Oregon Live – by Maxine Bernstein, March 8, 2016
It’s drummed into every police officer and federal agent during training: They must report every time they discharge their gun on duty and justify each shot.
So Tuesday’s announcement that a member of the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team allegedly failed to disclose two gunshots fired at Robert “LaVoy” Finicum seemed inconceivable to former FBI agents and criminal justice experts.
That the bullets missed their apparent target drew even more disbelief. One struck the roof of Finicum’s truck and another missed Finicum and his pickup.
“Here you have one of the best trained units in the FBI. They’re only supposed to shoot when there’s an active threat. You would hope they would be accurate in doing so,” said Michael German, a 16-year veteran of the FBI who now serves as a national security expert and fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York University’s School of Law.
State police troopers fatally shot Finicum moments later when he reached for a gun in his pocket, according to the FBI and investigators led by the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office. Finicum was one of the top spokesmen for the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a bird sanctuary 30 miles southeast of Burns.
Investigations are now underway to sort out what happened with the FBI shots. A special agent from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s Office, the FBI’s Inspections Division and the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office are examining whether the shots were justified and the reported failure to disclose them. Four other FBI Hostage Rescue Team agents are also under investigation.
“In the FBI, the most important thing is to tell the truth,” said Danny Coulson, who served as special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon from 1988 to 1991 before becoming the agency’s deputy assistant director in charge of terrorism operations. Coulson was the first commander of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team and was a deputy FBI director during the bloody 1992 shootout in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. He now runs a security consulting business in Texas.
An agent who doesn’t report a shooting could face anything from serious discipline to demotion to a criminal charge, depending on what an investigation finds.
Retired veteran FBI agents and others in the justice system said they’d expect that the investigation will cast a shadow on the FBI and feed anti-government conspiracy theorists. Several urged the FBI leadership to publicly release its findings as soon as they’re available.
“Anytime the FBI is not completely honest in something like a shooting it harms the entire agency,'” German said.
Brian Levin, director of California State University’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and a former New York police officer, agreed.
“This will be fodder for every conspiracy theorist from coast to coast,” Levin said. “It is bewildering because we’re talking about the crème de la crème of the FBI. So this development is surprising.”
All law enforcement officers are trained to report any on-duty shooting. “This is something that’s elemental in training,” Levin said.
Investigators said they will try to determine why the agent did not report the shots.
“Was it intentionally not disclosed, and if so, why?” said James Wedick, a retired FBI agent who served for nearly 35 years and last ran the public corruption squad in Sacramento. “If they were trying to deceive somebody, that’s a problem for the agents. I’m sure their managers are upset as heck about this. It defies reasoning.”
The FBI’s deadly force policy is the same as Oregon’s. Agents can use deadly force if they believe they or someone else are at risk of death or serious injury. They’re also trained to consider a moving vehicle as a potential “deadly weapon” and to stop it by incapacitating the driver.
Since the FBI agent’s two shots came as Finicum exited his truck after plowing it into a snowbank at the roadblock, investigators will examine if the agent thought Finicum was a still a serious threat.
“Did they think the driver was armed or did the driver jump out making furtive movements? If the vehicle stopped, then you’d have to show the operator is still a threat to your or someone else’s safety,” said Todd Anderson, training director of the state Department of Public Safety, Standards and Training.
German said it would appear that shooting at Finicum could still be justified at that point. That’s why not reporting it doesn’t make sense, he said.
“It’s shocking to me that someone would not have reported it, particularly if it was around the time the car crashed and the subject came out of the vehicle, there seems some justification,” German said.
Coulson said the agent’s reasoning will depend on where he was standing at the time and what he saw Finicum doing. “The FBI does not shoot fleeing felons unless they’re maneuvering to get a better position. If the individual is maneuvering for a tactical advantage, then it can be justified,” he said.
Yet Daryl Johnson, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security terrorism expert, wondered if the shots were accidental.
For a bullet to strike the roof of Finicum’s pickup, Johnson wondered if the FBI agent was firing from a shooting ladder. The ladders are used to give agents a better vantage point, particularly when they’re dealing with occupants of an SUV or pickup, he said. A shooting ladder was at the scene on U.S. 395, but authorities haven’t said if the agent was on one.
“If they didn’t hit the target – I mean, these are the elite of the elite — something had to have had happened. A mishap maybe,” said Johnson, who also worked for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent and now is a domestic terrorism consultant in the Washington, D.C., area.
