What a "fuckaroo"...
Tommy Hook and wife
(nice depth-of-field effect!)
2 get plea deals in beating of LANL whistle-blower outside Cheeks
Is anyone (Hook, his lawyer, Cheeks owner/bartender/stripper/lawyer, FBI agent man, SF Police, Sandoval, Navarez, ???) telling anything like the truth here? Or are they all telling a convenient (to their own agenda) fiction? Hook might be lying about why he was there, but who in this story isn't? Geeze!
Here is our earlier post on the topic.
Joseph Sandoval, the 26 (then 24) year old, 275 pounds is represented by his lawyer as non-drinking, non-drug-using, w/o a criminal record. His lawyer also paints him the victim. Just coming to pick up his friend, he is struck by Hook's car as it backs up. Hook jumps out and verbally abuses him, then goes for his throat. Sandoval pushes him down and then stands back while "someone else" (Navarez by implication?) beats Hook to a bloody pulp, stopping only when interrupted by Cheeks' staff?
Zeke Navarro, a 29 year old, credited by implication with beating Hook to a pulp.
Hook, beaten to a pulp at his fighting weight of 150 lbs.
17 comments:
Doc,
I can't make any sense of this either. It seems a lot of people want to accept as fact that Hook is lying about the phone call he says was his reason for being at Cheeks that night. It hasn't been proven that he was lying. Nor, it seems, has it been investigated. Deliberate or not, the intimidating effect on others who have information about wrongdoing at the lab cannot be denied.
Pinky
It is an Occam's razor situation. Which is more plausible? That some sort of deep, dark, collection of conspirator's lured him to Cheeks so they could rough him up to silence him? Or that he went there for entertainment, got into trouble with some locals, and made up a story to cover his tracks with his out of town wife?
Given everything that has, and has not, happened at the lab over the years, and all of the other opportunities for stuff like this to have happened (yet it never has), the simplest explanation really is the most likely.
It is a tragedy that Hook was beaten like this and those responsible should be brought to justice, which it looks like has happened (ignoring arguments about the severity of the punishment). Case closed.
Your scenario is plausible. The part you are ignoring is the FBI's claim that there was no phone call. There is no indication of how they could know this so the claim amounts to, "We're the FBI and we said so."
The case is closed because it was never opened. How many people are sitting on information about wrongdoing because they don't want to face the same scorn Hook is getting?
The FBI is incompetent. The case is closed because there is nothing left to pursue. Get over it.
The FBI is incompetent so its open season on whistleblowers?
Nothing left to pursue?
Are you sure the case is closed or is that your eyes that are closed?
I am sure it is cased closed. It is obvious to law enforcement. To most everyone else. Are you sure the brain part of your duo is working?
Maybe we can turn this into a modern version of "The Fugitive." Instead of a one-legged man, we can have the mystery person hitting from behind. These days it would be a reality show, though. I'll bet it would be a money maker.
You've come full circle, from "the FBI is incompetent" to "it is obvious to law enforcement". You are relying on the same law enforcement you claimed is incompetent to make your case?
I don't claim to know if Hook is lying. I'm simply asking two questions. How does the FBI know there was no phone call, and why did they only find out about the first attack last week?
You have already decided what you believe and you are using one-legged excuses to support it. I haven't decided because what was reported in the news doesn't make sense. When the issues are cleared up it may very well be proven that Hook is a liar. Until then I'll presume he is innocent.
Pinky -
We are happy to provide this alternate forum for you to argue this point.
In principle, we agree with you. Whistleblowers have a hard enough row to hoe without being cheap-shotted from every side.
Our personal experience with Tommy does not match those who also claim to have known him at LANL and to be a little tyrant. That doesn't mean he never behaved badly in that way, it just means we never saw it (or heard first-hand, credible evidence of it).
However, Tommy's Cheeks story is pretty thin. Lots of circumstantials point to Tommy liking naked dancing girls and not wanting to tell his wife more than agreeing to meet another whistleblower with inside information but being setup for the beating.
We agree that very little of the FBI/Police story is "guaranteed" to be complete and without strange biases and possibly huge omissions.
Sadly, we think "literally", the case is closed. That doesn't mean it was "solved"... we assume that there is a huge "rest of the story" left to be told.
- Doc
Sounds to me like Hook is the closest thing to a national hero that Los Alamos has seen since Oppie and friends developed the world's first weapon of mass destruction. So the guy helped exposed fraud at Los Alamos, saving us taxpayers some change along the way. Well any "rocket scientist" can see then why he didn't win many friends among some of this thieving colleagues, including those numb-nuts who create blogs and their groupies who frequent them. Too bad there aren't more like Hook walking around. Maybe we'd be able to cut our tax bill in half if there were.
Maybe the fugative analysis isn't so far off. As I recall, in the movie there actually is a one-armed man. And in the movie an innocent man is vicitmized by a society blinded to justice. But in the final scene, the victim was vindicted. Sounds to me like Mr. Hook has been as well; vindicated that is. Of course there will always be those who don't like the endings of movies or in real life. In this case, Mr. Hook was vindicated and nothing anybody says will change that.
Doc,
Thanks for the forum and the kind words. I've never met Hook and I'm not familiar with his work, thus your analysis carries more weight than mine. I'm just asking what seem to be the obvious questions. I guess there isn't much more to say until the next shoe drops.
7:06 aka Numb-Nuts -
I'll give you that Hook was probably exposing some (possibly serious) procedural problems that might have been hiding some not-quite-earth-shaking "thieving"
The way he was treated for trying to do his job was what lead him to finally escalate to Whistleblower status. On that account he's a minor (now somewhat fallen) hero.
From the rest of your comment though, you are clearly the goofball heckler we've been seeing popping up over and over again.
Fortunately your baiting is transparent enough that it doesn't really deliver any sting.
If you really want to have some fun with us, why don't you (try to) get a little more subtle?
- Darko
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Hook Lies
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