5.Richard Claflin — Direct
109 linesRICHARD CLAFLIN, duly sworn
COURT CLERK: Have a seat. State your name, spell your last name for the record, keep your voice up and speak into the mic so everybody can hear you.
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Richard Claflin, C-L-A-F-L-I-N.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. WEINREB:
MR. WEINREB: Good morning.
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Good morning.
MR. WEINREB: Where do you work, sir?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: I'm a special agent with the FBI.
MR. WEINREB: What's your -- where are you assigned?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: I'm currently assigned to an intelligence squad out of the Boston office.
MR. WEINREB: And how long have you been an FBI agent?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Approximately 18 years.
MR. WEINREB: Do you have any training as an FBI agent?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: I went through a 16-week academy when I initially became an agent. Over my 18-year career I've had numerous outside trainings, most of it was in my field, which is violent street gangs and narcotics investigations.
MR. WEINREB: Okay. As part of your basic training or any special training, have you had training specifically in how to handle evidence?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Yes, I have.
MR. WEINREB: Tell us a little bit about that.
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Initially, again, back in the academy I went through a program where we were taught to handle evidence, procedures, policies for the FBI. Throughout my career, again, in-service trainings with the FBI, usually a couple of times a year we're updated on any new procedures or policies regarding evidence.
MR. WEINREB: Now, were you assigned to work Marathon Monday of 2013?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: I was originally assigned to work a night shift down in Providence, Rhode Island.
MR. WEINREB: Did that change after the bombings occurred?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Yes, it did.
MR. WEINREB: What happened?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: I immediately responded to the bombings on Boylston Street.
MR. WEINREB: Okay. And how long did it take you to get there?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: I arrived approximately 3:30, 3:45.
MR. WEINREB: So do you know how long after the bombings that was?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: The bombings went off at approximately 2:49.
MR. WEINREB: And when you got to Boylston Street, where did you go?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: I originally went to the California Pizza Kitchen on ring road.
MR. WEINREB: Where is that in relation to where the bombings occurred on Boylston?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Approximately a block away.
MR. WEINREB: And why the California Pizza Kitchen?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: I was instructed to go there in my initial response by an FBI supervisor.
MR. WEINREB: Was something going on there?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: That's where most of the law enforcement investigators, officers seemed to be setting up a command post.
MR. WEINREB: All right. Now, at that point had Boylston Street been evacuated?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Yes, it had.
MR. WEINREB: All right. And the owners of California Pizza Kitchen told law enforcement they could stage their operations there?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Yes.
MR. WEINREB: All right. And after you got there, what happened?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Upon my arrival at the California Pizza Kitchen, I was immediately dispatched by an FBI supervisor to go to a secondary command post at the Westin Hotel up on Huntington Ave.
MR. WEINREB: And where is that in relation to Boylston Street where the bombings happened?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Approximately two or three blocks away.
MR. WEINREB: When you got to the Westin, what happened there?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: I was assigned, along with Boston Police Department Sergeant Earl Perkins, to head up a video canvass and collection team within the Boylston Street area.
MR. WEINREB: Okay. What does "canvass and collection" mean?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: The mission of this team would basically be to be dispatched down to the Boylston Street area, recover, collect and preserve any potential video evidence that we could find.
MR. WEINREB: Did you know where to go to look for it?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Well, yeah. We headed directly to the crime scenes.
MR. WEINREB: And did people collect videos?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Yes, they did.
MR. WEINREB: Do you know the kinds of places they were collected from?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: On the initial night, on Monday night, we collected approximately 35 to 40 pieces of video evidence, I believe locations such as the Forum, Marathon Sports, LensCrafters. I believe there was a Dunkin' Donuts. The Lenox Hotel itself provided video, the Boston Public Library.
MR. WEINREB: And when the agents who went out came back with these videos, did they bring them to the Westin?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Yes, they did.
MR. WEINREB: And what happened to them there?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: At the Westin, we had also established an intake area. We had evidence response team members from the FBI as well as computer analyst team members from the FBI at the Westin. They set up an intake area where if an investigator went out, retrieved a piece of evidence and they brought it back, it went directly to this intake area.
MR. WEINREB: Okay. So let's take -- you said evidence response team and then computer analysis. So let's start with the first. What is an evidence response team?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: The evidence response team for the FBI are our experts in evidence.
MR. WEINREB: Okay. This is ERT, evidence recovery team?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: That's correct. They're also referred to as ERT.
