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New details have emerged in the case of the man shot by Houston Police officers after a high speed chase on Tuesday morning near the Galleria. Was it a case of suicide by cop?

Suicide By Cop

Definition:
1. “Suicide by Cop” is a police colloquialism for a form of victim- precipitated homicide in which a suicidal individual engages in calculated, life-threatening and criminal behavior in order to compel the police to use deadly force.

In these killings, the initiator is a direct, positive precipitator of his or her own death.

2. “Suicide by Cop” is an act whereby a person presents a threat to a police officer in order to compel the officer or officers to use deadly force to stop that threat. The result is a suicide at the hands of a police officer. Source - About.com

The strange saga of Carnaby’s life as well as his death have authorities searching for clues as to who Carnaby was and why he acted in a manner that lead to his death on the streets of Houston this past Tuesday morning.

Carnaby was pulled over on a routine traffic stop Tuesday morning on Texas 288 near Orem. The officers claim that when Carnaby produced a laminated CIA identification badge he appeared “shaky” and “nervous”. When Carnaby took off he led the police on an hour long chase with speeds over 100 mph that eventually ended in an area near the Galleria, an upscale shopping mall.

Purportedly Carnaby refused to acknowledge the officers nor put his hands up. After the cops smashed his passenger side window he “stepped out of the vehicle, turned around and reached under the seat” according to Houston Police Sgt. John Chomiak. It was then that the officers, fearing for their safety, opened fire on Carnaby. He was later pronounced dead at Ben Taub hospital.

HPD discovered three weapons in the car, two pistols and a shotgun. Carnaby had permits for all three. The shotgun rested on the floor of the back seat with its safety off and a round in the chamber. Interestingly the first news reports stated that the cops were unable to find any weapons in the vehicle, that it wasn’t until Carnaby’s Jeep SUV was confiscated that authorities claim they found the three weapons.

Friends of Carnaby were shocked at his death, they believed Carnaby was a member of the CIA or an “intelligence” agent and that his death by the cops was unfathomable. On Wednesday DBKP wrote about Carnaby, that the man was engaged to be married.

According to the Houston Chronicle, we’ve learned that Carnaby also had a wife, Susan, in Pearland, Texas. Susan, who said she hadn’t seen her husband since March, was amazed that her husband was in Houston and not out “traveling”, so was the news that Carnaby also had a “fiancee”.

We did some internet research on Ronald V. Carnaby and we found some interesting information on a blog that purportedly did a “news piece” on Ronald, his supposed “multi-million dollar company” that dealt with the CIA ,his “partner” former CIA operative, Alan Premel, and another surprise, the mention of former CIA number two guy, James Pavitt.

The blog is called Papparazzi Press, there’s no background info listed with this blog other than it’s hosted by Blogger. The article is titled: Covert Operations & Pornagraphy.

We’re doing something we don’t normally do, we’ve decided to print the whole article in its entirety. We made this decision in order to archive this blog and it’s information just in case it “disappears”.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Premel’s Intel Chief Retires

Following the first series of interviews Alan Premel gave with Channel 1 in Moscow, the first series was posted online last week and i have already seen two other additional stories which tie in with Premel and his dealings with the private firm in Houston. This is one and let me find the other.

One of the CIA’s former counter-terrorism chiefs and pioneers in covert operations, Roland Carnaby retires.
In the past few months, Mr. Carnaby, who has led a private intelligence firm in Houston, Texas has been delegating more and moredaily responsibilities to his lietenants and is completing his succession planning, say people familiar with the matter. A decision about his departure could come within weeks, though the situation remains fluid, say these people.
Alan Premel, 32 years old, whom CIA recruited in 1997 and whom Carnaby personally recruited in 2002 to work with the private intelligence firm in Houston has emerged as the leading candidate to succeed him, added these people. A spokesperson familiar with the retirement plans stated that Premel and his current worries with the US Senate over allegations and ties to the CIA’s Rendition program and his recent resignation from CIA amid a slew of disclosure cases pulls him out of the race for President and chief of such a power position within the intelligence community.
The departure of Mr. Carnaby, 52, would mean the loss of CIA’s most experienced, talented and high profile clandestine officers in management. Few executives who helped pioneer the commercialization of private intelligence and private security firms have remained on top for as long, except for some who can also claim founder titles, such as Patriot Oil, and Pan-American Shipping and Consulting Group.
Mr. Carnaby’s retirement would come at a critical point for CIA. Any efforts to reveerse the slow-down at his private firm could involve drastic changes that may be more palatable under a new CEO like Premel. Mr. Premel, at CIA, was very instrumental in many changes at CIA as a successful supervisor in the Balkans. His management experience at CIA is 25 years behind Carnaby’s but with the firm already warning investors in recent months that it will be raising fees in the absence of Mr. Carnaby.
Mr. Premel wrestled with how to reverse the declining momentum before having to exit left stage last summer from the firm after his public disclosure. The firm’s third quarter numbers, a key barometer of the firm’s health fell 63% without Premel. Before leaving he implemented some changes that were never fully set into motion causing the down-turn after his sudden departure.
The timing of Mr. Carnaby’s retirement is of his own choosing, say people familiar with the situation, unlike Premel’s pre-mature departure which came 20-years too soon say experts. Not long after he jonied CIA, Roland Carnaby declared that no one person should stay in the same cover in covert operations more than two years. A standard practice used by the firm. This philosophy has accredited the firm with a lot of success claims Mr. Premel in his interview with CNN’s David Ensor late of last year.
Under James Pavitt and Roland Carnaby, the firm has become the intelligence community’s most successful private consulting business on counter-terrorism, security consulting and intelligence gathering where they pioneered a way for private officers to carry out day to day functions in the field, relay them back to CIA, DoD, DIA or other foreign agencies. In 2004, Mr. Premel streamlined a way for collecting, compliling and disseminating vast amounts of data and breaking it down by himself. The process which is only done by one person, Mr. Premel himself is the work of what 7-9 officers would typically do.
When Carnaby and Premel shared the reigns from 2004-2007, they have delivered more than 10 consecutive quarters of sequential revenue growth. Profit increase every year and the company now has 248 licensed contract officers working for the firm globally, and $297 million in classified contracts over 5 continents. Those figures are up from the firms $18 million in 1997.
To maintain momentum, Mr. Premel, using $40 million from a settlement with CIA, purchased a private lending company in Houston as well as acquiring a private shipping business and a private internet ticketing business.
There were missteps: Last year, the firm took a $80.4 million write-down for its purchase of a private airline business in DC, Houston and Vegas. And threats loomed when recruitment of some of the firm’s top and most talented officer’s. To keep top talent, Mr. Carnaby and Mr. Premel kicked in an extra $2.4 million for salaries and bonuses to keep the firm afloat.
Mr. Carnaby has long planned for his eventual exit, say people familiar with the matter. He often rotated top officer’s into different operational roles as a way to groom potential successors and to give the board a slate of candidates from which to choose.

