Apathy Leads to Unaccountability

Some columns are easy to write. This will not be one of them. In the process of making a larger point, I am forced to defend people of questionable character demeanor and/or sanity, because they are no longer able to defend themselves. They have been killed by law enforcement officials under questionable circumstances. Following each shooting, there was a promise that a thorough investigation would be conducted. Yet if the latter investigation proceeds as the former one has, one may be forced to conclude that government investigators are engaged in one thing and one thing only: running out the clock on a reliably distracted public.

Let’s begin with that latter case because it is still somewhat fresh, even though public is being distracted by news of debt ceilings, government shutdowns and the chaotic launch of a healthcare bill.

On October 3, Miriam Carey, a 34-year-old dental hygienist from Stamford, Connecticut, was shot and killed by law enforcement officers. According to a timeline of the event, Carey initially struck a barrier on 15th and E streets, an area considered part of the White House perimeter. Secret Service agents stepped in to block her from proceeding. Carey put the car in reverse, striking, and slightly injuring, one of those agents. No shots were fired at this time.

Carey then turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue, racing towards the U.S. Capital Building. When she got to the foot of Capitol Hill, police met her with a phalanx of patrol cars and drawn handguns. When they approached her car, she again put it in reverse, striking a patrol car. As she sped away, police fired nine shots at her vehicle while Carey circumnavigated Garfield Circle, and exited onto Constitution Avenue.

As she was driving up Constitution Avenue, police again opened fire. Carey spotted raised barriers in the street. She once again attempted to put the car in reverse and ended up backing into a police guard booth. Police fired 17 shots at Carey and killed her, claiming it was only then that they noticed Carey’s one-year old daughter in the back seat.

DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier contended the shooters "acted heroically.“

As the Washington Times notes, during that day, "the capital buzzed with word of an ‘active shooter’ on the loose. Hundreds of cops of various agencies swarmed the Capitol, clad in bulletproof vests, sniper rifles and fully automatic carbines at the ready… Police spokesmen stepped up to the cameras to talk about shots that ‘were fired,’ and an ‘exchange of fire’ with careful use of the passive voice to conceal the identity of those doing the shooting.”

Shortly after the incident, the mainstream media began justifying it in earnest. “She had post-partum depression after having the baby,” said her mother, Idella Carey. "A few months later, she got sick. She was depressed. … She was hospitalized.“ Other reports noted that Carey believed Barack Obama was stalking her. ABC News reported that "Connecticut police had twice in 2012 been called by Miriam Carey's boyfriend, who reported the woman was delusional, acting irrationally and putting her infant daughter in danger.” Unnamed sources said she considered herself the “Prophet of Stamford.” Other unnamed sources said she had a history of schizophrenia and was on meds for mental illness.

Carey’s sisters paint an entirely different picture. Amy Carey-Jones said Miriam did suffer from postpartum depression, but that she was receiving proper treatment for her condition. "She’s not a terrorist, was not a terrorist,“ said sister Valerie Carey. "To my knowledge, she did not believe that the president…was going to do her any harm.” Her boss, Dr. Steven Oken, described Carey as a person who was “always happy." "I would never in a million years believe that she would do something like this,” he added.

The most disturbing revelation? A witness named Patty Bills contended that Carey’s daughter, Erica, was pulled from the car before the final fusillade of bullets ended Carey’s life. “As soon as the child was pulled from the car is when the gunfire really let loose,” Bills insisted. If Ms. Bills is accurate, it means police put themselves at point blank range, while they secured the baby. Does that mean they knew she was unarmed?

Americans are being told that an investigation by Metropolitan Police, the Capitol police the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies will be conducted. "There will be, as usual, all sorts of speculation,“ said U.S. Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), whose district includes Stamford. "But at this point, we just need to wait and see what the facts show.”

Americans may be in for a long wait. On May 22, Ibragim Todashev, 27, was shot dead at his Orlando apartment while being questioned by an FBI agent and other law enforcement officials about his connection to Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev. "The agent, two Massachusetts State Police troopers, and other law enforcement personnel were interviewing an individual in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing investigation when a violent confrontation was initiated by the individual,“ said a statement released by the FBI at the time. "During the confrontation, the individual was killed and the agent sustained non-life threatening injuries.”

All well and good except for one thing: the stories from the various officials involved didn’t match up. One said Todashev was armed with a knife. Another said he lunged for the FBI agent’s gun. A third official speaking anonymously said Todashev lunged at the agent and overturned a table. The New York Times reported that Todashev knocked the FBI agent down with a table, charging him with a metal pole or perhaps a broomstick. The agent shot him several times but Todashev attacked again, and the agent fired more shots in response. Whatever went down, one thing remains indisputable: Todashev was shot at least seven times, including once in the back of the head.

Yet it gets curiouser still. The Wall Street Journal revealed that this was not Todashev’s first interview with the FBI. A law enforcement official told the paper that Todashev had been involved in several interviews with the Bureau, all of which he volunteered to undertake. Furthermore, he been cooperative to the point where he canceled a planned trip to Russia, in part to continue voluntary interviews with the FBI, according to the official. The interview on the night in question lasted more than five hours, and there were at least four law enforcement officials on the scene, including the aforementioned FBI agent, two Massachusetts State Police troopers, and an Orlando police officer.

Like the Carey incident, a couple of uncomfortable questions arise. How is it that Todashev was in a position where where he apparently couldn’t be subdued by at least four officers without killing him in the process? The FBI was ostensibly conducting interviews with the possibility of indicting Todashev for his alleged involvement in a triple homicide in Waltham, MA, on Sept. 11, 2011, for which they claim he acknowledged involvement. Wouldn’t interviewing an potential mass murderer seemingly demand a high level of vigilance and preparation for potential violence? Why was there no attorney present?

The FBI promised to conduct a "thorough and objective" investigation. Yet in July, they ordered the Florida medical examiner’s office not to release Todashev’s autopsy report. On August 9, the Associated Press revealed that a preliminary report on the killing compiled by the DOJ has been completed. It was not released to the public. Both Massachusetts and Florida, despite ACLU chapters in both states urging them to conduct separate investigations into the incident, have declined to do so.

Thus, we are left with the FBI conducting an investigate of itself – one that has produced nothing in six months.

Make no mistake here: second-guessing law enforcement officials’ response to incidents where split second decisions must be made, is never an easy business. In the overwhelming number of cases, once must give those officials the benefit of the doubt. Furthermore, I have no affinity whatsoever for Ibragim Todashev. Several accounts of his behavior, including an arrest for aggravated battery and another for disorderly conduct and civil infractions, along with the possibility that he was involved in a triple slaying, indicate he was a violence prone thug at best, and a murderer at worst. But like the Carey case, something is seriously amiss. Unfortunately, when the media moves on, so does the public. Thus, the FBI has no impetus to release its report in a timely manner – if they release one at all.

The American Spectator’s editor-in-chief, Emmet Tyrrell, is highly disturbed by the “astonishing silence” surrounding the death of Miriam Carey. It is an astonishing silence that attends equally to the death of Ibragim Todashev. Tyrrell explains why. “We are a nation of laws,” he writes. “We extend the rule of law even to the criminal class.”

We did at one time. Do we still?

The Patriot Post® · Apathy Leads to Unaccountability