“One possible explanation could be the officer stumbled or slipped and discharged the gun,” he said.
The other agents are likely under investigation for not reporting the shot. Oregon investigators would not detail why the other agents are under investigation, saying only it was for actions after the fact.
“If one of their team members fired a shot, they should have heard it,” Wedick said. “If that’s the case, was there some collusion to cover up the shots?”
Former FBI agents and law enforcement experts said it would be easier to understand if there was a mistake made in the midst of the chaotic shooting, but not such a lapse after the shooting.
Since there’s a potential for criminal charges, the agent who fired may refuse to talk. That might lead investigators to grant immunity to his fellow agents to learn what had occurred, criminal justice experts said.
At the least, the agent likely won’t remain on the Hostage Rescue Team.
“I’m sure the penalty is going to be severe. I do think there’s a good chance he’d be removed from the team,” Wedick said. “To those guys, that’s worse than death.”
Paul Nathanson, a spokesman for the Washington D.C.-based FBI Agents Association, declined to comment on the inquiry because it’s still pending.
Last week, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch was in Portland and praised the federal, state and local police response to the refuge takeover. Until now, Wedick said he, too, thought the law enforcement response was largely restrained.
But now, he said, “It’s incendiary. It will incite more things. That’s why the managers are going to be so furious about this. This was the last thing they wanted to hear.”
— Maxine Bernstein
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/03/investigation_of_fbi_agents_in.html
FBI’s elite ” Hostage Rescue Team”, that worked out well, didn’t it! Wearing their shiny “Hostage Rescue Team” insignias, our fearless, self sacrificing, “boy’s in blue”, were able to get to the train station and save Sweet Polly Purebred from the ravages of an unseemly scoundrel.
All right, I’ll shut up now!
Elite “Hostage Rescue Team”. I can’t hold it down no more! Rrrraaalllppphhh! That’s what bothers me the most. The self-important assholes cannot be reasoned with. They’re on auto-pilot. They won’t look you in the eye, engage you face to face, they keep you at bay by pure ignorance, unless you accidently step on a crack in the sidewalk!
Danny Coulson has a lot of balls claiming that the FBI must always tell the truth. I remember his tenure at the FBI, during and after Ruby Ridge and Waco. He was, is, and will always remain a slithery serpent, and immoral POS!
That pretty much summs up the lot of them,
Couldn’t make it past the second paragraph on an empty stomach.
This garbage is only in the news because it’s an attempt to steer the issue from one of cold-blooded, premeditated murder, to a pig not reporting all the bullets he fired.
The entire issue is only a distraction, and everyone saw what happened.
Agreed. that was exactly what I thought. This article was written to cloud the issue and muddy the waters. Hey, don’t look over there at the murdered body of Mr. Finicum, look over here at these two shots. The two shots are way more important.
Article written by a Jew no less. Thanks Maxine Bernstein.
There is absolutely nothing “elite” about a bunch of immature, juvenile clowns running around in ridiculous looking costumes pretending to be the guardians of all that is good. They are scum, they are losers, they are sub human. The Federal Bureau of Incompetence needs to be disbanded and all of the agents fired with no pension and no severance.
Amen!
At the least, the agent likely won’t remain on the Hostage Rescue Team.
“I’m sure the penalty is going to be severe. I do think there’s a good chance he’d be removed from the team,” Wedick said. “To those guys, that’s worse than death.”
Seriously? worse than death, as someone else noted, Lavoy is unavailable for comment.
A chance he’ll be removed from the Super Elite, Transformer, GI Joe, Hulk Hogan, Super-duper team! No, say it ain’t so!
Being removed from the team is worse than death to them because to that sort of lowlife, existence has no meaning other than serving the government (i.e., other men). Being part of a big collective is the sole source of their self-esteem. They don’t believe they could possibly ever amount to anything by thinking and acting for themselves — not even in a cooperative effort with others who think freely.
“It’s drummed into every police officer and federal agent during training: They must report every time they discharge their gun on duty and justify each shot.”
I’d like to be the one drumming it in.
Sledgehammer.
*** “Anytime the FBI is not completely honest in something like a shooting it harms the entire agency,’” German said. ***
Things are WELL past that point, you lying faggot. The fact is that you and your agency have no credibility left to harm. It was lost long ago. You’re confirmed liars and murderers without a shred of honor, and that will never change.