New York Times Journalist Killed in D.C.

[DoYouEverWonder]

January 8, 2006, 11:01 PM EST

WASHINGTON -- Veteran New York Times journalist David E. Rosenbaum, 63, died Sunday evening from injuries suffered in a street robbery while walking near his home two nights earlier, police said.

He had undergone surgery Saturday at Howard University Hospital in an effort to relieve pressure on his brain, said his brother, Marcus Rosenbaum.

Police spokesman Sgt. Joe Gentile said police found Rosenbaum after being called to the scene about 9:20 p.m. Friday and that the victim's wallet was missing.

He said police are investigating a report that two men were seen leaving the area in a dark-colored vehicle.

"He wanted some fresh air and decided to take a walk," Rosenbaum's brother, Marcus Rosenbaum, told The Washington Post. He said his brother was found by a neighbor who called 911 and waited with him until help arrived.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-journalist-attacked,0,6471322.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

[DesertRat]

1. How tragic

:cry:

[Crunchy Frog]

2. I don't know anything about him

but what kind of a journalist was he? Was he the sort that the BFEE might have found inconvient and wanted out of the way?:tinfoilhat:

[SteppingRazor]

3. Awwww....And I was just about to post....

How soon till we get our first conspiracy theory? ;)


As for Rosenbaum, he was pretty middle of the road. I wouldn't say he was necessarily on either side, politically, as one could find examples from his work to "prove" he was either leftwing or rightwing, depending what he was reporting on (much like Dana Milbank, etc.)

[electricray]

4. There is a blog that discusses his work.

All of his articles are linked at this site. And there is some discussion there as well. I haven't read through a lot of it but it seems to be friendly.

[radio4progressives]

11. This was a fucking Hit Job by the Bush Junta vis a vis Porter Goss

Look at this Dec 24th story.. he was pulling together current domestic spying crimes together with the scoop on this issue and Alito - and Yoo.

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30C12F83E540C778EDDAB0994DD404482

DISPLAYING FIRST 50 OF 1086 WORDS -The attorney general should be immune from lawsuits for ordering wiretaps of Americans without permission from a court, Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, wrote in a memorandum in 1984 as a government lawyer in the Reagan administration. The memorandum, released yesterday by the National Archives,...

then look here for background..

http://www.legalaffairs.org/howappealing/122405.html#009652

But before you do that, check this out:

http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=81...


CIA Director Goss targeting leaks

NEW YORK: CIA Director Porter Goss is redoubling efforts to stop information leaks among staff members.

Time Magazine reports that at staff meetings last week, CIA managers at the agency's Langley, Va., headquarters told employees the leaking was out of control and needed to stop.

"They're exercised about it and are trying to do what they can to clamp down," a former senior CIA official told Time.

Goss is also concerned about the potential effects of books written by those with inside knowledge of agency operations. Citing the book "Jawbreaker," written by a former CIA field commander who hunted for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and the movie "Syriana," based on a retired CIA officer's book, an intelligence official says part of the worry is a possible "chilling effect" on both U.S. and foreign intelligence officials.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2029734


Now if this isn't an obvious hit job, i don't know what is.

People we are living in a fascists police state and the few journalists who have been trying to do good work here in state side and in Iraq (and other regions)have been gunned down by the CIA time and time again.

These people are the U.S.A. version of the Gestapo.


edited grammatical mistakes and other word usage...

[Trevelyan]

22. Thank you radio4progressives - we need to know about the journalists that

the bush regime has murdered. I know it is scary but the tin foil hat routine won't protect you. Standing up for our Whistleblowers may and to let these courageous people be murdered without saying a word is cowardly.

[Trevelyan]

24. radio4progressives at 11:50 am the India article disappeared

http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=81

clicked on your link and:

Error: There is no News Post with this ID.

[TinFoilFedora]

27. Could be the same people who murdered Vincent Foster...

There were reports of a dark car in Fort Marcy Park the night he was killed (but people often mistake black helicopters for dark cars, so draw your own conclusions).

:tinfoilhat:

[katty]

35. so obvious...even a gettaway car for a wallet?

[MADem]

59. One problem with that theory--the guy HAD RETIRED

The sudden, shocking nature of this news is almost too much to comprehend. David, who was 63, had just opened a new phase in his life, and only hours before the attack was telling colleagues in the bureau about the family vacation he was planning later this winter and how much he relished the freedom and opportunities that came with retirement.

