Posted on 11/14/2002 12:27:33 AM PST by TexKat
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A House committee has halted an inquiry into allegations of a wider conspiracy in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and asked the Justice Department to investigate a policeman who allegedly provided false information to the panel.
J.W. Reser, the policeman, told the House Government Reform Committee staff that he viewed a videotape of a Middle Eastern man leaving the truck used to bomb the building. He also claimed that he worked as a contract employee for the government, including Army and Navy intelligence.
Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., chairman of the committee, wrote Attorney General John Ashcroft that those statements were false, as were other statements Reser made about his background.
``I write to bring these false statements to the attention of the Department of Justice for investigation and, if warranted, prosecution,'' Burton wrote Ashcroft recently. Army and Navy intelligence officials wrote the committee that they had no evidence Reser worked for the military.
The committee provided The Associated Press with the lawmaker's criminal referral to the Justice Department and other documents, including a sworn statement that Reser provided to the committee.
Reser is a one-time Oklahoma City police officer who left the force more than a decade before the April 19, 1995, bombing, and now works as a Tulsa International Airport policeman.
He did not return a telephone message left with the Tulsa airport police, who confirmed he worked there. Committee officials said Reser has not responded to recent attempts to contact him. Reser's home number is unlisted.
While the bombing took place seven years ago, committee officials said Reser and others had contacted the panel this year seeking a fresh look at any possible conspiracy.
Reser exaggerated his length of service with the Oklahoma City police department, falsely said he served with a special projects unit on the force and described government connections that federal officials said did not exist, Burton contended.
``Mr. Reser's statements have had the potential to cause serious pain and anxiety for the families and victims of the Oklahoma City bombing,'' which killed 168 people, Burton wrote.
Timothy McVeigh was executed on June 11, 2001, for planting the bomb in a truck outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The only other person charged, Terry Nichols, is serving a life sentence following federal convictions for conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of eight U.S. law enforcement officers.
Nichols also is charged in Oklahoma with 160 counts of first-degree murder.
In a sworn statement to the Government Reform Committee, Reser said he saw a videotape while attending a meeting in Washington with military and civilian intelligence officials as a government contract employee.
He said the two-minute tape ``captured the arrival of the explosives-laden Ryder truck as it parked on the north side of the federal complex shortly before 9 a.m. on April 19. Moments later, I observed an individual descend from the passenger side of the truck. He appeared to be of Middle Eastern extraction with dark hair, olive complexion and a ball cap,'' Reser said.
Rear Adm. R.B. Porterfield, director of naval intelligence, wrote Burton that a Navy search found ``no records of any contract employment of Mr. Reser'' by the service and ``no records of any video or still photographic surveillance cameras in or around the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City ... on April 19, 1995.''
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The Kansas City Star
October 28, 1995
Section: NATIONAL/WORLD
Edition: METROPOLITAN
Page: A4
Camera saw figure in bomb truck
Oklahoma City video is unclear, but it may show John Doe No. 2.
The Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY - Videotape from a surveillance camera captured a glimpse of a shadowy figure in the passenger seat of a bomb-laden Ryder truck minutes before it blew apart the federal building, a federal law enforcement source says.
The footage is not clear enough to identify anyone, but it adds to the body of evidence that a third figure - perhaps the long-sought John Doe No. 2 - took part in the attack with two other persons, the source said.
``There's a shape in there, but they can't see a face,'' the source said of footage, which was taken by a camera on a nearby apartment building. The camera picked up the shadowy passenger about three minutes before the bomb went off April 19 at the Murrah Federal Building.
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Until they release the surveillance videotapes, I will believe the James Reser downfall is a smokescreen to end all congressional investigations. Anyone who is commenting here you can be pretty sure James Reser is reading it.
Dear James, if you are prosecuted and sent to jail I will believe you fed Jayna Davis, David Schippers, and others false information and they bought it. As smart as these two are, that is hard to believe, but if you are prosecuted, I will believe it.
If you are never prosecuted it means you likely participated in a hoax for the purpose of shutting down the congressional investigation. If that is the case James, looking in the mirror at the reflection of your own character may be the only punishment you receive.
It is only those who fear the light of day and full disclosure who feel the need to pillory those who dare inquire.
Until the Jack-booted thugs kisk in your door, or your teeth, or both, this remains a free society with a protected right to ask the tough questions, and to expect straight answers.
As taxpayers, we have bought-and-paid-for front row seats to the most expensive theater on earth... the sludge, greed, graft, lies, and corruption of our Federal Government. A little opennesss and honesty once in a while might be refreshing, not to mention novel.
Feel free to flame away, though. The tyrants need bloated, mindless sheep, too.
I also was curious about stories of other bombs, but a friend on the police force told me that, when there is a suspicious object which might be a bomb, the practice is to speak of it as a bomb and treat as if it were a bomb, until it's proven to be something harmless. In the aftermath of the Murrah Bldg explosion, there was stuff out of place everywhere; clock radios, bits of furniture, parts from computers, and even lunchboxes, all thrown around by the blast and sometimes lying in the strangest places. Each of these had to be treated as maybe a bomb.
Considering that the actual OKC bomb was a truck bomb -- it left an enormous crater where the truck had been, blew the front and rear bumpers of the truck in opposite directions about one and a half block radius from the crater, and the damage clearly had an epicenter at the crater -- it is very unlikely that someone who was able to plant bombs inside the building would have also used a truck bomb .... or that, having used a truck bomb so successfully, so many interior bombs didn't go off at all.
