Saturday, April 20, 2013

4.20.13 - Questions on the Brothers Tsarnaev - DemocracyArsenal.org | Bomb Suspects Now Mysterious to Those Who Thought They Knew Them Bloomberg


Questions on the Brothers Tsarnaev
DemocracyArsenal.org
It is always possible that it could be something off of the radar, as what happened in the Anders Behring Breivik attack in Norway in 2011. Did the suspects receive any training? There have been mixed reports that the suspects received military or ...

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Questions on the Brothers Tsarnaev 
Posted by The Editors

Suspects-in-crowd-1This post was written
by James Lamond and Bill French
Events and reports are coming out of Boston rapidly. Much of what we hear in the next few hours will be refined and corrected. This week’s media coverage has been a reminder of the need to wait until the facts are in before jumping to conclusions, speculation and accusations. However, it can be helpful to think through what questions need to be answered in the near term, what this means for the investigation and what lessons can be learned. Many of these questions are based on early reporting and speculation and may prove to be void in the coming days.
Did the Tsarnaev Brothers act alone? There have been reports about a third accomplice involved. Clearly if that is the case the manhunt will extend to that individual. However, it will be important to determine if they received any sort of funding or training from a larger network. Can investigators trace the funding back to individuals or groups that were involved in the planning? The Treasury Department’s tools for tracking terrorist and illicit finances have improved drastically in the past few years.  Of course, one question remains, if they had a sponsor of sorts, why were they forced to hold up a 7/11?
What was the motivation? Adam Serwer reported on a video posted on Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s YouTube account “dedicated to the prophecy of the Black Banners of Khurasan which is embraced by Islamic extremists—particularly Al Qaeda.” However as Aaron Zelinwarns against jumping to conclusions saying, “it's important to AQ, but it doesn't necessarily mean jihad.” At this point we do not know the motivation or ideology of the suspects. It is always possible that it could be something off of the radar, as what happened in the Anders Behring Breivik attack in Norway in 2011.  
Did the suspects receive any training? There have been mixed reports that the suspects received military or paramilitary training in the past.  These reports have been widely questioned. However, this needs to be investigated, and will be. If they received training, how and where did they do so? What group(s) is connected? If not how were they able to assemble these crude yet effective explosives? Simply from online instructions?
If there is an international connection, what are next steps? With all the speculation of ties to Chechnya, the question of U.S.-Russia cooperation will likely be raised. Relations between the two countries have been rocky – particularly since Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency. However, even throughout the tough times, there has been an increase in international cooperation on counterterrorism and international law enforcement issues.  
If there is a connection to Chechnya and/or Dagestan what does this mean for the terrorist threat from the region? If there does turn out to be a strong connection with the region, which at this point is pure speculation, there will undoubtedly be an increased focus on the region and militant groups in the area. The Washington Post explains recent cases with alleged connections to the region, “In 2011, a Chechen-born man was sentenced in Denmark to 12 years in prison for preparing a letter bomb that exploded as he was assembling it in a Copenhagen hotel a year earlier… Last month, Spain’s Interior Ministry said French and Spanish police arrested three suspected Islamic extremists in an operation in and around Paris. A statement said the suspected activists were of Chechen origin and believed to be linked to an alleged terror cell dismantled last August in southern Spain.” To be clear, ethnic origin does not mean any organizational connection. Ian Bremmer points out that there are different kinds of groups from the region adding that Russia plays up the region’s connection to al Qaeda in order to justify Russia’s harsh tactics there.

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Bomb Suspects Now Mysterious to Those Who Thought They Knew Them
Bloomberg
U.S. intelligence agencies reviewing volumes of international communications and other intelligence on terrorism had found no evidence, so far, that the Boston bombers were members of or inspired by any foreign terrorist organization, said a U.S ...
How They Did It: Cracking the Marathon Bombing CaseNBC Bay Area

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Bomb Suspects Now Mysterious to Those Who Thought They Knew Them

Like any nervous 19-year-old, he was biting his nails.
Dzhokar Tsarnaev dropped into Gilberto Junior’s body shop at about 1 p.m. on April 16, the day after the bombing at the Boston Marathon, to pick up a white Mercedes E350 wagon. He said it was owned by his girlfriend.
April 19 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President Barack Obama, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the Boston FBI Office, speak about the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15. This report also contains comments from Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, Waterford, Massachusetts, Chief of Police Edward Deveau and Massachusetts State Police Colonel Timothy Alben.(Source: Bloomberg)
Dzhokar had left the car at the shop two weeks earlier for a new rear bumper. Junior hadn’t done the job, yet Dzhokar took it anyway. Junior had known Dzhokar and his older brother, Tamerlan, 26, for a couple of years. They would come by the shop with a group of friends and talk to Junior, who is Brazilian, about soccer and Brazilian women.
“He was a normal kid,” Junior, 44, said of Dzhokar. Junior had no hint that the Tsarnaev brothers were suspects in the attack until later in the day. Before long, Tamerlan would be killed in a confrontation with police and Dzhokar would be the subject of a manhunt that shut down colleges, transit service and sporting events throughout the Boston area.
Dzhokar was apprehended last night at a house in Watertown, Massachusetts, where he was believed to be hiding after an almost 24-hour search. He was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital for treatment of serious wounds suffered in a gunfight with police the night before, authorities said.
With the aftermath of the bombing still unfolding and information changing by the hour, one constant has been that the brothers didn’t appear to be fanatics. While some dark details of their lives will likely emerge at some point, so far their motivations remain a mystery.

