The boat was the FBI SWAT team and questioning was the FBI. The incident involving the cars were local cops.

The Transit Officer almost bled out from arterial bleeding before they got it under control at the hospital, so it was very close to two officers down and out.

That said, everyone was jumpy after the shoot out on the street with all of the bombs laying about. All it takes is anyone to discharge a weapon, especially at night. Feds don’t get a lot of real world experience, generally showing up to take over good cases after the shooting stops. [No, I don’t like the Feds because I have had to work ‘with’ them and they think you are working ‘for’ them.]

US Attorney Ortiz decided to invoke the ‘public safety’ stall on the Miranda warning, and a Federal judge decided she wouldn’t put up with that sort of thing in her jurisdiction, so the Feds are already off on the wrong foot with the district court.

The admissions made by Jokhar before he was advised of his rights are worthless and unnecessary. The car hijacking victim can testify to an admission by Tamerlan, so that is covered. The whole thing was a stupid waste of time and the good will of local Federal judges. That’s why I have more faith in what Massachusetts is doing. This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen the Feds screw up a lot of solid local police work.

If people actually read the finding in the case that resulted in the warnings being mandated by the Supreme Court they would realize that it was police misconduct to obtain an unnecessary confession. The confession was thrown out and Miranda was convicted at the re-trial because there was overwhelming real, physical evidence of his guilt. There was no need to ask Miranda anything, but the cops did it anyway.

I have never had a problem with people talking after hearing their rights, and have occasionally had a problem shutting them up. If you have a conversation with someone Jokhar’s age and actually listen, they will talk. If you ‘interrogate’ them, they will clam up. The military and better police courses stress ‘active listening’, i.e. let them talk and encourage them while slowly leading to the area you are really interested in.

-BT

I have to admit that a Mormon bishop with a katana coming at you would probably have a greater effect than a uniformed officer saying ‘Stop in the name of the law!’ There are few authors who would introduce that vision into their writings, and then only after chemical enhancement of one form or another, like John of Patmos.

Frankly, they should worry more about what John of Arizona and Lindsey of Neverland will do, not Obama.

Oh, I’ve had to open a new thread and I’ll put a copy of your last comment in it.

Uhm, yeah, they went there.

Sometimes reality really *is* stranger than fiction. Running over his own brother… man. But then, a Mormon bishop in Salt Lake City interrupted a rape by charging at the rapist while swinging a samurai sword. I couldn’t write that into any of my fiction. Nobody would believe it. Nobody. But it actually happened.

If they were thinking clearly they would have made some effort to disguise themselves because they had to know there would be people taking pictures near the finish line. Tamerlan might not have been ID’ed, but Jokhar showed up like a mug shot in the surveillance video.

The drift I’m getting, and I know I would agree if I had been there, is that the cops couldn’t believe that he ran over his brother. The most charitable thing I can come up with is that he didn’t know his brother was in the road.