It is my long time understanding that and FBI agent showed up at the Ramsey home aorund 10:30 am on the morning on Dec. 26, but that the FBi was told to "stand down" by the BOD>

This is significant for two reasons:

1. If there was a kidnapping, it would be in the sole jurisdiction of the FBI, as kidnapping is deemed to be a federal offense because it is assumed that there is likelihood that the victim will be transported across state lines. (This rule resulted from the Lindbergh kidnapping). So, if there WAS a kidnapping, the BOD screwed up.

2. If the BPD told the FBI to stand down because there was no kidnapping, so no FBI jurisdiction, had the BPD already determined by 10:30 am that the ransom note was fake? If so, on what basis did the BOD draw that conclusion?

The BPD wanted full control of the case - - they rejected help from many entities - - BIG MISTAKE - - but that doesn't mean the case can't be solved now using the evidence the killer left behind.

But is it true that the FBI showed up that morning and were turned away? Who contacted the FBI - the BOD, the Ramseys, or Access Graphics? And who turned them away?

The BPD contacted the FBI and the BPD sent them away. The Ramseys and AG had nothing to do with any of that.

LAST EDITED ON Apr-25-03 AT 02:04 PM (EST)
 
FBI timeline from PMPT book:

At about 7:30 am, Pete Hofstrom, head of the felony division of the Boulder County DA's office, called Bill Wise, the first assistant DA, at home.

Hofstrom told Wise he had asked the police when the FBI would be arriving, only to be told they hadn't even been called. Hofstrom had told the cops to notify the Bureau.

Hofstrom had to point out to them that in a kidnapping, the protocol was to set up a command post away from the victim's home, in case the perpetrators were monitoring the residence.

(too late, the damage had been done, marked police cars were parked in front of the house).

Det. Jan Harmer, who'd attended a seminar taught by the FBI's Child Abduction Serial Killer Unit, was also on vacation.

Harmer had a copy of the Bureau's manual on procedures to follow in a kidnapping case, but he had no idea where she kept it.

More than a year after Harmer (attended) the seminar, the department had not officially adopted the FBI protocol.

Sgt Whitson knew that county sheriff's Lt. James Smith had also attended the FBI seminar. He phoned Smith, and half an hour later, the BP had the FBI manual.
***

When Larry Mason's pager went off at 9:45 am he was at home ... Looking down, he read: "FBI agent is looking for Bob Whitson."

(At least 30 minutes later - 10:15 am) at headquarters, Mason met Special Agent Ron Walker, who had just arrived from the Denver FBI office with a four-man kidnapping team. The special agents wre working with some police officers to set up phone taps and traps.

For 2 hours and 27 minutes, Arndt was the only officer in the Ramsey house.

In Denver, Tom Haney, chief of the patrol division of the Denver police, was discussing a case with several special agents from the FBI. The agents were obviously distracted. "There's been a kidnapping in Boulder," one agent said.

***

At police headquarters, Larry Mason got a page from the crime scene: "We've got a body."

"Ron, we don't have a kidnapping," he told Agent Walker. "It's a homicide. Do you want to go?"

Fifteen minutes after Det. Arndt's page, at around 1:30 pm, Ron Walker entered the Ramsey's living room with Larry Mason.

When Larry Mason returned to police headquarters at midafternoon, he found John Eller upset that the FBI was still involved in the case. Eller told Mason the Bureau was no longer needed.

Agent Walker hoped (the Boulder police) would ask for help from the FBI or the Colorado BI which had both the experience and the resources for a case like this.

But John Eller felt differently. He believed the Boulder detectives could handle the investigation alone.

It would appear as though it may have been after 7:30 am that someone finally contacted the FBI.

It is unclear whether anyone from the FBI entered the home before 1:30 pm, but some agents may have (in the process of setting up taps and traps).

All the initial contact with Merriman at AG was by either JR or BPD detectives, not FBI agents.

It was Eller who wanted them outta there.

The Ramseys assumed the FBI was called and involved from the beginning and did not know the FBI had been told to "stand down" and go home.

One problem right from the start was 'turf'.

It was not just a matter of telling the feds to take a hike, and telling the very experienced Denver homicide cops to stay on their own turf, it was also a matter of telling Trip DeMuth that he was just there to answer any legal questions they asked of him and he wasn't supposed to be telling them to do a more thorough job.

Reading the highlights of the Arndt deposition in the "More Threads on Evidence" was interesting for the insight into how the detectives dealt with one another within the case and how they were aligned. (I thought it was interesting anyways.) :)

>>The Ramseys assumed the FBI was called and involved from the beginning and did not know the FBI had been told to "stand down" and go home.

Do the local police have that authority over the FBI in the US?

I'm no more American than you are.

It appears that the FBI were not called until at least 2.5 hours following the 911 KIDNAPPING call (protocol not followed).

They arrived at Boulder PD some time in the mid to late morning - too late to avoid the marked cars noticeably parked around the Ramsey house and set up a command post away from the home.

The body MAY HAVE been found before they ever managed to get over to the house or set up that command post. When the kidnapping became a homicide, their jurisdiction may have then become debatable - HOWEVER as Freed pointed out in his comments, the people at Access Graphics wondered (rightfully) why they were not notified and protected (FBI involvement) when there was a "ransom" note referring to a "foreign faction" and indirectly threatening to all of them. Implication seems to be that the "threat" was dismissed in the rush to judgment about that "ransom" note's veracity.

>Do the local police have that authority over the FBI in the US?
The FBI, even if it had jurisdiction, would usually play a supportive role. The FBI has to work with local police all the time and hesitates to through its weight around unnecessarily. In a situation like this, the FBI would provide a agent as a person to contact if the BPD wanted anything and would offer technical equipment for phone taps, agents to man the tape if needed, they would have 'beeped' a few agents to be on standby such as a low-altitude surveillance pilot, they would have offered the services of their crime lab (though thats a bit of a joke, these days especially).

There is a 'presumption' that a kidnap victim has been taken across a state line and thus the FBI has jurisdiction, but once a supposed kidnap victim is found in the house, then there is no presumption of interstate involvement and the FBI's jurisdiction would evaporate.

Sure, if the FBI agent had really been alert and aggressive he could have said this is a 'terrorist threat involving a subsidiary of a defense contractor' but the FBI has no desire to ruffle the feathers of the local cops.

In the JBR case, the FBI's response seems somewhat minimal and half-hearted.