Independent investigative report on the Todashev killing

[soundsgreat]

by Dave Lindorff - will be interesting to match it up with the FBI report

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/24/dark-questions-about-a-deadly-fbi-interrogation-in-orlando/

Excerpt:

But an exclusive interview last week by this journalist of Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Gary Utz, who personally conducted the Todashev autopsy, confirms that Todashev was shot seven times by FBI bullets, four times in the torso, two times in the left arm (he was right-handed), and once in the top of the head, slightly towards the back of the head. A significant bruise and contusion over the cheekbone showed he also had been “forcefully struck” on the left side of the head, in Utz’s words — a point that had never been mentioned by the FBI.

Bruising does not occur to a significant extent once a person is dead — especially if the heart has been destroyed by bullets and there has been significant loss of blood — since there is no blood pressure to push blood out of damaged blood vessels into surrounding tissue. This means it is likely the blow suffered by Todashev came before he was shot.

*snip*

Teyer, a six-and-a-half-year active-duty member of the US Army, where she holds the rank of Specialist, working as a pharmicist’s assistant at the Ft. Stewart Army Air Base in Savannah, GA, is a 2006 Russian immigrant and a naturalized US citizen. In an exclusive interview, she says that the first thing the licensed private investigator hired by Todashev’s Russian family said when she and Todashev’s widow Reni Manukyan came to the apartment with a key and let him in was, “Look at this – no blood spattered on the walls. He was shot while down on the floor.”

That investigator, Ed Busquet, a former captain in the North Palm Police Department in Florida, where he handled homicide cases, and also a former DEA agent and Georgia Public Defenders Office investigator, also noted a freshly sliced-away area on the plaster wall just above all the blood on the floor by the foyer. According to Teyer, he said, “It looks like someone may have cut out a bullet from here.” (If the FBI agents removed a bullet, it could be a case of tampering with a crime scene, as the case has been and is still classified by the Medical Examiner as an open homicide case.)