Standard Trappings

Their lifestyle included many of the standard trappings of adolescence and young adulthood, including various social media postings with vague musings about life, love and, in some cases, Islam, though the postings are generally low-key.
Authorities haven’t yet found connections to any groups or other suspects, said a person briefed on the investigation who asked for anonymity because the probe continues.
U.S. intelligence agencies reviewing volumes of international communications and other intelligence on terrorism had found no evidence, so far, that the Boston bombers were members of or inspired by any foreign terrorist organization, said a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because intelligence matters are classified. Nor were they encouraged by contacts with Islamic or other extremists overseas, the official said.

Straddling Cultures

The brothers, who lived in Cambridge, came from the former Soviet Union to Massachusetts about a decade ago. They left evidence, including on the Internet, that shows them straddling two cultures, an America focused on entertainment and consumerism and a Muslim faith tradition that emphasized devotion and purity.
A profile attributed to Dzhokar on the Russian social networking site VK lists “career and money” as his personal priority and Islam as his world view. Tamerlan was a competitive boxer, an aspiring engineer and a devout Muslim.
Tamerlan was born in Russia and his younger brother in the central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan, said two U.S. law- enforcement officials familiar with the investigation. The brothers and two sisters came as refugees to the Dagestan city of Makhachkala in October 2001 from Kyrgyzstan, said Emirmagomed Davudov, the director of Gimnasium Number 1, where Tamerlan went to seventh grade and Dzhokar to first grade.

Gaining Asylum

The parents first received asylum in the U.S. and then filed for the children, who were given “derivative asylum status” and didn’t come through the refugee-admissions program -- though the legal standard is essentially the same, said a State Department official who requested anonymity to discuss the case.
Tamerlan was the extrovert and Dzhokar the introvert, John Curran of Watertown, Tamerlan’s former boxing coach who hadn’t seen them in a few years, told NBC News.
“The young brother was like a puppy dog following his older brother,” Curran said.
The Russian newspaper Izvestia published what it said was an interview yesterday with the suspects’ father, Anzor Tsarnaev, who lives in the Russian region of Dagestan. In it, he said his oldest son was happily married to an American and had a child.
The father said he talked with Tamerlan right after the terror attack, to ask if he was all right, and Tamerlan said, “We are fine, don’t worry, we didn’t go there.”

‘Set Up’

Their mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, told Russian TV network RT: “I am 100 percent sure that they were set up. Both of my sons are innocent. My youngest son has been in America since he was 8. We never talked about terrorism at home. My eldest son became interested in religion five years ago. He began to follow rules of Islam, but he never said he plans to enter the road to jihad.”
Tamerlan was registered as an amateur boxer in 2003-2004 and 2008-2010. He competed in the U.S. National Golden Gloves competition in Salt Lake City in 2009 in the heavyweight division and was the subject of a 2010 photo essay entitled “Will Box for Passport: An Olympic Drive to Become a United States Citizen” in Boston University’s student magazine.
In the magazine, he said, he hoped to become an engineer, loved the movie “Borat,” and didn’t smoke or drink alcohol, given his faith. While he’d lived in the U.S. for years by then, he said, “I don’t have a single American friend. I don’t understand them.”

Fleeing Chechnya

He told the magazine his family fled Chechnya in the early 1990s to escape the conflict there between Chechen separatists and the Russian military.
Tamerlan was arrested in 2009 on an assault and battery charge and wasn’t convicted, according to Stephanie Guyotte, a spokeswoman for the Middlesex County, Massachusetts,district attorney. Additional details weren’t available Friday because the courthouse was closed, she said.
Tamerlan spent about seven months in Russia last year, flying out of New York, according to two law enforcement officials who asked not to be identified.
Both brothers had a social network presence, though Dzhokar’s was more robust.
While it is difficult to know for sure whether a Twitter, Facebook or another social-network account is genuine, all indications are that the most insightful account he had was on a Russian site called VK. His page showed that he logged on since the Boston attack, most recently on the morning of April 19, and featured four posts, including a whimsical video making fun of accents of people from the Caucusus region.