The Murrah Bldg was only about twelve or fifteen feet from the truck, other bldgs were considerably farther (with a parking lot between them and the truck, which absorbed and disappated the blast in their direction) but they still suffered significant damage. One of the reasons that the Murrah Bldg was so thoroughly wrecked was, in addition to the proximity, the blast hit this rectangular building broadside almost dead center on one side, and the blast had the effect of momentarily twisting the building, which ruptured virtually every sort of support - much like getting the ice cubes out of one of those plastic ice cube trays by twisting both ends.
I must be really dense today, honway. Why would Jayna and Schippers and Reser (possibly the dupe/fallguy) want to shut down the congressional investigation?
Do you believe that the entire possibility of the involvement of a broader consipiracy in the OKC bombing hinged on one cop's testimony about one videotape?
The indictments against Nichols and McVeigh accused them of plotting the bombing with other unnamed individuals. When did the prosecution change their minds on that?
Because a shut-down official investigation, or an imperfect one, lets them scream "COVERUP!" and milk this thing for another 20 years. Look at the JFK buffs--there's a whole damn industry out there that caters to them.
Who benefits from this hoax?
The result of the hoax is that there will be no congressional investigation.
Burton was calling for an investigation before he had ever heard of James Reser. Testmony at McVeigh's preliminary hearing establishes that there was a video surveillance tape of the Ryder truck and the explosion, yet the public has never seen that video. Reser's alleged hoax does not change that fact.
Reser was just playing his accepted role.
Nope. But it taints any scenario that relies on that description of the video tape.
The indictments against Nichols and McVeigh accused them of plotting the bombing with other unnamed individuals. When did the prosecution change their minds on that?
My personal take: the prosecutors have no particular desire to find those "unnamed others," because it will come to light that a lot of them were getting lots of cash from Uncle as paid informants while helping McVeigh blow up the building. Look at it from the standpoint of a dedicated militant: he gets the government to help defray the cost of the bomb, and he feeds misinformation to the government so that they misunderestimate his strategery. It's a win-win--heck, it's a win-win-win when you factor in the fact that the government will have a big problem trying to prosecute.
What building across the street? I have heard this repeated for years now. The building across the street, the old Journal Record building, was heavily damaged, had numerous casualties among the workers inside. In addition, it was not "across the street". It was separated by a parking lot, in addition to a multi-lane street (5th), and was probably 150-175 feet north of the north side of 5th street. BTW churches on the SE and SW corners, both across the street and partially shielded by the Murrah bldg were heavily damaged.
My personal take: the prosecutors have no particular desire to find those "unnamed others," because it will come to light that a lot of them were getting lots of cash from Uncle as paid informants while helping McVeigh blow up the building.Yes and no. Yes in an ideal world where we have a lot of confidence in the desire of the FBI and Congress that the truth generally be known.
Not as much in a world where both are negligent, and videotapes of such things as questionable airline crashes are regularly supressed. Such suppressions only raise doubts or foster tinfoil.
Not an unreasonable scenario, but one that would provide yet another motivation for Uncle Sam to suppress or destroy evidence.
Nor do I find the various ME-related scenarios to be all that outlandish.
In either case, it would be irresponsible and highly suspect for Burton to shut down the investigation over one cop's allegedly perjured testimony. The inquiry should run the course.
And in an unrelated case, the NTSB ought to release those Flight 587 tapes yesterday.
That is very true, however,you must realize there will never be a congressional investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing as a result of this Reser affadavit provided to the Burton committee.
This might be hard to figure out if it was not a consistent pattern of behavior beginning with the Oklahoma Grand Jury.
That would be strange. Wouldn't it also be strange if an Airport policeman was now vacationing in a foreign country with "leaning towers and pizza". That would be so strange I would have to see proof to believe it.
you may be right. appears that burton had his chain jerked much like congressman leach when he got too close to what happened in mena.
reser unfortunately gets the "lightening bolt" for seeking the truth.
the irony of the situation is if charged, reser may be able to subpeana the video tapes of the bombing to use in his defense. this may be the only way to get them out?
wonder what jayna davis & david shippers have to say about this development?
Testimony by FBI Agent Jon Hersley
Q. In your review of the surveillance photos, did you find any surveillance photos of that parking lot across the street from the Murrah Building?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay.
A. You characterized that as my review of the photographs. I was shown those particular photographs by Agent Lamar.
Q. Have you been shown a photograph of that particular parking lot, sir, across the street from the Murrah Building that includes the speeding Mercury in the photograph?
A. We don't know for sure yet. Those photographs are not real clear. They are taken from a pretty good distance away. There appears to be a light-colored car in the very vicinity where this witness testifies -- or provides the information was speeding away from. We are not able to determine yet if that is in fact the yellow Mercury.
Q. Can you clearly tell in the photographs that you have seen or have you been advised that you can clearly tell in the film the time of the explosion?
A. I'm not sure I understand your question.
Q. Well, I don't know how to -- can you tell in the film or the photographs when the explosion occurs?
A. The film that I viewed was before the explosion. I did not view the entire film. The pictures that were shown to me were before the explosion.
Q. The pictures that you saw of that particular parking lot -- now I'm talking about the parking lot across the street from the Murrah Building --
A. Right.
Q. -- in a northerly direction, that parking lot, there is film of that parking lot prior to the time of the explosion?
A. Yes.
Q. Correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Is it time-stamped so that you can tell a particular time of day on the 19th of April that that camera is viewing, scanning that parking lot?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you tell me where that particular camera was located?
A. I believe that particular camera was located on the apartment building there that we have been speaking of.
Q. So those were some more pictures from the Regency?
A. Yes, those are the pictures from the Regency.
Q. So the camera from the Regency -- is this the camera at the very top of the Regency Tower?
A. I don't know the exact location of the camera, but it kind of scans that whole area there, is what has been represented to me. It scans in front of the Tower building and also over towards the parking lot.
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