OREGON STANDOFF:  NEW LIGHT SHED ON  LAVOY FINICUM KILLING WITH GRAND JURY TRANSCRIPTS OF FBI AGENT CASE

Mainstream media organizations in Oregon have obtained transcripts of the grand jury testimony that led to charges against FBI agent W. Joseph Astarita for lying about shots he fired just before Oregon State Police troopers killed LaVoy Finicum on January 26, 2016

It turns out that the FBI sent out its own Shooting Incident Review Team in February 2016 that was unable to determine if Astaria or the other FBI agents at the scene fired any shots.

But the Oregon shooting team led by the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office along with the Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General and the US Attorney's Office in Portland did determine that it was Astarita who fired two unaccounted for shots with missing shell casings.

Defense lawyers for Astarita intend to create doubt with the jury about the veracity of the Oregon shooting investigation at the trial scheduled to begin July 24th.

The transcripts identify the FBI agents who worked with Astarita with their initials like "B.M." and "M.F." and show how Oregon investigators felt the agents as a group were hiding something when they were questioned about what happened.

"Finicum crashed into a snowbank on the side of the road and stepped out his hands in the air.

Passenger Shawna Cox's video showed a small red dot on Finicum's left shoulder as he exited the truck.  At the same time Finicum yelled  'Go ahead and shoot me', two shots can be heard on Cox's video, according to a summary report from the FBI's Shooting Incident Response Team.

The first shot hit the roof of Finicum's truck and a second missed.  Deschutes County sheriff's detectives, assigned to investigate what happened, traced the trajectory of the bullet that struck the roof to a spot where Astarita, agent B.M. and one state trooper were standing, according to court documents.

In front of a grand jury, a prosecutor asked B.M. if he heard gunshots when Finicum got out of his truck.  B.M. was Astarita's immediate supervisor on the Hostage Rescue Team's blue squad.

'No I do not recall hearing shots fired at that time' B.M. said.  He was standing behind Astarita and said he was wearing a noise-dampening headset."

Maxine Bernstein "OregonLive" story 4/20/2018

It is believed that one of the two shots fired ended up wounding Ryan Bundy, one of the passengers in Finicum's pickup truck.  Bundy is still carrying the shrapnel that was detected in an x-ray taken at a local hospital shortly afterwards on January 26, 2016.

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Link below........


Maxine Bernstein "OregonLive" Story 4/20/2018


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