Police Driving

It also contained a joke: “A question is asked at a school: A car is rolling. Inside are a Dagestani, a Chechen and an Ingush. Question -- who is driving the car? Answer: The police.”
The page also linked to a video that showed bloodied and wounded people in Syria being stepped on or hunted by soldiers.
Tamerlan appeared to have a Google+ account, with 17 people having him in their circles. He also subscribed to a channel on YouTube called “Allah is the One,” and commented on a video, which recounts a Russian’s conversion to Islam.
In a post two months ago, Tamerlan said, “You accepted Islam not because you believe in it, but because of your own passions and interests (and which Allah knows) that you followed. You entered Islam, and as quickly exited it. You betrayed yourself.”
A month ago, Tamerlan reposted the same comment on a different Russian site, Mirtesen.ru, which has several videos recounting personal experiences of conversion to Islam.

Criticizing Leader

While some of the online videos have militant or jihadist themes, they don’t appear to promote violence against the U.S. The only explicitly political video takes aim at the Russian- supported leader of the republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. However, several videos have been deleted from the site, including two originally posted under the heading “terrorists.”
In a black-and-white photo posted in 2012 on his Russian social network page, Dzhokar, the younger brother, wears a mop of hair, a dark shirt and a serious expression. He links to several Chechen-related groups, while a video posted April 9 on his page purportedly shows images of atrocities in Syria and ends with the Russian phrase, “Syria calls. We answer.”
Dzhokar attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, a prestigious public high school in Cambridge that’s known for its eclectic, diverse student body. Among others it educated were actor-director Ben Affleck and basketball player Patrick Ewing.

Getting Scholarship

In 2011, Dzhokar received a higher-education scholarship from the city of Cambridge. On Sept. 11 of the following year, he became a U.S. citizen, law enforcement officials said. The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth said he was registered as a student there. He worked intermittently during his high school years as a lifeguard at Harvard University, the school said, most recently last summer.
Agustin Nedina, an 18-year-old from Cambridge who attended middle and high school with Dzhokar, said he once played computer games at the suspect’s home.
“The one thing I remember clearly is he was playing lots of violent shooting games,” said Nedina, who graduated from high school in 2012, a year behind Dzhokar. Nedina said the games Dzhokar favored weren’t in English.
“He was a quiet kid,” he said.

Making Friends

Nedina said Dzhokar was on the wrestling team.
“He wasn’t one of the popular kids, but he had a good number of friends,” Nedina said.
Both brothers attended Cambridge Community Charter School, a public, tuition-free, college-preparatory charter school in the Kendall Square area near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Tamerlan attended Bunker Hill Community College as a part-time student in the accounting program for three semesters between 2006 and 2008.
Ty Darros, 21, said he hung out with Dzhokar a dozen or so times and last saw him about eight months ago. He said he was surprised to learn that Dzhokar is suspected in the bombings.
“He was such a nice guy,” he said. “The strangest thing about it is that I can’t think of anything about him that was strange.”
Sherry Hamby, a research professor at Sewanee, the University of the South, who is also editor of Psychology of Violence, a scientific journal, said events like the bombing of the marathon seem incomprehensible but often offer common themes that might be seen in the case of the Tsarnaevs.

‘Moral Disengagement’

Most perpetrators of violence are in a state of “moral disengagement,” said Hamby, who hasn’t met or spoken with the suspects. These offenders believe that they’ve been seriously provoked and that their actions, which almost anyone else would see as heinous, are reasonable under the circumstances.
“The stereotype is that these people are completely psychotic and divorced from reality,” she said. “In fact, in other domains of their lives, they aren’t divorced from reality at all. They nearly always tend to think of themselves as good guys.”
Some immigrants who perceive themselves to be on the fringes of society can begin to harbor these types of feelings, said Usha Tummala-Narra, an assistant professor, counseling psychology at Boston College in Chestnut Hill. When some people have trouble blending into society, they may find their way to others who have similar feelings of alienation, she said.

‘Never Belonged’

“Sometimes a person can look like they’re blending into mainstream culture, and dress like they have, and go to parties and the rest of it, but they may feel like they never belonged,” said Tummala-Narra, who also never met or spoke with either of the brothers. “That might be a critical part of the story.”
Brothers like the Tsarnaevs might have formed a kind of “cocoon” mentality, similar to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two high school seniors who killed 13 people and injured 24 in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, Tummala- Narra said.
“It’s a way of creating your own safety in a world that doesn’t seem quite safe,” she said.
While the younger brother has been described as good student and warm-hearted, his behavior may have been influenced by his older brother, said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology, law and public policy at Northeastern University, one of the Boston colleges that remained closed on Friday.
“It’s not just an anti-American or Islamic jihadist ideology, it’s the relationship between the two perpetrators,” said Fox, who was interviewed by telephone while he was locked inside his Boston home. “They brought out the very worst in each other. Individually, they may have seen like nice guys. But together they create a different entity.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Esme E. Deprez in New York atedeprez@bloomberg.net; Prashant Gopal in Boston at pgopal2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman atsmerelman@bloomberg.net
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The New York Times