In his departing emails to friends, firm and CIA colleagues, Mr. Carnaby wrote how much he was pleased by the professionalism and careers of each and all of the persons who have served under him and with him during his 32-year tenure in the US Intelligence Community.

We think it would be interesting to find the original author of this piece as they have not only tied Alan Premel to Carnaby but also the former number two guy in the CIA, James Pavitt, as being associated with Carnaby in this supposed “private consulting firm”.

While this “article” paints a glowing picture of Carnaby and Premel it never manages to name the actual company nor any of its sources for the piece. Most firms which do business as government contractors are uninterested in remaining “top secret”.

The article goes on to paint a glowing picture of Carnaby’s CIA past, calling Carnaby a “high profile covert officer” of the CIA. The term “high profile” paired with “covert” is an oxymoron. It also stated that Carnaby was a 32 yr. veteran of the CIA. And yet the CIA is fairly adamant that Carnaby was never an agent nor associated with them.

The article, written in February of 2008, states that Carnaby was in the “process” of “retiring” from his “multi-million dollar company” with Alan Premel. It remains to be seen if this “company” does indeed exist. So far no one has stepped forward claiming to be a member of the firm. You’d think as employees they’d be concerned when the “President”, now deceased, took off running from the cops. Who’s going to take over the accounting and payroll? How will all those “operatives” get their next paycheck?

Carnaby may have been in the process of doing more than just “retiring”. We believe that Carnaby’s death beside the road in Houston last Tuesday may have been what is referred to as “suicide by cop”.

Carnaby, whether or not his long and “distinguished” CIA career was a well constructed charade, knew cop behavior. Carnaby had a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Carnaby spent years in the “intelligence” biz, whether as a fake or for real, the man knew that certain behaviors around the police have certain outcomes. He knew that running from the police would lead to the cops chasing him. He knew certain actions, such as reaching back into your vehicle after you’ve been forcefully run off the road by police cruisers and ordered to get out of your vehicle with your hands in the air, would lead to more trouble, especially if you’re carrying two pistols and a loaded shotgun, like Carnaby was that fateful morning.

We may never know if the “suicide by cop” scenario is correct but what we do know is that Carnaby knew running from the police would lead to trouble. If Carnaby was an ex-CIA agent, then Carnaby would have known how to behave when pulled over on a routine traffic stop. What we don’t know is why Carnaby chose to show a CIA identification, why not just his driver’s license. He could have just gotten his ticket and went on his way.

We’d like to find out the source for the “Covert Operation and Pornagraphy” piece as we believe this may have been yet another attempt to construct Carnaby’s fake CIA persona. His home in Pearland is filled with plaques “from the CIA”. How hard is it to get a fake plaque made?

In our last piece we mentioned how easy it is for someone to obtain a fake CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, or other police ID on the web. It’s also quite easy to get your photo taken with bigwigs.

Carnaby was president of the local chapter of the Association for Intelligence Officers. We wondered if anyone had bothered to check Carnaby’s credentials? Carnaby, whose business was supposedly “hush-hush” was known for showing off his karate and knife skills, his weapons arsenal, and his proficiency with seven languages. He also managed to convey that he was either a “CIA” agent or worked for an “intelligence” agency or even Homeland Security.

Hopefully the Houston PD can sort all the fact from fiction on Carnaby and perhaps ferret out why a man who supposedly was one the CIA’s top cops, chose to end his life last Tuesday morning by the side of a Houston road.

By LBG

Image - Houston PD
Source - Covert Operations and Pornography
Source - Houston Chronicle - Was it a spy or would-be spy, that SUV?
Source - DBKP - Houston Police Officers Shoot Mystery Man Dead After High Speed Chase

Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.