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KingCast watches Daniel Talbot trial continue and connects the dots to other police shootings: No bullet trajectory analyses when it really counts.

By Christopher King

Stop me if you've heard this before:

But there is still something fishy in Denmark here: There is a shooting involving the police. Experts are called in and yet there is no real trajectory analysis of crucial bullet holes..... Of course y'all know this story. It happened in the Nashua Michael Paulhus and Franconia Liko Kenny Bruce McKay Gregory Floyd shooting tragedies. In court today with Revere Journal's Seth Daniels I shared the photographs from the Windshield Bullet post in Liko's case where they conclusively show, inter alia, that Gregory Floyd lied and that he was indeed shooting at Liko Kenney's car before Liko's car struck Bruce McKay. And in the Paulhus case the State and/or local LE simply destroyed all relevant evidence, as noted in the Paul Erwin Kish report thumbnailed, supra.

Flash forward to today's testimony in the Daniel Talbot murder trial at Suffolk Superior, we pick up the action with State Lieutenant Stephen Walsh, the Chief Collision Reconstruction Specialist who responded. Turns out there was a bullet hole (at this point of unknown origin to me) in the bumper of a Tahoe with chrome rims on it, and there was a bullet hole or bullet lodged in the tire, which was of course, flat. F-L-A-T. Flat.

He performed X distance/Y angle/Z elevation forensic testing using highly sophisticated equipment "It's very similar to connect the dots.... it's good for two miles." He stated further, partially slitting the State's case neatly in the jugular, perhaps not even realizing it:

?I think I arrived after all of the evidence had been gathered last guy there. We?re often an afterthought and it was that way that day too.?

Attorney Krupp: Anyone show you bullet hole and tire flat together?
Lieutenant Walsh: I was not doing forensic work on this vehicle.
Q: Anyone draw your attention to the tire.
A: I don?t recall.
Q: Anyone asked to show the location of the bullet hole in the tire.
A: Not asked to perform a trajectory analysis.
Q: Were you asked to try?
A: No.
Q: Are there people in the state police who do trajectory analysis?
A: I don?t know.
Q: Were you even shown the rod that was put through the bumper to the tire?
A: I don?t recall being shown any such rod.

Prior to that there was testimony from Officer Talbot's fiancee Constance Bethel, and there was other testimony from a licensed paramedic who stated that others were applying pressure to the head wound above Officer Talbot's right eye. He was not conscious and never regained consciousness. He also testified that during the entire time he was there he never learned the whereabouts of Officer Talbot's gun.

As a former AAG and subsequent Civil Rights lawyer who has won trials and settled Federal litigation with the State I can tell you that's no way to run an investigation. No toxicology tests on the late-night revelers who were breaking the law? No ballistics taken? I can hear Attorney Krupp's Motion for Directed Verdict and/or closing argument now:

"Your Honor/Ladies and gentlemen of the Jury.... there is a concept in Law we lawyers like to call res ipsa loquitur.... all that fancy latin stuff means one thing, and that is that "the situation speaks for itself....." we have shown, through the State's own witnesses, that we cannot trust the integrity of this investigation..... and if we cannot trust the integrity of the investigation, how can you trust, with any degree of certainty --- the State's position on crucial matters that involve my client's liberty?

No one should be imprisoned on a case so thoroughly lacking in evidence, especially when all of the professionals were present, ostensibly in order to help maintain the integrity of process. The fact that such integrity was not maintained points to something more insidious, the possibility of a deliberate coverup. The lack of any toxicology reports certainly points to such a conclusion as well.... It is unfortunate and perhaps tragic that a life-long resident and Police Officer of Revere has lost his life, but the only thing more tragic than that, is sending Robert Iacoviello Jr. -- an innocent man -- off to prison for a crime he did not commit....."

Full post as published by Chris King's 1st Amendment Page on January 08, 2010 (boomark / email).