Part 8b) An Analysis of the FBI Video of the Road Block resulting in Lavoy Finicum’s Death.

 

Peter Offermann
Contact Author
February 21, 2016

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Here we are back again after the sequence where Lavoy has left the truck and is currently milling around in the area where he is shot.

Originally I was going to give a lot of documentation here regarding his footprints during this period. I spent a lot of time analyzing this in a number of different ways but finally convinced myself that Lavoy’s movements match the visible footprints.

On my computer I can scrub ( move) backwards and forwards through any of the frames at any speed and zoom level I desire. By rolling my mouse wheel at different speeds I can examine very closely how frames fit together.

While doing this I  took some tape and laid the pattern of Lavoy’s steps out on my floor and then myself tried to emulate his movements. It took awhile to make sense of his movements but eventually I was convinced his leg movements were valid. What wasn’t valid was the speed it happened at especially with all the arm movements also thrown in. I think this sequence occurs faster than it did in reality and his body and arm movements are doctored in places. I will explain why I think this further on in this segment.

I’m just quickly going to show a few images here of how I determined where there were footprints in the snow and then move on to where I believe Lavoy was shot, probably multiple times.

 

The following GIFs all start at the same point which is shown in the full frame image below at 35:01. You can see that Lavoy is already well away from the truck. There are 5 agents at the blockade at this point.

#1 is behind Lavoy’s truck pointing a gun at him.

#2 is the one that was almost hit by Lavoy’s truck. He is starting to make his way towards the front of the back truck.

#3 is hard to see as he is crouched at the back of the truck. He has been in this position since Lavoy exited the truck and could possibly have shot Lavoy in the back causing him to fall forward to his knees before Lavoy changed direction.  This would explain why the earlier sequence at the truck was altered.

#4 & #5 are standing between the two trucks and at least #5, probably both, are pointing  weapons at Lavoy.

There are 3 different gif sequences below that are cut out of different areas of the next 84 frames. I did this to isolate specific events occurring in those areas so they could be seen in more detail. The first 2 sequences are presented in 3 different ways for clarity purpose. First at original resolution and speed, secondly blown up for extra detail at the original speed, and thirdly blown up at a slower 2 frames per second so the progression of events can better be seen.

When trying to spot alteration in videos through deleting or adding frames the place that such alterations are most obvious is where there are moving objects. If you remove frames moving objects will appear to jump from place to place or smear.

During this period there are 4 moving objects. Lavoy, agents #1, #2 and #3.

First sequence….  #2 agent is the one to watch.

Notice that at the start of the sequence, and at the end of the sequence, Agent #2 is clearly seen and well defined. As he leaves the back of the truck and starts ducking, probably to stay out of the line of fire of agent #4 & #5, he starts to blend into the background and almost becomes invisible as he nears the front of the other truck. Looking at these frames at a large size one at a time there are many glaring indicators of alteration.

When he gets to the truck it appears very briefly that he walked into the wheel well and disappeared. Only a bit of his head shows up briefly on the hood above the grill. From that point on he appears to be a shadow moving across the grill before he pops up while becoming solid near the center of the truck. If you look closely in the slow version you will notice that you can see the lines of the grill and bumper through his body until he starts to rise. This is impossible in real life at 30 frames per second. There is no technical smearing of action occurring at the speed he is moving.

Frames were taken out of the video in this sequence which would have resulted in his appearing to jump from place to place. What they did was painted him into the background as much as they could so his interrupted jerky movements wouldn’t catch your eye. In front of the grill the missing frames probably made his body appear the full width of half the grill and they tried to diminsh that as much as possible by painting the grill and bumper back in on some frames.

Second sequence… #3 agent moves from the back of the truck to the front of the truck at the same time as agent #2 moves above.

They almost painted out all of  agent #3 movements until he gets to the door. They tried to make it look like he just stepped out from behind the door.  When looking at these frames closely you can see when he starts moving because the dark spot on the yellow line behind the truck disappears. You can also see some of the smeared out lighter blue of his pants as he moves towards the front door.