David was one of the most gifted, energetic and accomplished Washington correspondents of his generation. In a biographical sketch that David wrote shortly before his retirement, he said, "To the extent I have a specialization, it is in the intersection of economics, politics and government policy.'' That was a modest way of saying what everyone in Washington knew: No one covered policy and politics better than David Rosenbaum.

http://poynter.org/forum/?id=32127

He'd already taken himself out of the game--no percentage in taking him out at that juncture.

[screembloodymurder]

61. No problem

that I can see. A very real message has been sent.

[screembloodymurder]

60. I've got to agree.

The possibility that this was retaliation for the Times article must be considered.

[rocktivity]

64. Thanks for answering the very first question I had

"What was he working on?"

9PM seems kind late to be going for "just a walk," even for a man.

:(
rocknation

[Uncle Joe]

55. It seems according to your link Rosenbaum wrote on Christmas Eve.

"Judge Alito's relatively positive assessment of the 1978 law, as useful clarification of the procedures to be followed in the context of national security surveillance, was a faint echo of his earlier strong advocacy, as a student at Princeton in 1972, for the establishment of a court to hear such warrant applications.

Judge Alito wrote on the subject as the chairman of a conference on privacy. The existence of the report he submitted for the conference, which included a discussion of gay rights, was first reported by The Boston Globe two months ago. But the report's extended discussion of wiretapping and other surveillance has not received much attention.

"We are convinced," Judge Alito wrote in 1972, "that in recent years government has often used improper means to gather information about individuals who posed no threat either to their government or their fellow citizens."

The solution, he wrote, was the creation of a "federal court of warrants." Six years later, the 1978 law established the intelligence court.

The court that Judge Alito advocated, he wrote, would "issue warrants for electronic surveillance in all cases involving national security." He underscored the word "all."

[onenote]

6. wow, tinfoil is out by the second post...that's gotta be a record...

[John Q. Citizen]

7. Google his name

[MadisonProgressive]

5. Dammit, they offed him!

[Peace Patriot]

8. Why would anybody think that the Bush junta might off a journalist?

Really, such lunacy.

[Junkdrawer]

39. Baghdad rules "blowing back" to the US?

:shrug:

[Rene]

9. How's this conspiracy for you all.....His death was just a warning

to others in the media.......much like the anthrax death of the National Enquirer photo journalist who'd just published bush twin photos.....and the anthrax sent to others in journalism.

[fearnobush]

10. An other thread - New York Times Journalist Dies After Attack (in DC)

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x85319>

[soothsayer]

12. duplicate of previous comment

sorry

[EFerrari]

13. The US government would never harm a journalist to cya:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x84404


US troops seize award-winning Iraqi journalist

Monday January 9, 2006
The Guardian


American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children.
Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young journalist of the year award, was hooded and taken for questioning. He was released hours later.

Dr Fadhil is working with Guardian Films on an investigation for Channel 4's Dispatches programme into claims that tens of millions of dollars worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been misused or misappropriated.

[CBHagman]

14. I was sorry to hear about this.

No matter how many crimes are related in the paper, it's always a shock when someone is so senselessly murdered.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

15. Wanna Bet these "robbers" who kill journalist bystanders are NEVER found?

How's any potential witness ever going to remember a "dark" "vehicle" ?

"Dark colored vehicle"?
Dark?
at least give us: black, dark green, dark brown--

C'mon --just "vehicle"? --give us something like: late model car/ older model car/ suv/ sports car/ Lowrider/
but not just "vehicle"!


Hit job most definitely.

MORAL of the STORY:
Don't dare write anything that questions our fascist regime or their true motives or ELSE this may happen to YOUI!

[marshall]

31. Suspect Description?

And no description of the two suspects, other than their gender. Blond, brunet, redhead? Young, old, tall, short, stocky, thin?

[saskatoon]

42. re this may happen to you

I've been wondering why there havsn't been more exposes from our journalists and this is the answer of course---fear of being killed or one of their loved ones. Look, the bastards will never stop their greed for total power and what's a few murders to obtain it. And all you naysayers out there---wake up for gods sake.

[CJCRANE]

16. Found by a neighbor...

sounds like he didn't get far from his front door, almost as if someone was waiting for him...