April 19, 2013

The Mind of a Terror Suspect

While the Boston area lay paralyzed by a lockdown, with one terror suspect dead and another on the loose as a massive manhunt filtered through the area’s arteries, we got a better sense of the second young man.
It’s complicated.
The suspects were brothers. The one who was on the loose was taken into custody on Friday evening. He was the younger of the two, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. The elder, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a confrontation with authorities, but not before participating in the fatal shooting of an M.I.T. police officer, the carjacking of an S.U.V. and the shooting of a transit police officer, who was critically injured.
They were of Chechnyan heritage. Tamerlan was a boxer; Dzhokhar, a college student.
“A picture has begun to emerge of 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev as an aggressive, possibly radicalized immigrant who may have ensnared his younger brother Dzhokhar — described almost universally as a smart and sweet kid — into an act of terror,” The Boston Globe reported Friday.
The Globe quoted a person named Zaur Tsarnaev, who the newspaper said identified himself as a 26-year-old cousin of the suspects, as saying, “I used to warn Dzhokhar that Tamerlan was up to no good.” Tamerlan “was always getting into trouble,” he added. “He was never happy, never cheering, never smiling. He used to strike his girlfriend. He hurt her a few times. He was not a nice man. I don’t like to speak about him. He caused problems for my family.”
But what about that image of Dzhokhar as sweet?
On Friday, BuzzFeed and CNN claimed to verify Dzhokhar’s Twitter account. The tweets posted on that account give a window into a bifurcated mind — on one level, a middle-of-the-road 19-year-old boy, but on another, a person with a mind leaning toward darkness.
Like many young people, the person tweeting from that account liked rap music, saying of himself, “#imamacbookrapper when I’m bored,” and quoting rap lyrics in his tweets.
He tweeted quite a bit about women, dating and relationships; many of his musings were misogynistic and profane. Still, he seemed to want to have it both ways, to be rude and respectful at once, tweeting on Dec. 24, 2012: “My last tweets felt too wrong. I don’t like to objectify women or judge anyone for their actions.”
He was a proud Muslim who tweeted about going to mosque and enjoying talking — and even arguing — about religion with others. But he seemed to believe that different faiths were in competition with one another. On Nov. 29, he tweeted: “I kind of like religious debates, just hearing what other people believe is interesting and then crushing their beliefs with facts is fun.”
His politics seemed jumbled. He was apparently a 9/11 Truther, posting a tweet on Sept. 1 that read in part, “Idk why it’s hard for many of you to accept that 9/11 was an inside job.” On Election Day he retweeted a tweet from Barack Obama that read: “This happened because of you. Thank you.” But on March 20 he tweeted, “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.” This sounds like a take on a quote from Edmund Burke, who is viewed by many as the founder of modern Conservatism: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had strong views on the Middle East, tweeting on Nov. 28, “Free Palestine.” Later that day he tweeted, “I was going to make a joke about Hamas but it Israeli inappropriate.”
Toward the end of last year, the presence of dark tweets seemed to grow — tweets that in retrospect might have raised some concerns.
He tweeted about crime. On Dec. 28 he tweeted about what sounds like a hit-and-run: “Just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching my car into reverse and driving away from the accident.” And on Feb. 6 he tweeted, “Everything in life can be free if you run fast enough.”
He posted other tweets that could be taken as particularly ominous.
Oct. 22: “i won’t run i’ll just gun you all out #thugliving.”
Jan. 5: “I don’t like when people ask unnecessary questions like how are you? Why so sad? Why do you need cyanide pills?”
Jan. 16: “Breaking Bad taught me how to dispose of a corpse.”
Feb. 2: “Do I look like that much of a softy?” The tweet continued with “little do these dogs know they’re barking at a lion.”
Feb. 13: “I killed Abe Lincoln during my two hour nap #intensedream.”
The last tweet on the account reads: “I’m a stress free kind of guy.” The whole of the Twitter feed would argue against that assessment.
I invite you to join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter, or e-mail me at chblow@nytimes.com.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 20, 2013
An earlier version of this column misstated the origins of the suspects. They were not from Chechnya, but of Chechnyan heritage.

