NF Reporter

AP - A man with a history of mental illness burst into a packed courtroom Monday wielding two carving knives and was shot to death as he threatened a judge he may have blamed for his misfortune, authorities said.



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Icorigin

21. Several people who were at the crime scene say there was little or no blood under Foster's head. A .38 caliber weapon firing a high-velocity slug normally makes a large exit hole and produces a huge pool of blood. Following a fatal shot to the brain, the heart keeps pumping until it runs out of blood. This action can last as long as two minutes, thusly expelling a massive quantity of blood. The lack of blood raises two questions: (1) Did Foster die elsewhere? (2) Was the shot to the head administered after he was dead? A careful consideration of these possibilities was precluded by the frantic rush to support an official suicide verdict.

22. X-rays of Foster's skull have either vanished or never were taken. Dr. James Beyer, who did the autopsy, has made contradictory statements as to whether he took X-rays. This controversy remains unresolved.

23. Foster's head was moved after his death and before crime-scene photos were taken. Was this done intentionally? Or was it merely the product of an inept crime-scene investigation? The FBI report indicates the head was moved while the blood was still wet. This claim is intriguing because it suggests the head was moved before investigators arrived.

24. In his written report, paramedic Corey Ashford listed the death as a homicide. Did he do this because he thought it was obviously a homicide? Or was he only following proper police procedure by initially treating a violent death as a homicide?

25. Only a few trickles of dried blood were found on Foster's face.One of these trickles had run uphill in defiance of gravity. This fact alone should have alerted the Park Police to the possibility Foster's body had been moved from another location or the body had been tampered with after death.

26. The Army Colt .38 Special has a high sight and a bulky ejector-rod head. These items normally do significant damage to the teeth and mouth when the gun barrel is explosively expelled from the mouth. Foster's teeth were not chipped, nor was his mouth damaged. The good condition of his mouth has never been explained by the FBI or Park Police. Is it possible a silencer was used? Consider that a silencer is a smooth, round extension that has no sight or ejector rod.

27. No blow-back of blood or tissue was found on the gun, on Foster's hand, or on his sleeve. Most homicide experts believe this is physically impossible given the power of the Colt .38. How does one account for this discrepancy? A much-discussed theory is that Foster was killed with a .22 caliber pistol. Consider that this small weapon is a favorite of professional killers. There are four good reasons for this: (1) it makes far less noise than a larger weapon; (2) rather than blasting through a person's head, its less powerful bullet tends to ricochet within the skull, doing lethal brain damage; (3) it does this deadly work without generating a blowout of the brain case, a pool of blood, or splattered brain parts; (4) there is almost no blow-back of atomized blood droplets to mark the assassin's clothing with DNA.

28. No skull fragments were found at the scene, even though a .38 fired into the mouth normally inflicts severe damage as the slug blows out the back of the brain case. Park Police officer John Rolla observed, "There was no blowout. There weren't brains running all over the place. . . I initially thought the bullet might still be in his head." This is consistent with the theory a .22 was used to kill Foster. Why have Rolla's observations been ignored?

29. All the paramedics who handled Foster's body said they did not see an exit wound in Foster's head. Corey Ashford helped lift Foster's body into a body bag. While doing so, he cradled Foster's head against his stomach. Ashford's white shirt remained immaculate following this contact. Nor did he have to wash his hands. He says this is highly unusual in gunshot deaths, which are normally extremely messy.

30. Dr. Julian Orenstein, the doctor who certified Foster's death at the morgue, says he did not see any exit wound in Foster's head. The fact is all the people who initially handled the body say they did not see an exit wound. Consider that none of these people had a vested interest in the operative suicide conclusion.

31. Dr. Donald Haut, the medical examiner who visited the death site, has steadfastly supported the suicide conclusion. He told the FBI he saw an exit wound. He also stated it "was consistent with a low velocity weapon" (jargon for a small gun such as a .22). In other words, it was a small wound with little blood. Later he repeated his comments about a lack of blood to reporter Chris Ruddy. Haut later denied this in an interview with CBS reporter Mike Wallace. Why did Haut change what he had previously said on two separate occasions? Even more puzzling, why would he deny this when he knew Ruddy had tape recorded his comments?

32. A medical technician at the death scene says he saw a small, circular wound on Foster's neck, just below the jaw line. He says it "looked like a small-caliber entrance wound." (For reasons stated below, one has to consider the possibility this was an exit wound.)

33. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, a respected British reporter, claims he has seen a photo of this wound. He says the wound was on "the right-hand side, about halfway along the jaw and about an inch below the jaw." He describes it as "a clearly visible wound about the size of a dime... It has the appearance of a small-calibre gunshot wound." He later said in a radio interview that the "wound on the neck is the origin and source of the blood that comes down the neck and trickles down the collar."