[flamingpie2500]

17. muggers usually drive vehicles? sounds fishy to me

[Twist_U_Up]

18. great point

wow

[redqueen]

20. Extremely fishy. n/t

[EFerrari]

21. I guess it would be too obvious to just bomb his house.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2029629

[Marie26]

40. They can. Donna Shalala was mugged in the same area

I dredged up this article after remembering about the attempted mugging of Donna Shalala, Clinton's Health & Human Services head. She was attacked by muggers in a nice area of Georgetown after visiting an ATM. She screamed until other people noticed, so the muggers quickly jumped into a getaway car that they had nearby & drove off. It happens.

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/03/07/shalala.robbery/

The story also said the muggers tried to use his credit cards. I can't imagine any "professional" CIA officers being so stupid.

[MADem]

57. I remember that--it was the ATM near the Starbucks!

The same Starbucks where they had that massive murder of all the employees at closing time...when they caught the kid, he looked like a damn choirboy....

[savemefromdumbya]

46. muggers in pinstripe suits?

[MADem]

58. The kid who killed all those people at Starbucks wore a sweater and tie

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/march99/cooper18.htm

He looked like DC's Wally Cleaver--in a million years you would not have suspected he could rob a coffee shop at closing time and kill the whole staff.

[screembloodymurder]

62. Was the guy wearing a fedora and a black

trenchcoat.

[savemefromdumbya]

65. no,probably had a long beard and wearing a tea-towel on his head

[0007]

47. That was my first thought also.

[Pryderi]

19. What happened to the FBI agent? The woman who was attacked outside

her home by another mugger?

[Trevelyan]

23. Can you remember her name? I have started a Whistleblower's file

Please visit Sibyl Edmond's site http://www.JustACitizen.com and sign her petition to ungag her and release her redacted testimony from the 911 report.

Reuters had a story a month ago on their objection to several of their reporters being sent to Abu Ghraib with NO DATE SET FOR ANY CHARGES AGAINST THEM??!!!???

[Pryderi]

25. Sorry I don't remember her name.

[DoYouEverWonder]

26. Justice David Souter was mugged in DC too

Sometime last year near his home.

[WHAT]

49. Emilia DiSanto...

from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/11/8/12741/3920

Emilia DiSanto, chief investigator for committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), arrived at her suburban Virginia home after work Wednesday about 6:30 p.m. As she was unloading belongings from her car, a 6-foot-1-inch white man dressed in black struck her repeatedly with an unidentified object believed to be a baseball bat.

[lovuian]

28. I stand by my siggy There are no coincidences

and everything is connected...

NY Times broke leak story and now a reporter hurt from the NYT

[QuettaKid]

29. uhm, not just hurt.

killed.

[High Plains]

30. It must be a conspiracy!

No one ever gets mugged in Washington, DC.

[redqueen]

32. By guys who drive away in cars? I'd like to know the numbers... n/t

[Freddie Stubbs]

38. Some guy on a bike tried to rob me when I lived in DC

There are a lot of crazy people in this world.

[redqueen]

41. Anecdotal evidence aside, still like to know how many muggers drive away

from the crime scene

[rinsd]

44. So the two guys in the car leaving did it?

Or is that just the only lead at this time as reported by the police?

[High Plains]

52. No, someone reported a suspicious car in the neighborhood

around the time of the attack. No direct link between the car and the attack.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

33. Sorry, but given this misadministration,

the tinfoil hat is warranted in any case like this. We can't afford NOT to question.

Al Capone had more scruples than these sobs.

[Chicago1]

34. This is the Bush Mafia AGAIN.

KKKarl, WE'RE NOT DUMB. This one is going to be investigated TOOO!!!!


START THE REVOLUTION!!!!

[ducipher]

36. So let me get this straight.....

The Bushies send in the CIA. Being incompetent, rather than simply shoot him and run off, they beat the shit out of him and he dies of head injuries. That should give them "plausible deniability". What self-respecting covert operative would spend the energy beating someone up on a public street when a bullet to the brain is so much more efficacious? Or maybe they didn't have enough money for bullets. Which explains why they tried to use his credit card today. Probably tried to buy bullets. At Wal-Mart. Perfect!

[genieroze]

37. Ummmm, no comment.

:tinfoilhat:

[greiner3]

43. Felt was convinced that 'evil' was afoot;

Maybe there will be someone in a year or a decade that will throw some light on this. I've never been a big fan of coincedences!