4.20.13 - Behavioral Criminology Review


Patricia Watson, Ph.D.: Distress, Traumatic Stress, and PTSD in the Wake of the Boston Bombing
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The events of the Boston bombing and subsequent violence in Cambridge and Watertown have shocked the country and left many wondering what the psychological effects will be for those close to the events, as well as those who are affected from afar. The National Center for PTSD has been involved in understanding the impact of disasters and terrorism for over a decade, and we've come to understand that of all types of disasters, terrorism is correlated with higher rates of traumatic stress reactions, across larger areas of the population, and for longer durations.
Terrorist acts erode the sense of security and safety people usually feel, both at an individual and community level. They challenge the natural need to see the world as predictable, orderly, and controllable. The scale, unpredictability, novelty, and high threat nature of terrorist attacks have a wide-ranging impact on perceived risk for being harmed in additional attacks. At times like this, there may be a need to differentiate daily between the likelihood that another attack will occur and the likelihood that it will happen to you personally, and a need to move towards accepting a level of risk in order to permit normal functioning. It may take time to learn that you can engage in normal routines and realize that you will not be harmed. These types of approaches have resulted in improvements in both distress and functioning in those living in situations of ongoing threat. We also know that positive social support cannot be underestimated in helping people recover from threat, trauma, and adversity. In fact, situations such as this can remind us of the preciousness of loved ones in our life, the importance of family and friends, the unyielding desire to engage in life, and the value of reaching out and caring for others in need.
Many people directly exposed to mass violence will have traumatic stress reactions, and such reactions may occur off and on, even years later. These reactions should not necessarily be regarded as pathological responses or even as precursors of subsequent disorder. Nevertheless, they may be experienced with great distress, and require community support, and at times clinical intervention. Anger, frustration, helplessness, grief, sadness, fear, and a desire for revenge are expected and common reactions to terrorism. We do know that acting on anger and desire for revenge can increase rather than decrease feelings of anger, guilt, and distress. It's important to note that the majority of people are generally resilient, have developed ways of coping ideally suited for their particular circumstances, and usually use their social networks very effectively. Most will return to pre-event levels of functioning over the weeks and months following the event.
Rather than traditional diagnosis and clinical treatment, the majority of people are more likely to need support and provision of resources to ease the transition to normalcy, assistance in maintaining or reestablishing their sense of identity and values, support to respond flexibly to the demands of a changed world, and encouragement to engage in their life as much as is possible. In general, interventions that have been found to be effective in the early phases after mass violence promote a sense of safety, calming, connectedness with others, self and community efficacy (the feeling that you can cope no matter what happens) and a sense of hope. Along these lines, self-care for those who are distressed can include:
  • Reminding yourself that stress reactions after disaster are common, rather than feeling "weak" or guilty for feeling distressed
  • Acknowledging those people, values, and goals in your life that the disaster highlighted as most important to you
  • Realizing that you may not be able to function as effectively, and getting help with tasks and problems you're facing
  • Spending time with, or helping others
  • Finding a way to honor losses
  • Taking time outs and channeling your energy productively, if you're feeling angry
  • Checking your thoughts and looking for ways to change them or distract yourself from them, if they are contributing to you feeling worse about yourself or the world
  • In general, taking an active, problem-solving approach to ongoing problems created by the events
  • Reducing the amount of media viewing you are engaging in if it is increasing your distress or interfering with your functioning
  • Shifting your expectations about what is a "good day."
  • Creating specific routines for day-to-day living will lessen worries beyond those routines
  • Proceeding with life's necessities, which will help develop and maintain a continued engagement in life.
If a your level of distress is extreme, or your ability to function is severely hampered, don't hesitate to seek help. There are effective treatments for acute stress disorder, PTSD, and complicated grief, and the sooner help is sought, the sooner you will feel better. That National Center for PTSD has a number of fact sheets describing these interventions. See: Where to Get Help for PTSD.
Situations such as these recent events can be particularly painful for those with previous histories of trauma, and can serve as a reminder of past events, so they should be particularly careful and conscientious about taking care of themselves, and seek support from others. Those with mental health conditions may also be particularly vulnerable to increased distress. Additionally, exposure to gruesome images in the media has been shown to contribute to PTSD in those with previous history of trauma exposure or mental health diagnoses, and the more media viewing they engage in, the higher their levels of distress seem to be. For more information, see Acts of Violence, Terrorism, or War: Triggers for Veterans.
To assist following the bombings at the Boston Marathon, the National Center for PTSD posted these custom materials containing a wealth of resources:

www.PTSD.va.gov The National Center for PTSD, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, has a history of providing public education as well as professional consultation and training during times of national disaster, with involvement in the Nation's response to the Loma Prieta earthquake, 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing, hurricane Katrina, and the Newtown, CT, school shooting. Beyond immediate assistance, The Center has conducted disaster-related research and, with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, developed interventions such as Psychological First Aid and Skills for Psychological Recovery.

