartment now, who were there earlier.” The investigation went basically nowhere from that point until nearly two years and two bombs later, when the FBI revisited the case.

IBRAGIM TODASHEV

The day after Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with Watertown police, plainclothes FBI agents detained his friend, Ibragim Todashev at gunpoint. Although the FBI seems to have initially been looking for evidence of a wider terrorist cell, within weeks, its agents were questioning Ibragim about the Waltham murders.

A report in Boston magazine written by Susan Zalkind, who had been Erik Weissman’s girlfriend, surmises that if cops had cared enough about the death of three stoners in 2011, the Boston Marathon bombing may have been avoided. After the Waltham murders, police seemed only interested in implying that the grieving relatives of the dead were themselves part of some drug ring.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was a Golden Gloves boxer was connected to Waltham victim and friend Brendan Mess through a gym where they sparred. Yet, police never visited the gym or talked to Tamarlan, even though several friends gave the police his name in a list of Brendan’s closest contacts. After the April 2013 bombings, the Middlesex DA pulled out files on the old case and soon police were revisiting families with questions about organized crime and guns. In a photo lineup, Brendon Mess’ younger brother picked out Ibragim Todashev as a man who looked “vaguely familiar.”

Few people knew Todashev. He was a trained Mixed Martial Arts fighter who liked to hang out with a close-knit group of Chechen friends and he didn’t socialize outside of that circle. He was described as kind-hearted but harbored a serious anger problem, attacking anyone who used the word “motherfucker” in earshot. Todashev grew up in the violent world of Chechnya, where his family was forced to move constantly before arriving in the United States

In the weeks after the bombing, FBI investigators focused on friends of Dzhokhar Tsaraev, who was popular with his classmates in high school and college at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. Some of his friends refused to accept that he was a bomber and some asserted they would testify on his behalf. The FBI targeted many of those friends and spread fear, seemingly aimed at discouraging support for their friend. Todashev, who received special attention from the FBI, but was never charged with a crime, moved to Orlando, Florida with his wife.

THIRTEEN BULLET HOLES

On May 21, 2013, a little more than a month after the bombing, an FBI agent, accompanied by two Massachusetts State Police officers, arrived at Todashev’s home in Orlando. Other agents were interviewing his wife and mother-in-law at different locations in Georgia. The interview with Todashev began at about 7:30pm as a friend waited outside. Police told him to leave at about 11:30pm, telling the friend that cops would later deliver Todashev to a nearby mall. What happened next inside the condo is known only to the officers who were there. Pictures later released by Todashev’s family show that he was shot multiple times in the chest, arm, and once in the head.

Todashev’s father wrote an open letter to President Barack Obama, releasing gruesome photographs of his son, showing the bullet wounds. “They did it deliberately so that he can never speak and never take part in court hearings,” Abdul-Baki Todashev said, adding “They put pressure on my son’s friends to prevent them from coming to the court and speaking the truth.”

The identity of the officers who killed Todashev was kept secret until Spring of 2014, when improperly blacked-out documents obtained by the Boston Globe identified FBI agent Aaron McFarlane and two Massachusetts state troopers assigned to the case, as well as a Florida task force officer, who remained outside the apartment during the interview. The Florida District Attorney said the names of the agent and officers should have been kept secret out of “concerns for the investigators’ safety.”

The Globe discovered that before he became an FBI agent in 2008, McFarlane was a cop in the notoriously corrupt Oakland, California Police Department during the biggest police scandal in the city’s history. He also had testified about corrupt activities in the department. McFarlane had also been named in several suits against police brutality in Oakland.

McFarlane claims that Todashev confessed to helping Tsarnaev kill the three men in Waltham a short time before he was shot. It was later reported that Massachusetts troopers recorded the confession, but the recording has not been released. The official story is that Todashev was about to sign a written confession when he was killed. McFarlane was alone with one of the two state troopers when Todashev allegedly flung a table at McFarlane’s head and threatened the other officer with a broom handle before he was shot. Todashev managed to get up from the floor after being shot and was hit in a second blast of bullets. There has never been an official explanation of how police connected either Todashev or Tamerlan Tsaraev to the Waltham murders. After the killing of Todashev, investigators returned to his friends, asking more questions about the triple murders. Even though the named suspects are both dead, the case remains open.

As the trial continues in a Boston federal court, thinking people can only surmise that whatever the verdict, the case of the Boston Marathon Bombing will also remain open.