[brentspeak]

45. Doesn't D.C. have a surveillance camera system?

Maybe the crime was recorded by a streetlight camera.

[screembloodymurder]

63. The FBI took all the tapes

and they can't release them due to national security concerns.

[Supersedeas]

48. another story the Corporate Media will closely follow....or.....not

[Roland99]

50. VERY interesting article from the WaPo! Cops didn't suspect robbery!!!!

Medical Condition Suspected at First In Journalist's Fall
Hours Elapsed Before It Was Evident Rosenbaum Had Been Beaten, Robbed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/09/AR2006010901245_pf.html

Jerry Pritchett, a neighborhood resident, found Rosenbaum on the sidewalk about 9:30 p.m. Pritchett yelled for his wife, Claude, to call 911 for an ambulance. The Pritchetts and police and emergency workers noted that Rosenbaum had on his wedding band and his watch. A portable radio headset lay next to him. The Pritchetts did not know Rosenbaum, and he had no identification. Police said Rosenbaum's wallet was taken.

"We put a blanket on him," Claude Pritchett said. "I don't think he was conscious. He seemed disoriented and was not fully aware what was going on. We didn't think at all that it was a crime. I felt this man had suffered a stroke."

The emergency workers wondered whether Rosenbaum had been drunk, police said, but he was not.

Officers "thought he had a medical problem," said Cmdr. Robert Contee, who oversees the 2nd Police District, where the incident occurred. "He had his wedding band and watch on. There was no reason to think it was a robbery."

[wordpix]

51. having lived in DC for 20 yrs. (born/raised), I know

crime rate there is very high and there ARE a lot of criminals, as in any large city. So I wouldn't jump the gun (no pun intended) on this. It could have been a robbery. The journalist's wallet was taken.

[Roland99]

53. The original article I read said that area he was in was not a crime area.

In fact, it was called one of the safest areas.

[wordpix]

54. my sister-in-law was raped in one of those "safe" neighborhoods at night

[Roland99]

56. Sorry to hear that. I was just going off of what was reported.

[Clara T]

66. A few questions must be asked

- Knocking someone out and then robbing them is an extremely odd method of mugging isn't it?

- The assault makes a big spectacle out of the mugging doesn't it?

- Muggers generally approach you from the front, show a weapon or claim to have one, and demand that valuables be turned over, don't they?

- Is it also possible that he thought he was meeting someone on the street?

- Isn't it an odd coincidence that Rosenbaum’s final Times piece, published in late December, revealed that Samuel Alito Jr., Bush’s Supreme Court nominee, had written a 1984 memorandum as a government lawyer in the Reagan administration “arguing that top officials should not be subject to lawsuits in any in circumstances, including when they knowingly violated the law" and he is murdered on the day of Alito's confirmation hearings? Isn't that a great way to 'send a message'?

-Is it possible Rosenbaum could or was going to reveal some of the secrets behind the odd relationship of the Times to the Bush Administration such as holding stories of extreme national importance back for a year or what was behind the campaign of lies told by the Times to help the Bush Administration trick the American people into the attack on Iraq?

Nobody disputes that he was murdered. The only dispute is why. The circumstances suggest something other than a robbery motive.

[DoYouEverWonder]

67. Here's the latest - Retired New York Times reporter's death ruled homicide

January 10, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The death of retired New York Times reporter David E. Rosenbaum was ruled a homicide Tuesday, as the District of Columbia medical examiner confirmed he had died from blunt force trauma to the head.

Rosenbaum, 63, died Sunday night, two days after he was found dazed on a sidewalk near his Washington home.

Capt. C.V. Morris, of the Metropolitan Police Department's Violent Crimes Branch, announced the medical examiner's ruling. He said Rosenbaum was found on the sidewalk with a personal stereo headset nearby, indicating he may have been struck from behind without warning.

Police were searching for two men who were seen in a dark-colored vehicle in the area where the attack happened Friday.

"They would have had to pass right by our victim," Morris said.

Meanwhile, officials at the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department were reviewing operational procedures and reports from the crew that first arrived at the scene to determine whether the incident should have been handled differently.


http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--journalistkilled0110jan10,0,4087571.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork


Gee, no shit Sherlocks.