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Russ Belville: Marijuana Blamed for Dzhokhar's Alleged Boston Bombings
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It's 4:20 -- the first one! -- here in the Mile High City. I am up late, as I usually am before a big gig, getting all the digital stuff in its place, ironing clothes, and catching up on what has been a horrific week for news in America. My live coverage of the first Cannabis Cup in America (that healthy people can enjoy fully) begins tomorrow on 420RADIO.org at Noon Mountain Time. I am also enjoying my Colorado Constitutional right to possess and smoke some very pleasant marijuana my Lakewood friends and hosts supplied me. It's nice to smoke weed legally. Even though I smoke weed all the time and it's pseudo-quasi-legal in Portland, Oregon, it feels better toking free.
Today, law enforcement captured Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was allegedly caught on camera allegedly dropping a backpack at the Boston Marathon that allegedly contained a bomb that blew the legs off thirty-odd people. Allegedly. Everyone deserves a trial and a fair defense... even (especially!) terrorists.
A few of the Twitter and Facebook accounts I follow in the online marijuana community were aghast at the door-to-door searches and lockdowns of the towns. "False flag!" a tiny minority cried, supposing that scores of people in the highest municipal, state, and federal government conspired to kill and maim marathon fans in order to something NDAA drones facism corporations sheeple yada yada yada. Others lamented the loss of the 4th Amendment in an emergency, some just hate cops no matter what they are doing.
I can understand. When your government has declared you a criminal and a danger to childrenbroken down your door and shot your dogterrorized your familyimprisoned you for mandatory minimums even rapists don't earnstolen all of your property and money, and forced you to check the "Have you ever been convicted of something so we won't hire you?" box on job applications for the rest of your life, it can make you a little anti-law enforcement.
However, I was thrilled to see SWAT being used for its actual purpose for once! Not serving marijuana warrants and drug warrants to overwhelmingly peaceful people who will be flooding Denver this 4/20 to experience freedom!
When we marijuana aficionados celebrate 4/20, it's not because we're looking for a excuse to party and get high. We're getting high already; we don't need a calendar and a watch for that. No, what we are celebrating is our culture and identification as members of an oppressed minority. 4/20 isn't just our "Stoner Holiday," it's also like our "Pride Parade." It's our stand against those who seek to keep us second-class citizens. It's our rejection of being forced to hide in a smoky garage while our friends drink beer openly in almost every public accommodation. It's our fellowship in shared traditions borne of outlaw status, like taking a furtive toke in a bathroom, blowing smoke through the ventilation fan, using eyedrops and Febreze and a lighted match to disguise the evidence of our "criminal" acts. It's a collective remembrance of our friends and family who lost anything from a job or scholarship to their freedom or their life because nature's most human-beneficial plant is banned.
As I was finishing up my preparations for my 4/20 presentations tomorrow, I received the embedded picture above from a friend. It is from the Facebook account of Christine Tatum. She is a journalist and anti-pot crusader who I've mocked in the past for her over-the-top reefer madness. But this post, on 4/20, blaming marijuana for two young men's destructive lunacy, moves her from the "mocking" column to "righteous indignation" column on my "To Do" list.
Here it is. Vanity Fair delivers the first report I have seen noting 19-year-old Dzhokhar's weed use. We MUST start asking hard questions about marijuana use and these violent outbursts. In some people, marijuana use induces psychosis, paranoia and aggression. The science is there. This connection is real. (Screencap athttp://rad-r.us/MJBomber)
Let's see, there are 26.1 million annual tokers, 17 million monthly tokers, and 2 million daily tokers in America. Two of them are alleged terrorists. That's literally, at best, a one-in-a-million risk.
Meanwhile, here's a homework assignment for Christine Tatum and you, the reader. Learn a little about the possible link between anti-depressants and violence. You know, the drugs the FDA has said are safe medicines, unlike marijuana, even as they add a "black box warning" that the drugs "may increase suicidal thoughts or actions in some children, teenagers, and young adults..." and may lead to "acting aggressive, being angry, or violent" and "acting on dangerous impulses." Then, when you learn that many of the school shooters were on these anti-depressants, you might wish they'd have chosen marijuana instead.
What must 4/20 be like for someone like Christine Tatum who sees violent evil behind the pot leaf? I hope to make it as uncomfortable for her as I can by livestreaming all the peaceful friendly people -- our people -- and educating everyone I can reach about the crucial need to end marijuana prohibition and restore our cannabis hemp heritage. Today, on the first 4/20 in post-legalization Colorado and Washington, we vow to continue legalization of cannabis until all fifty states and all their pot P.O.W.s are free.
Light it up! Here's to making the Christine Tatums, Paul Chabots, Kevin Sabets, and especially the Gil Kerlikowskes of the nation irrelevant!
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LOOK: Boston Marathon Suspects Appear In Photos Taken During Race
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-- Bob Leonard and his family were Boston Marathon veterans and he preferred a spot not too far from the finish line to shoot runners as they concluded their 26.1-mile run. The area was less congested and over the years he learned that the men and women in the lead there usually went on to win.