34. According to Hugh Sprunt, a highly respected Foster researcher, "White House sources... did indicate to the media very shortly after the death that two different guns were involved in the shooting a .22 and one a .38." Park Police notes of 7/26/93 also mention this, adding that the information came from the FBI.

35. Dr. John Haut signed a document dated July 20, 1993, entitled "Report of Investigation of Medical Examiner." In the words of Hugh Sprunt, "Page two says 'Self-inflicted gunshot wound mouth-neck' and there appears to be an alteration on page one from 'Perforating gunshot wound mouth-neck' to 'Perforating gunshot wound mouth-head.'" It is probably more precise to say whiteout was used on page one to cover what appears to be a four-letter word, possibly "neck." The word "head" was typed next to this. Looking at this document, one notes that "head" is slightly higher than the rest of the typing. In other words, the document was removed from the typewriter and later re-inserted to alter it. Why? Consider that a .22 caliber slug fired into the mouth often ricochets and exits through soft locations such as the neck. "Mouth-neck" on a report indicates the gun was discharged in the mouth and the slug exited through the neck.

36. According to the FBI, no "coherent soil" from the park was found on Foster's shoes. Investigators for the independent Scalise Report had two men walk the trail to the death site wearing shoes similar to Foster's. In both cases, their shoes picked up microscopic dirt from the trail. CBS reporter Mike Wallace did the same experiment and also picked up dirt. In CBS' televised report on Foster's death a report that strongly endorsed the suicide conclusion, Wallace neglected to mention this private test. Why did he and CBS conceal this important fact?

37. A tow truck driver says he was sent to the Ft. Marcy Park to remove a car on the evening of Foster's death. He says the driver's window was broken, and there was blood on the dash and seats. No in-depth investigation of this odd story has ever been done by the FBI or Park Police. Did the premature suicide conclusion block another obvious path of investigation?

38. Also consider that hairs and multi-colored carpet fibers were found on Foster's clothing, including his underwear; yet the seat of Foster's car was never checked for matching hairs or fibers.

39. More significantly, the floor of Foster's car trunk was not checked for carpet fibers matching those on his clothing. Is it possible his body was transported in the trunk of his car? Is it possible Foster's body was wrapped in carpet before being transported to Ft. Marcy Park? Once again, the premature suicide verdict seems to have prevented such obvious hypotheses from being explored.

40. The White House discounted the abundance of carpet fibers on Foster's clothing, claiming they came from his recently re-carpeted home. This was never substantiated by taking samples of carpet fibers from the Foster home for comparison.

waltky

No wonder the cops are edgy...

US police deaths climb sharply: FBI
13 May 2008, WASHINGTON: The number of US police officers killed criminally or accidentally last year climbed by around 20 per cent compared with the previous year, preliminary data released by the FBI showed.

Eagle One

The "Source" (India Times) does not have more details, however...

I would like to know why the stats are up 20%. Are the statistics counted differently or classified differently? As stated the statistics seem pretty clear.

What was the collective mindset of these particular officers? I ask that because I used to work closely with police officers and I was often embarrassed and more than a little bit shocked by their abusive and unprofessional behavior toward the public. They wanted to evoke an angry response, or they just liked being abusive. One day I was driving a new (for me) car when I came to an intersection where a cop I knew was directing traffic. Two of my wheels crossed the line because I was turning before I got too close to him. I thought of this as a courtesy. He begins screaming at me, "you MF'ing 'SOB' you can't drive across the F**k**g line you F**k**g 'SOB!!' I turned into a parking lot and went back to the corner to be 100% positive this was the cop I knew. It was the same guy, but I didn't know him as well as I thought I did. To this day I regret not going to the city manager and calling in the police chief for a meeting with this cop.

Another cop in a neighboring town pulled me over for doing 50 mpg in a 45 zone leaving town (speed trap style). That wouldn't be so bad, but this cop is screaming and shouting like he just caught me with his 16 year old daughter. Then a STATE cop drives up and hands him a greenback (It looked like a $5.00 bill but I'm not sure). And this loud-mouth abusive hillbilly cop tells the State cop "See, I told you I'd get the first one!"

I have many more anecdotes like that, but my point is that a lot of cops are abusive and TRY to cause personal conflict. All of the above mentioned cops were white and I am white, so this is not a race issue.

There's also a case I know about (real life) where a young black cop was doing the door-to-door thing asking about a burglary. He knocked on his grandfather's door and his own grandfather fired a shotgun blast through the door. The rookie cop is blinded for life.

Anyway, the "20% increase" statistic is alarming, but needs a lot more details.