MR. WEINREB: Okay. And the ERT, or evidence recovery team people, what do they do when the evidence comes in?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: When the evidence came in, they began to document that evidence. They took all pertinent information of where it was collected, who collected it, the time it was collected, the date it was collected. That information from that investigator who collected that piece of evidence was then entered into their evidence system. At that point a chain of custody was established and I believe that piece of evidence was given a D number.
MR. WEINREB: And then once all that logging of it had taken place, what happened to it then?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: At that point the evidence would be transported to the Black Falcon Pier where the computer -- the remainder of the computer experts were set up.
MR. WEINREB: All right. But you said there were some computer experts right there at the Westin?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: On Monday night, yes, there were.
MR. WEINREB: And when the evidence came in, were they looking at it?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: They began to triage it.
MR. WEINREB: Okay. What does that mean?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: They began to establish, to look at some of -- the pieces that were coming in were in different forms. There were disks coming in, there were thumb drives coming in, there were some iPhones coming in, there were cameras coming in, there were hard drives coming in. So I believe the computer experts began to look at those computer hard drives.
MR. WEINREB: So they know how to get the video out of those devices and take a look at it?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Yes, they do. Something I'm not an expert at.
MR. WEINREB: All right. And how long did that go on for on April 15th?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: On Monday night, approximately 2 a.m., I was advised by FBI supervisors that the 35 to 40 pieces of video evidence that we had collected would be transported to either the Black Falcon Pier or to the FBI office at One Center Plaza.
MR. WEINREB: All right. So let's talk about that. What was happening at the Black Falcon Pier?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: The Black Falcon Pier had been established as our evidence intake for the Boston bombing.
MR. WEINREB: Do you know what was there?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Any evidence that was being obtained within this investigation was sent directly to the Boston -- to the Black Falcon Pier.
MR. WEINREB: All right. And was that basically just a big room that they had set up in to collect evidence?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Yes. That's correct. A big, huge warehouse.
MR. WEINREB: Gotcha. Then you said some of it went to the FBI headquarters here in Boston?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Yes. If there was a piece of video evidence that was deemed pertinent, it was delivered directly to the command post at the FBI office.
MR. WEINREB: Okay. You mentioned that video was collected from the Forum restaurant. Do you know if there was also video collected from a bar called Whiskey's on Boylston Street?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Yes, it was during the week.
MR. WEINREB: All right. So let's talk about that. What happened the next day?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: So on Tuesday Sergeant Perkins and myself relocated our command post from the Westin to the Lenox Hotel on the second floor. We again established an intake area where any evidence -- video evidence that was collected could be brought into that intake area, accounted for, chains of custody could be established, and all the pertinent information could be taken on those videos.
MR. WEINREB: All right. And on that day did you get some more information about businesses on Boylston Street to help you continue with your search?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Yes, we did.
MR. WEINREB: Tell us about that.
RICHARD CLAFLIN: We did two things: Sergeant Perkins contacted the City of Boston. He obtained a list of businesses that are on Boylston Street. We also sent out four investigators on foot: Two to Crime Scene A, two to Crime Scene B, where they physically noted addresses and names of businesses. We took these two lists and basically used those as a checklist to make sure that we were canvassing every single business or residence in the Boylston Street area.
MR. WEINREB: Did you only search on Boylston Street?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: No, we did not.
MR. WEINREB: Where else did you search?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: On Saturday, when we had more information regarding the targets of this investigation, we had more information about exit routes, we expanded our canvass in an orderly fashion toward Storrow Drive. We also expanded our canvass westerly towards Mass. Ave. covering any potential exit routes for the two subjects in this case.
MR. WEINREB: How long did this video canvass and collection process go on?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: With the exception of Thursday night into Friday night, it stayed -- it remained operational until Sunday evening, I believe that's April 21st, at approximately 6 p.m.
MR. WEINREB: And were you heading up that team all through that time?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Yes, I was.
MR. WEINREB: And during that period were you observing the evidence collection and the ERT function of logging it and keeping track of it and so on?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Yes, I was.
MR. WEINREB: And did it all appear to be occurring according to FBI procedures, the ones you had learned?
RICHARD CLAFLIN: Yes.
MR. WEINREB: No further questions.
MR. BRUCK: No questions. Thank you very much.
THE COURT: All right, Agent. Thank you. You may step down.
(The witness is excused.)
MR. WEINREB: The government calls agent James Marinelli.