With his Nikon, Leonard snapped about 10 to 20 photos a minute Monday, capturing group after group of finishing runners and the crowds lining the route.
Three days later, when the FBI released images of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, Leonard used the time stamp shown on them to narrow his search of the hundreds of photos he had took that day. He realized that he, too, had photos of the faces of the two men authorities were searching for.
He uploaded them to the FBI and Friday morning, he saw his cropped photos all over the morning news.
"That finally gave them a good facial picture," the 58-year-old electrical engineer said. "It was a pretty good breakthrough."
The two men were later identified as brothers, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in shootout with police overnight Friday, and 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, distinctive in his backward white baseball cap. The younger man was captured Friday night after a daylong siege of a Boston suburb.
"They actually stood in that corner for quite a bit of time," Leonard of Taunton, Mass., said of the men, just before the younger brother was caught.
After combing the digital images, he was sure he had something the FBI could use. He tried to upload them to an FBI site that it had asked the public to use. Then he called the hotline number and was on hold for about 40 minutes, the response was so overwhelming. He finally got an FBI spokesman, who told him to upload them to another site. Within 20 minutes, someone from Homeland Security called him back.
"They were on the news ... clear pictures of the two subjects and those were the pictures that I sent in," said Leonard, who started photography as a hobby when his sons played high school sports.
He was not the only picture-taker to help with images of the suspects. Seconds after the bombs exploded, David Green pulled out his smartphone and took a photo of the chaos developing a couple hundred yards in front of him – the smoke, the people running in panic.
The Jacksonville businessman then put his phone back in his pocket and went to help the injured. It wasn't until Thursday, when officials released surveillance video of the two suspects, that Green realized what he had – a picture of Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev walking away from the scene.
When Green's photo of one of the Boston bombing suspects fleeing the scene first surfaced, there was considerable doubt as to its authenticity because of the very low resolution of the image, which made the photo appear to be a composite image. When Green later provided the high-resolution frame directly from his cellphone, editors of The Associated Press were able to establish its authenticity based on the improved resolution as well as the time the photo was taken. The AP has established an exclusive arrangement for distribution of the photograph.
Green, back at his home in Florida, wore his yellow and blue Boston Marathon jersey as he talked about the now-famous photo, his finisher's medal from the race propped on a shelf in his home office.
Green, 49, had finished Monday's marathon in 3 hours and 17 minutes, about an hour before the blasts.
After he recovered, he went back to Boylston Street, where the finish line is located, to watch the rest of the race with his friends. He realized his phone was dying, so he went into a nearby store with a recharging station.
About 15 minutes later, he was walking back to his friends when the first bomb went off.
"I thought maybe it was a cannon," Green said. Then the second one exploded as he was walking toward it.
"When I saw it, I pulled out the camera and immediately took that picture," Green said.
He then put it back in his pocket and went to help the injured, including a boy and others who were missing limbs.
"It was like battle – a lot of noise, a lot of smoke, people coming at me in a panic," he said.
A short time later, his friend Jason Lubin texted him and asked if he was OK. He replied with the photograph and a note: "It was just in front of me."
Lubin said Thursday, after the FBI released photos of the two suspects, that he decided to take a closer look at Green's photograph – on the off chance Green had captured anything unusual. He pulled up the photo on his smartphone and zoomed in on the crowd. There in the lower left corner was Dzhokhar Tsarnaev walking around a corner, his backward white baseball cap standing out amid the dozens of panicked people fleeing.
"I literally had to sit down," Lubin said.
Green contacted the FBI, which told him to send them a copy of the photograph.
"He is calmly walking, without panic," Green said of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Leonard also took pictures of the chaotic aftermath, smoke five stories high from the explosions that he said were deafening. He also saw a person who lost a limb before police rushed everyone away from the scene.
"The sense of loss tears your heart apart when you hear the victims' stories," said Leonard, who has lived in Taunton, about 30 miles south of Boston, since 1986 and knows what the race means. "It's just so senseless."
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Associated Press writer Russ Bynum in Jacksonville Beach, Fla., contributed to this report.
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What Causes Fertilizer Explosions? - Yahoo! News
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What Causes Fertilizer Explosions?
Yahoo! News
The chemical was used again in the 2002 nightclub bombing in Bali that killed 202 people, in the 2011 Oslo bombing by Anders Behring Breivik, which killed eight people, and in numerous other terrorist attacks. Because of its danger and potential use by ...

