STORY: "Experts cast doubt on ATF's arson finding in deadly West Fertilizer explosion," by reporter Mark Collette, published by The Houston Chronicle, on August 2, 2017.
GIST: "The fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 people and injured more than 160 in the town of West may not have been sparked by a deliberately set fire as federal investigators claimed, according to attorneys, arson experts and a former top workplace safety official under President Barack Obama. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been largely silent on the 2013 West Fertilizer explosion since it announced last year that an arsonist was responsible for the initial blaze and offered a $50,000 reward for information. No arrests have been made, and the ATF won't discuss the case beyond repeating a version of its previous announcement. But the arson finding had far-reaching implications. It delayed victims' lawsuits against the fertilizer company, gave the defendants more legal ammunition, and prompted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to put a hold on new chemical plant safety rules. Industry argued that a deliberately set fire meant new regulations were moot. Legal and forensic experts immediately spotted what they say is a weakness in the ATF's May 2016 announcement, but their concerns went largely unnoticed amid the sensational news that some evildoer - maybe even from the town that was ravaged - was responsible for the fire that turned tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer into an enormous bomb. "Our position from the beginning - even before the (announcement) - we told them that what you guys are doing is not scientifically sound," said Mo Aziz, a Houston attorney who has represented dozens of West plaintiffs. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration had its doubts, too. But the ATF closely guarded its investigation, notifying OSHA, which was seeking fines against the plant, only an hour before the news conference, said Jordan Barab, the former No. 2 OSHA official under Obama. "Even the White House could not get them to meet with anybody about it," Barab said. Paul Bieber, a forensic investigator who runs the Arson Research Project and has worked with attorneys to debunk outdated forensic techniques in the fire service, said he ranted on a blog about the ATF findings when they came out, to no avail. Dennis Smith, a leading expert on the technique that ATF investigators used in West, said the agency ought to recognize that forensic standards have changed and therefore change its opinion. "That's the obligation of every investigator," Smith said. 'Negative corpus"' Essentially, the ATF used a process of elimination to declare it an arson. "All reasonable accidental and natural fire scenarios were hypothesized, considered, tested and eliminated as being fire causes," ATF Special Agent Nicole Strong said in an email Tuesday, in an echo of comments the ATF made a year ago. "The only hypothesis that could not be eliminated was that the fire was incendiary. This means it was intentionally set. This conclusion was confirmed by extensive testing." The agency spent three years and more than $2 million investigating, interviewing over 400 people and building life-size replicas of parts of the plant. The process of elimination - or "negative corpus," in the parlance of investigators - to determine that a fire was deliberate has been part of arson investigations for at least 40 years. But in 2011, after mounting evidence that the practice led to faulty findings and even overturned convictions, Smith convinced the National Fire Protection Association to rewrite its standard. Now, relying on two papers he authored, the NFPA standard reads that "it is improper to opine a specific fire cause … that has no evidence to support it even though all other such hypothesized elements were eliminated." But consultants like Smith, and advocates like Bieber, are still fighting to get the new standard adopted by investigators from the ATF down to the local firehouse. "They can use (negative corpus), and they're getting away with it because it fits the outcome they desire," Smith said. "There's always a lag time between when something's in the new edition (of the NFPA standards) and something gets changed in the field." He compared the slow rejection of negative corpus to the reluctance of some prosecutors to accept exonerations based on DNA evidence. Bieber, who reviewed all of the roughly 40 cases nationwide in which a person was exonerated on a charge of arson, said that in nearly two thirds of them, the defense proved that investigators didn't even have sufficient evidence to rule the case an arson, let alone identify a suspect. Negative corpus factored in nearly all of those cases, he said. Investigators can be easily swayed by findings that aren't related to the fire scene, he noted. In West, early attention focused on a local paramedic who had chemicals and equipment for a small pipe bomb, but who was later ruled out as a suspect. Cases delayed: After the arson finding, CF Industries Inc., one of the fertilizer manufacturers, sought information about the investigation. The ATF denied the request, and CF sued. Eventually, the agency handed over redacted information, but a panel of federal appellate judges allowed critical details to remain secret. An attorney for CF declined to comment. Aziz, one of several plaintiffs' attorneys in the West litigation, has settled 95 cases. Dozens more have been delayed because of the arson ruling. He said defense attorneys initially treated the finding as a kind of "get-out-of-jail-free" card, but the chilling effect on the litigation didn't last. That's because, regardless of the source of ignition, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, in an elaborate investigation, found problems with the way the fertilizer was processed and stored. And they issued recommendations to improve preparedness among firefighters. Had they known of the explosive potential at the plant, West's volunteer responders might have kept their distance and survived. Those lessons won't last if the EPA doesn't act, Barab said. OSHA, the EPA, CSB and other officials sat on the sidelines while the ATF took control of the scene at West immediately after the explosion. It's not unusual for that to last a couple of weeks. But the agencies were frustrated this time. "They spent a whole entire month there coming up with nothing," Barab said.
See also (CSIDDS: Forensics in Focus) post (Dr. Michael Bowers) - Another glimpse at how the Fed ignores scientific proofs - arson and the ATF - at the link below: "Here is a long-standing federal agency, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, basking in their scientifically outdated historical about arson caused fires. They use a “process of elimination” theory of criminal actions. Others call it old fashioned and biased.........One must realize that ATF provides training modules for international. state and local law enforcement and prosecutors. All of this is reminiscent of the FBI’s hair matching bunch disseminated their scientifically rejected methods for decades. Here’s some links."
https://csidds.com/2017/08/03/a-glimpse-at-how-the-fed-ignores-scientific-proofs-arson-and-the-atf/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