Third Sequence… agent #1 and Lavoy I only present this sequence at one size and speed as I will do a more thorough analysis with still frames to explain what happens here. The sequence starts at the same point but I let it run longer to the point where Lavoy starts to fall. I do this to give some sense of context to his death. The speed is 2 frames per second slow motion. The red dot shown in one frame partway through the sequence is when agent #2 starts to disappear. The green dot is when he reappears.

Watch agent #1 closely at the bottom of the frame. He is constantly moving until the red dot appears. He is not likely able to take a shot while he is moving. At the red dot he has both feet firmly planted for the first time and stays that way for a few seconds. This is the first opportunity he would have to take a shot, or several shots at Lavoy. This is where frames are missing.

Below are 16 frames of Lavoy blown up from 1/8 of a second before the dot to almost half a second afterwards.

 

 

 

Agent #1 is now in a shooting stance. Notice that Lavoy has his hands in the air. I think they faked his hand movements before this point. He likely had his hands in the air up until this point. There are slight signs of alteration in the areas his arms would have been.

 

Notice Lavoy’s left leg starts to appear strange above his left knee.

More noticeable notch.

A better rendition below. Notice the sharpening artifacts only at his knee and shoulder. Notice the area between his knee and shoulder is lighter than anywhere else .

Notice how the front of Lavoy’s body has more noticeable light artifacts.

The jog in his knee is almost gone.

Ooops it’s back again.

Almost back to real life… notice the front of his body now also has a smooth texture similar to the back.

What might we see if agent #1 shot Lavoy during this sequence? I don’t think the resolution is good enough to see a muzzle flash but there was probably visible recoil of the weapon when he fired and / or Lavoy’s reaction when he was hit. The weapon recoil(s) would be very brief and could likely be taken out in 2 or 3 frames. Lavoy’s reaction would likely be of longer term and the shock would likely have changed his position rapidly so they would need to paint in something to mask this change over a number of frames.

Lavoy was likely moved backwards quickly by a shot. If they took the frames of the gun recoil out there then Lavoy would likely look fatter. This is why they modified his front to make him look thinner. They should have done the same to his left leg. I did notice an inconsistency of Lavoy's body thickness in the next few frames which didn't quite coincide with his turning sideways.

If there was only one shot that could have been cleaned up in one quick sequence and there would not be any need to mask the actions of agents #2 & #3 over an 82 frame sequence. To me this suggests that Lavoy was shot more than once at this point.

There are other frames shortly after this sequence that don’t look quite right but the alterations are not as obvious as they are here.

There is a good chance they took quite a few frames out here and this would explain why they took out frames earlier on and also introduced blur in several places. Without replacing frames taken out, which would require hand painting the new frames to match, this sequence would move much faster than the rest of Lavoy’s movements. This would stick out. Looking at the earlier frames there is little movement of anyone else making it easy to take out frames unnoticeably. The only exception is right at the first big blur. Before the big blur agents #3, #4, & #5 are standing behind the truck on the far right and agent #1 is not visible.  After the big blur (3.5 seconds)  they are already in the positions I numbered above. 

From the start of watching this video I was confused about why Lavoy turned back towards his truck and why he moved his arms around as much as he did near the end of this sequence.

Here’s what I now think happened. Lavoy reaches the point of the red dot with his hands in the air, agent #1 then shoots him at least once. Lavoy drops his arms to hold himself where he has been shot. If the agent shot more than once Lavoy knows the agent is trying to kill him. The only semblance of shelter nearby is his truck so he heads for it. The agent on the hillside, which I didn’t number, drops Lavoy after he turns towards the truck. I think they painted in a few arm movements at this point to hide the fact that Lavoy was holding his lower left abdomen.

In my mind there is no doubt that a crime has been committed here.

I will continue on tomorrow with part 9 and fill in some details about visible gunfire at the scene.

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