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Breivik counsel publishes trial memoirs - The Foreigner
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The Foreigner

Breivik counsel publishes trial memoirs
The Foreigner
Breivik counsel publishes trial memoirs. Geir Lippestad, who defended convicted terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, has published his memoirs. In the Aschehoug-released book about the case, 'Det vi kan stÃ¥ for' (What We Represent), Lippestad talks about ...
'Norwegian mass killer Breivik becoming cult figure'Zee News
Norway Parliament Evacuated After a Small BlastIndiatimes.com

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Questions on the Brothers Tsarnaev - DemocracyArsenal.org
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Questions on the Brothers Tsarnaev
DemocracyArsenal.org
It is always possible that it could be something off of the radar, as what happened in the Anders Behring Breivik attack in Norway in 2011. Did the suspects receive any training? There have been mixed reports that the suspects received military or ...

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Why 'Control' Is the Wrong Response to Deadly Attacks - Reason (blog)
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Reason (blog)

Why 'Control' Is the Wrong Response to Deadly Attacks
Reason (blog)
In Norway, a society with more "control" than our own, Anders Behring Breivik used both a fertilizer bomb and firearms to kill 77 people and injure many more. Breivik did so by studying the restrictive laws of his country, complying with them (until ...

Is All Terrorism Connected? - AsianWeek
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AsianWeek

Is All Terrorism Connected?
AsianWeek
July 2011 Anders Behring Breivik bombed government buildings in Norway killing 8 and then went on a mass shooting killing another 69, mostly teenagers. He openly proclaimed in a manifesto that he did the complex operation by himself in order to oppose ...

Don't tie Boston bombing suspects to Chechnya, UF experts say - Gainesville Sun
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TIME

Don't tie Boston bombing suspects to Chechnya, UF experts say
Gainesville Sun
The news reminds Moraski of the three Chechen teens who fought off Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a shooting and bombing rampage in Oslo in 2011. The Chechen youths threw rocks at him until one was shot dead and the survivors ...
Questions on the Brothers TsarnaevDemocracyArsenal.org

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Don't tie Boston bombing suspects to Chechnya, UF experts say - Gainesville Sun
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Don't tie Boston bombing suspects to Chechnya, UF experts say
Gainesville Sun
The news reminds Moraski of the three Chechen teens who fought off Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a shooting and bombing rampage in Oslo, Norway, in 2011. The Chechen youths threw rocks at him until one was shot dead and the ...

Exploring the Meaning of Racial Identity
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APAIn her review of The Philosophy of RaceKira Banks notes that author Albert Atkin highlights the "importance of racial identity (Cross & Vandiver, 2001; Helms, 1992; Sellers, Smith, Shelton, Rowley, & Chavous, 1997) as the social construction of race is accepted." Racial identity focuses on the ways that people think of themselves with regard to their racial group. Racial identity can have implications for social, political, and economic relations in society. Atkin's historical comparisons of "racial categorization across the globe" may suggest the need to examine the latest construction of race in the United States to include the category Hispanic, which has only a brief history in U.S. discourse on race. Is Hispanic a race or an ethnicity? Is there a distinction? When, how, and why did the category emerge? Indeed, who is White, Black, or Hispanic, and who decides?
Read the Review
ReviewReflections on the "What" and "Why" of Race as a Construct
By Kira Hudson Banks
      PsycCRITIQUES, 2013 Vol 58(15)
Estimates of Homicide-Suicides Among the Elderly, 1968 to 1975
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This article describes homicide-suicide among those aged 65 years and older in the United States using archival data from 1968 to 1975. Comparisons were made between 184 homicide-suicides and 400 randomly selected victims of all other types of homicide. The findings indicate that homicide-suicides occurred predominantly in the family unit, especially involving female spouses, and among White victims and offenders. Handguns and other firearms were the weapon of choice in homicide-suicides.
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Surge in criminal charges against children as more US schools hire police - Globe and Mail
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Globe and Mail

Surge in criminal charges against children as more US schools hire police
Globe and Mail
“There is no evidence that placing officers in the schools improves safety,” said Denise C. Gottfredson, a criminologist at the University of Maryland who is an expert in school violence. “And it increases the number of minor behavior problems that are ...

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Profilers see signs Kaufman County killer acted out of revenge - Dallas Morning News
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Profilers see signs Kaufman County killer acted out of revenge
Dallas Morning News
Profilers from the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit are on the job in Kaufman County to help investigators answer the most basic questions: What type of person would commit such crimes and why? The FBI isn't talking about that process. But others who ...

Techniques of Neutralization and Animal Rights Activists
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Deviant Behavior, Volume 34, Issue 8, Page 618-634, August 2013.
What Does Criminology Have to Offer Radicals? | A Scanner ...
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For the past 7 months or so, I've been studying Criminology and Socio-Legal Thought. Coming to the end of this, I'm trying to ... 'Criminology' is study of the world as it encounters and generates the criminal sanction. Naturally, this includes the ... The correct diagnosis of what particular pathologies drive an offender, and what therefore should be done, is a fraught and contested area, tied as it is to broader theories of human nature and behavior. Some, like the almost ...
How They Did It: Cracking the Marathon Bombing Case - NBC 6 South Florida
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NBC 6 South Florida

How They Did It: Cracking the Marathon Bombing Case
NBC 6 South Florida
"Clearly these guys were reacting and responding exactly as (law enforcement) predicted," said Robert Taylor, a criminologist at the University of Texas at Dallas who studies terrorism. "If you saw your face on TV and everywhere else as associated with ...

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Bomb Suspects Now Mysterious to Those Who Thought They Knew Them - Bloomberg
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Toronto Star

Bomb Suspects Now Mysterious to Those Who Thought They Knew Them
Bloomberg
U.S. intelligence agencies reviewing volumes of international communications and other intelligence on terrorism had found no evidence, so far, that the Boston bombers were members of or inspired by any foreign terrorist organization, said a U.S ...
How They Did It: Cracking the Marathon Bombing CaseNBC Bay Area

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The Debt We Shouldn't Pay - The New York Review of Books
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The Debt We Shouldn't Pay
The New York Review of Books
The British devised the concept of legal discharge from debt not out of a sudden attack of compassion but because the economic crisis of the 1690s had put much of the merchant class in jail. The cause was not improvident or immoral behavior on the part ...