Man found in Lady Bird Lake was teacher, FBI target
Police said that victim, who taught at a Southwest Austin middle school, may have committed suicide.
By Tony Plohetski, Sue Banerjee
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, April 18, 2008
Austin police said Thursday that they are leaning toward a ruling of suicide in the death of a middle school teacher and activist whose body was found Wednesday in Lady Bird Lake with his hands and legs bound and tape over his eyes.
Yes, you read that correctly. And here's the headline from another article about this:
Man Found Dead in Lake Claimed FBI Tracked Him
The earliest account of the story seems to be here:
Body Found in Lady Bird Lake
4/16/2008
A group of people walking their dogs on the hike and bike trail at Festival Beach Park make a grisly discovery in Lady Bird Lake Wednesday afternoon.
"I was just walking Sadie, my dog, and I saw something moving and it started getting closer, and I could tell it was a man," says Brittany Mooney, who says she was the first to call 9-1-1.
Police got the call at about two o'clock that a man's body had washed up on the shore.
"We're all out here to make sure that there is or is not foul play involved. That's something our medical examiners will determine over the course of the investigation," says Austin Police Detective Sergeant James Mason.
Mooney claims the body was wrapped in duct tape when it washed ashore.
Then the following day was this:
Odd Twists to Case Surrounding Body in Lady Bird Lake
(snip)
Austin Police Sergeant Joseph Chacon confirms the man was bound with duct tape.
"The bindings, although I cannot go into them extensively, it's possible that he could have done them to himself," Chacon says.
Uh ... sure. A guy's gonna wrap his body with duct-tape and throw himself into a lake?
"We have not ruled out that foul play might be involved. However, we have no indication right now that that is the case."
Police say the case began on Monday as a missing person's case. Tuesday, APD was assisted by emergency management officials in a boat and helicopter search but turned up nothing. Then, Wednesday afternoon, the man's body was discovered.
Investigators say it's not impossible that Hamad would have acted alone, although bizarre.
Well it's also not impossible that the brownian motion of the molecules in my body could suddenly vibrate the same direction all at once and my body would go shooting through the roof of my house. But it sure as HELL is unlikely.
Soon, things started to make a little more sense:
Man Found Dead in Lake Claimed FBI Tracked Him
The man found floating in Lady Bird Lake Wednesday afternoon claimed on a videotape that he was being targeted by federal agents because he ran the Palestine Children's Welfare Fund out of south Austin.
"All of our work is very transparent. We don't work with any militant group or violent group, or anybody with a militant affiliation," said Riad Hamad, in a 2003 interview with freespeech TV.
In the 19-minute interview, found online, Hamad says several shipments of used books and clothing had been returned to his home address and on at least one occasion, a neighbor who signed for a package was questioned by a federal agent.
"We were hacked really bad," Hamad said. "We called the FBI and they said this is cost of business and would not do anything to help.
So it looked like he was a man who lived to help children. His mistake may have been that he was Arabic and he was helping Palestinian children.
Another article provides more information about this fellow who was actually a peace activist:
Debbie Russell, president of the local American Civil Liberties Union chapter, sent an e-mail Thursday to dozens of activists throughout the city saying that Hamad's death had been ruled a homicide. Russell said in a later interview that she wrote that e-mail after she thought she had heard media reports that Hamad had been killed.
She said in the e-mail that Hamad had recently been under investigation by the FBI — federal officials confirmed the investigation — and described him as "NOT a terrorist but a peaceworker." Hamad was serving as an official for the Austin chapter of the Palestine Children's Welfare Fund.
FBI spokesman Erik Vasys said that Hamad had been a "person of interest" in a criminal investigation but that he could not elaborate.
Austin police said Hamad's family reported him missing Monday. Family members released a statement Thursday saying that he disappeared after going to pick up a prescription at a local pharmacy.
Hamad's body was taken to the Travis County medical examiner's office for an autopsy. The office did not respond to an open records request Thursday for information about the case and would not confirm that Hamad's body was there.
According to the family's statement, which was released through an attorney, Hamad was a University of Texas graduate and had taught in the Austin school district for a decade.
The family's statement described him as a "peace activist who worked tirelessly on behalf of those less fortunate than him and was loved and admired by many members of the local, as well as international community."
"Mr. Hamad's family and friends are obviously devastated over their loss," the statement said.
There have been a lot of mysterious suicides in the last several years (just google Gary Webb, Danny Casolaro, or Don C. Wiley), and this just adds to the list.
Sure can't have any arabic, children-loving, peace activists in our society, now can we? Those people are DANGEROUS.
UPDATE: Juan Cole has this story up on his site.
Call me suspicious. Bound bodies found floating in a lake just don't seem to me very likely to be the victims of suicide.
Thanks to Iranaqamuk for pointing that out in the comments below.
Apparently a friend of the deceased wrote to Juan Cole:
A friend of mine, Austin middle-school teacher and pro-Palestinian activist Riad (also spelled Riadh) Hamad, was found gagged & bound in a lake. His death was declared by the local police to be a "suicide".
The story reeks of being either a hate crime or worse, an assassination by an interested party. Hamad's charity was under attack by various parties which volunteered to find links between his organization and terrorist organizations. FWIW, no such link has led to law suits against him, to the best of my knowledge.
Riad is no longer alive, but questions about his death (suicide?) seem very much alive. At the very least, a fair police investigation would be appropriate. Simply stepping up to people and killing them is not an acceptable way to shut down a charity in the U.S., I'm sure you agree. I believe that media pressure may be the only way to get a true investigation. If someone is killing Palestinian activists in the U.S., that must be stopped - somehow. '
Certainly adds another layer to the story.