131–140 of 435 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would wager that those same conditions were true long before Epstein ever set foot in there as well.
Apparently as Epstein arrived or shortly before his death the guards were rotated and two with very little suicide watch experience were present. One was also caught sleeping?
This guy isn't even the one who did the autopsy. Why do we care what he says?
p.s. the doctor was there for the autopsy.
Epstein’s death seems the most overt taunt about ruling class impunity in my lifetime. Not only in its circumstances, but in the kind of shifting, threadbare cover stories about everyone with whom he was associated. Bill Gates, for example, had staff overlap between his foundation and Epstein, (including one who was named in Epstein’s will!) and was able to diminish these connections in major media outlets with almos…
To paraphrase Watchmen I think we can take Gates off the list of suspects, it just doesn't seem his style.
Mr. Gates started the relationship after Mr. Epstein was convicted of sex crimes.
Epstein’s death seems the most overt taunt about ruling class impunity in my lifetime. Not only in its circumstances, but in the kind of shifting, threadbare cover stories about everyone with whom he was associated. Bill Gates, for example, had staff overlap between his foundation and Epstein, (including one who was named in Epstein’s will!) and was able to diminish these connections in major media outlets with almos…
Usually very rich people have a strong incentive to hire private firms specialized in minimizing the impact of bad stuff like this, and doing so in a very discreet way. I am 100% speculating, but I'd guess that's what Jeff Bezos did in relation to his extra-marital affair, and what Bill Gates and others have been doing in relation to Epstein.
I'd be interested in learning about what techniques they use, since they seem like something that ought to be countered.
Epstein’s death seems the most overt taunt about ruling class impunity in my lifetime. Not only in its circumstances, but in the kind of shifting, threadbare cover stories about everyone with whom he was associated. Bill Gates, for example, had staff overlap between his foundation and Epstein, (including one who was named in Epstein’s will!) and was able to diminish these connections in major media outlets with almos…
Not just in his will but named as the executor of his will.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the problem with conspiracy theories... Avoidable accidents and conspiracy theories have the same fact pattern, which is an overlap of failure modes that should have been preventable but weren't prevented. Was the Titanic disaster a tragic accident borne of negligence... or a conspiracy to assassinate John Jacob Astor and make it look like an accident? A lot had to go wrong to make an unsinkable ship sink. Wh…
Good post. I hope they do release the statistics of how often cameras fail at that facility. Two cameras failing in the same time widow feels very unlikely to me unless they're using some really bad ones, which won't surprise me. Would still like to know how that happened.
How many other cameras in the facility were broken?
If cameras are broken, how would you ever learn that they are broken? Perhaps it would require an important event like a suicide to occur so that you would need to review the tapes and discover the broken cameras.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is a guard sleeping on duty during a night shift surprising to you? As 542458 said, the level of competency that people assume is hilarious. Prison staff are overworked, underpaid, and have miserable jobs.
It was two guards that both fell asleep. Okay that might be coincidence. What about the two cameras that failed at the same time? They should publish failure rates of cameras at that facility. When was the last time two sets of electronics failed at the exact same time randomly? If there was a voltage spike or something that killed them both how come it didn't affect anything else at the facility? Maybe they were EMP…
They were probably broken for years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is a guard sleeping on duty during a night shift surprising to you? As 542458 said, the level of competency that people assume is hilarious. Prison staff are overworked, underpaid, and have miserable jobs.
It was two guards that both fell asleep. Okay that might be coincidence. What about the two cameras that failed at the same time? They should publish failure rates of cameras at that facility. When was the last time two sets of electronics failed at the exact same time randomly? If there was a voltage spike or something that killed them both how come it didn't affect anything else at the facility? Maybe they were EMP…
Heck, possibly they were dumping their video onto a recorder in the prison guards' personnel room. Right next to the water boiler. With only one socket within easy reach. Go figure.
(The latter example not being as far-fetched as it may seem; our workshop pager system went down several times a day for this very reason until we cajoled an electrician into fitting another outlet...)
I'm fascinated by the idea that someone could have killed and successfully covered up a murder this high profile. How do you handle the guards? How do you keep the other inmates quiet? Can you get away with bribing a single guard or is a larger operation needed? If you bribe people, how do you get the money to them? How do you keep them quiet when the inevitable investigation happens? I don't think it's impossible, b…
So it's in the "quite difficult, but not impossible" category. The question then is, who would want him dead that badly, and have the resources to carry it out? Given the circles he ran in and the dirt he might have had on people, a surprising number of people might have had both the means and the motive. Mind you, I'm not saying that it was murder. I'm just saying that the degree of difficulty isn't as big a barrier…
Perhaps someone who flew on the Lolita Express 27 times? Or a close relative?
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I understand your point, however I want to rhetorically ask: expensive relative to what? What's a life worth? What's it worth to keep someone alive where there's very high probability that they alone could be linchpin to bring down a network of bad actors?
> expensive relative to what? What's a life worth? I absolutely agree - it was stupid and shortsighted to take him off of suicide watch, and better suicide watch programs are needed in general. My point is more that nothing that much out of the ordinary for American jails happened here. Things happen in US jails every day that, to most people, would seem insane - incompetence and indifference to life are the norm. Se…
This argument holds water if we're talking about an ordinary prisoner, but we aren't. Careers were at stake -- and reportedly have been lost -- over this one in particular.
It made no sense not to give Epstein 24/7 supervision, with everything from (competent) guards outside his cell to dedicated IR cameras looking into it. Nobody is entitled to privacy in prison, so why was it voluntarily given?