Saturday, August 09, 2008

Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo and his wife Trinity Tomsic were victims of a mistaken police raid last week


My guess is that the police chief belonged to a different political party than Mayor Calvo. My opinion is, of course, influenced by watching San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and her henchman Patrick O'Toole conduct political prosecutions for the past couple of years.


Police chief expresses regret over drug raid
By Gus G. Sentementes
Baltimore Sun
August 9, 2008

Prince George's County police Chief Melvin C. High said yesterday that a suburban Washington mayor and his wife were "innocent victims of drug traffickers" and expressed regret for the loss of the couple's dogs during a raid on his home last week.

Meanwhile, the FBI has opened an investigation into the actions of the county police officers who burst into the house of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo and shot the dogs. Calvo and his mother-in-law were handcuffed after the officers mistakenly suspected he was involved in shipping marijuana to his home.

Special Agent Richard Wolf, a spokesman for the FBI's Baltimore field office, said the agency has opened a civil rights investigation upon the request of Calvo...

The innocent bystander turned out to be the perpetrator

Bruce Ivins was able to shift suspicions to Steven Hatfill.


In Anthrax Case, Hindsight Shifts View of Ivins Actions to Aid Probe Appear Now As Cover-Up
By ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON and SIOBHAN GORMAN
August 9, 2008

Bruce Ivins...took an overdose of painkillers and died in an apparent suicide last week. The FBI said the government scientist was close to being charged in 2001's deadly anthrax attacks.

One night in autumn 2001, as the U.S. reeled from the worst act of bioterrorism in its history, Bruce Ivins was alone in his cluttered Fort Detrick, Md., office, scrubbing phones, walls and furniture.

For colleagues, this was proof of the anthrax scientist's attention to safety. From a distance of seven years, it might be evidence of his guilt.

Like the detective in Agatha Christie's play "Mousetrap" who turned out to be the murderer, Dr. Ivins played a haunting dual role in the anthrax mystery, federal law-enforcement agents say. He was part of the team that examined the poisoned letters. Investigators say he implicated other scientists and submitted incomplete samples to throw them off-track...

Thursday, August 07, 2008

20-year-old kills self after police say, "Are you a coward?"

video
Oceanside police accused of negligence after man's suicide

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Personality of a killer: church-going, jolly family man

How can you tell who will become a killer?

The answer is surprising in the case of the man suspected of sending anthrax powder in the US mail in 2001.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/us/02scientist.html?em#
New York Times
By SARAH ABRUZZESE and ERIC LIPTON
August 2, 2008
FREDERICK, Md. — Bruce E. Ivins arrived last month for a group counseling session at a psychiatric center here in his hometown with a startling announcement: Facing the prospect of murder charges, he had bought a bulletproof vest and a gun as he contemplated killing his co-workers at the nearby Army research laboratory...

To some of his longtime colleagues and neighbors, it was a startling and inexplicable turn of events for a churchgoing, family-oriented germ researcher known for his jolly disposition — the guy who did a juggling act at community events and composed satiric ballads he played on guitar or piano to departing co-workers.

“He did not seem to have any particular grudges or idiosyncrasies,” said Kenneth W. Hedlund, a retired physician who once worked alongside Dr. Ivins at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick. “He was the last person you would have suspected to be involved in something like this.”

Friday, August 01, 2008

Hatfill was innocent; suspected anthrax killer Ivins kills himself

Anthrax Suspect Commits Suicide
By MATT APUZZO and LARA JAKES JORDAN, AP

Federal prosecutors investigating the 2001 anthrax attacks were planning to indict and seek the death penalty against a top Army microbiologist in connection with anthrax mailings that killed five people...

The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins...killed himself this week.

...prosecutors were closing in on Ivins, 62. They were planning an indictment that would have sought the death penalty for the attacks, which killed five people, crippled the postal system and traumatized a nation still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks.

Authorities were investigating whether Ivins released the anthrax as a way to test his vaccine, officials said.

...Russell Byrne, a colleague who worked in the bacteriology division of the Fort Detrick research facility ...said Ivins was forcefully removed from his job by local police recently because of fears that he had become a danger to himself or others. The investigation led to Ivins being hospitalized for depression earlier this month, Byrne said.

...The Los Angeles Times, which first reported that Ivins was under suspicion, said the scientist had taken a massive dose of a prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine.
...
In late June, the government exonerated a colleague of Ivins', Steven Hatfill...