Chapter 46

It was just a few minutes before 1500 when I finished reading over all the data that Marty, Eric, AG Dunne, Phil Fitzpatrick and Allen Meadows had delivered. Connie and Kitty must have typed in the data at lightning speed. Eric and Marty were still waiting on me to finish.

“There is something terribly wrong with all this data. These agency directors and officials were planning something big. I think you know what needs to be done and what I want done, but let me reinforce it,” I said.

“I want all the emails and texts from these directors and managers, supervisors and any official connected to the SWAT teams. Especially, include any texts, emails between the agencies in regarding SWAT teams and all weapon and ammo purchases subpoenaed. I want a list of all SWAT team members and to find out where they were trained, if they had any specific training at all,” I said.

“I am almost sure that JBG did not train any of people from these agencies as a group, but I will be able to find out with the list of names,” I said.

“It is possible that they were part of a police department that that went through the training and moved to a government job and started in house training on their own,” I added.

“Take the subpoena request to Alyssa Cotton down in Section 12 and tell her I said to put a rush on it. Plus, I will send her a text,” I said.

“Marty, do you have investigators that can connect all the dots together once we get all the data?” I asked.

I would have loved to have had more time to go over the data to develop a plan for the news conference, but it was not to be. I was going to have to wing it - off the cuff.

A pee break and a coffee refill with a handful of notes I made it to the White House news room.

“Harry, I am sorry I am running late but I have been tied up on international calls. As soon as I make an opening statement we can start.”

“The last few days have been hectic, disappointing and tragic from many places. The first one I am going to address was in Kentucky. That said, Harry please run the film,” I said.

When the film ended, “There are no printable words that describe my feelings about what happened. Anger, revulsion, infuriating - does not even begin to cover it,” I said.

“For a recap of events as we as we currently think they happened – as the investigation is completed it may change some of the minor details. Seven miles southeast of Lexington Kentucky, a seventy-five-year-old farmer John Moses and his sixty-five-year-old wife Helen Moses were spreading shed-stored chicken manure from their commercial chicken farming operation.”

“Their farming operation comprised of eighty thousand chickens and three hundred cattle in a feedlot operation with four hundred acres in alfalfa, corn, wheat and soybeans.”

“A hired farm hand did the heavy work with the cattle and the chickens and was furnished housing on the farm for him and his family. Jim Moses did that work on the weekends, so the farm hand had weekends off. Jim also helped on the farm during planting and harvesting. Jim’s day job was in town as manager of one of the machine shops,” I said.

“The Westwood Development bordered the Moses farm and was downwind on Saturday. One of the residents was newly elected county commissioner Gilbert Cummings, who was furious about the odor and called Paul Attworth - the local EPA office manager - and proceeded to read him the riot act. Paul and Gilbert both had sons that played basketball and football at the local school,” I said.

“At 1000 a forty agent SWAT team in twenty vehicles crossed the fields and stopped both tractors, one driven by John Moses - seventy-five years old - and the other driven by Helen Moses - sixty -five years old. The equipment was nearly as old,” I said.

“The agents pulled them from the tractors without allowing them to properly disconnect the transmission and PTO components, allowing the equipment to continue to move forward several feet,” I said.

“John Moses and the agent that pulled him off the tractor went under the rear wheel of the tractor, crushing both of John’s legs and one of the agents. They were pinned under the equipment for 30 minutes before they could be removed,” I said.

“Helen Moses was not as lucky. The agent had a MP5 in his hand, the selector set on full auto with a forty round clip. In the process of pulling her off the seat and the continued forward motion of the tractor and then falling, the agent pulled the trigger emptying the forty rounds into Hellen,” I said.

“She was killed instantly. All this was telecast live by the media that was alerted and accompanied the SWAT teams to the farm,” I said.

“There are multiple mistakes that happened here. First, there is no justifiable reason a SWAT team should have responded to an odor complaint. Second, why a forty person SWAT team? Third, why were the agents carrying an MP5 to begin with on an odor complaint? Why was the weapon on full auto? Why were they carrying forty round clips?” I said.

“This was no accident; it was planned from the beginning. There were discussions about the raid before they left the staging area, before the weapons were issued,” I said.

“There were five supervisors in the planning and on site as the plans went FUBAR. Not one of those supervisors challenged the legality of such a massive response for an odor complaint; NOT ONE!” I said. “To say I was angry when I found about this is an understatement.”

“When I read the preliminary report, I wondered why the EPA had SWAT teams. And then a thousand more questions appeared.”

“I called on the director of the GAO to run several audits,” I said.

“I learned that that the EPA, Social Security, Department of Energy, Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Education, The Department of Agriculture and the Department of Interior had purchased over five hundred and fifty million dollars in weapons, tactical gear and ammunition in the last three years,” I said.

“Why?” I asked the gathered media knowing I would get no answer.

“The EPA pushes permits and paper - why did they need one hundred SWAT teams and five and a half million rounds of ammunition for M16 and two and a quarter million rounds of 9mm for MP5 and pistols?” I asked.

“It gets worse, those eight agencies had over eight hundred twenty, thirty, and forty member SWAT teams. Between them they had over fifty million rounds of ammunition. Why? There is no justifiable reason,” I said.

“Social Security pushes paper; they cannot justify even one SWAT team. The same goes for the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture - all more paper pushers,” I said.