#and for the other the state gov is just letting the calls go to voicemail

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

Wip Wednesday

Untitled fic (Correspondence)

Summary/Story so far: HotchReid, slow burn, AU where Reid never joined the FBI, but got roped into consulting for the LA field office while working and teaching at Caltech. Hotch gets his email from a fellow agent, and they start to work on cases together -- until they start talking on a regular basis. Regular becomes frequent, frequent becomes constant. We are now months into this... tentative thing that is beyond friendship, beyond flirtatious, they still don't know much about each other on paper... but this feels a lot like dating. And then one day, Hotch abruptly stops answering his phone.

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)

(Set in season 6, unbeta'd, still the first draft, text/email templates are temporary)

((Notes: Spencer's POV this time, he is 29 and working at CalTech, Hotch still doesn't know how old he is though he does know that he's at least younger than 45 now. Hotch has been MIA now for about 18 hours.))

.

Spencer spends way too long online that morning, searching for anything about the case Hotch is working. There's nothing about a raid, or a shooting, or even an arrest -- which could all just be apart of the ongoing media blackout -- but it also does nothing to stop him from panicking. 

With a drafted email pulled up to Ms. Penelope Garcia, the BAU's personal tech analyst, he ponders how to... even word this without it sounding too personal. Too much like he and Hotch have more than just a working relationship.

Because they do. They have... something.

Something that gives him fluttering sensations in his stomach, makes him check his phone constantly, and react to even the slightest chime similar to his text tone. Makes him smile when he sees Hotch's name on his notifications, in his email inbox, makes him message the man in the middle of the day at the most random thoughts. Just because he wants to make him laugh.

.

[]You're going to get me in trouble.

[][]Did I make you smile?

[]I'm at a crime scene. There's a dead body in front of me.

[][]Then why are you checking your phone?

[]You know why.

.

But that’s not something that is shared with the rest of the team, he’s sure. So he should be careful how he words his email, lest Ms. Garcia realize that Spencer isn’t asking purely as a colleague. 

Surely they know he has friends, though?

Chewing his lip, Spencer types out a brief email asking if Agent Hotchner is feeling well since he missed an appointment the night before and hasn’t been returning his calls. It’s a phrase he’s used often, so it comes naturally to Spencer as he types it out, and he realizes… he hasn’t called. He’s sent a dozen text messages, but not a phone call. Never a phone call. That was against the rules. 

He looks to his phone beside him on his desk, and tries to fight back the dueling forms of panic clawing at his chest. Panic that Hotch might not answer, panic what that means for the man he’s been… becoming more and more inclined to than any other person he’s met in so long. Panic if he does answer, breaking that barrier of written words to spoken, and the opportunity to hear Hotch’s voice. But he would also hear Spencer’s, and then there would be no hiding just how… how young he really is.

But his phone is in his hand before he can stop himself, and Hotch’s contact pulled up and his thumb hovering over the phone number with baited breath. 

Was he really going to do this?

He presses the touch screen and can hear the line connecting, the dial tone ring even before he gets the phone up to his ear and waits. It rings, and rings, and rings a fourth time -- before clicking over to voicemail. And Spencer’s hyper-fast thought processes realize he’s going to hear Hotch’s voice for the first time. Frozen in a panic, unsure if he wants to or if that had been something he wanted them to do together that the seconds slip by and suddenly it’s too late.

“You’ve reached the voicemail box of -- (703)-567-8790 -- this caller is not available. Please leave a message after the tone--”

It’s an automated, female voice that rattles off the numbers and generic call back message, and Spencer hangs up before it can begin recording him. Exhaling a shaky breath, that nothing had been ruined between him and Hotch thanks to an ill-timed phone call. 

He keeps the momentum going without much thought, and adjusts his email to Ms. Garcia before sending it. 

It feels so understated, and yet over dramatic the more he thinks about it. The more he reads it.

.

Please let me know of his well-being.

.

God, no wonder Hotch thought he was in his 60’s. 

But Spencer has to keep the façade up, not give away anything he doesn’t want to just because the emotional part of his brain is running rampant over the rational one. There are… many explanations as to why Hotch isn’t answering him. His gut feeling aside, he doesn’t need to be panicking like this. The world is still turning, he still has work to do, so Spencer tries to gather himself into some semblance of order and preps to talk to his doctoral students within the hour.

.

--

.

His morning routine progresses as usual, to start. Dr. Reid has his mandatory round up with his doctoral candidates going over thesis and dissertation parameters, class lecture schedules, updates, the works. Like morning announcements, but he requires them all to be there and to listen, and they all show up. Everyone knows of Spencer’s eidetic memory. He will certainly not forget a single date or schedule change, and he expects his students to not forget as well. 

But this morning Spencer is fully distracted, his mind elsewhere, somewhere in the state of Delaware with an agent who may or may not be in danger. Because Spencer cannot shake the feeling that something is wrong. It almost seems more like a fact than a feeling. 

He becomes even more distracted when his email pings, a response from Ms. Garcia of Quantico, VA flashing across his laptop screen, right in the middle of his department announcements. Spencer’s eyes skim the preview sentence in the pop-up box, and his voice trails off as his mind… whirls. 

.

Dr. Reid, I’m sorry to tell you I don’t know when Hotch will be available again. There was an incident, and he’s still in surg-

.

Surgery.

Surgery.

That vice-like grip of worry that has taken hold of him since last night tightens further, to the point Spencer can’t breathe. Hotch is hurt, he’s in surgery, and if he hasn’t been answering his phone since last night -- or even late yesterday afternoon -- it was not a minor thing.

Hotch is hurt. 

“Dr. Reid? Are you okay?”

“I--” he’s still looking at the email pop-up box, and is clicking on it before he can stop himself. Immediately disconnecting his laptop from the projector as his email loads there. It takes him a faction of a second to read the email. “I’m sorry, an emergency just came up. Kimmy, finish reading off the schedule for me?” He doesn’t even wait until she answers him, just picks up his laptop and retreats to his office as fast as his long legs will carry him.

.

--surgery and we’re still waiting on word. I know you 2 talk on the reg so I’ll keep you posted. 

Fret not, genius professor, our fearless leader has been through much worse than this.

.

She’s using informal speech patterns, which she has never done before. It bleeds her nervousness, and worries Spencer even more. Ms. Garcia also revealed she knows he and Hotch talk, but surprisingly that doesn’t have the effect he thought it would on his already rattled nerves. Instead, any and all reservations fall away as he types out a response much in the same way he and Hotch had started their friendship all those months ago.

.

Please, is there anything you are allowed to tell me about the case or his condition? We --

.

Spencer pauses, bites his lip as he considers crossing this boundary into the uncomfortable unknown, and then thinks about Hotch on a hospital operating table three thousand miles away.

“Screw it,” he mutters and continues to type.

.

--We’ve become good friends and I’m very worried.

.

The reply is almost immediate.

.

That makes 2 of us, boy wonder, but I’m already hacked into the hospital records database and Prentiss is in the waiting room.

I’m sending you the case files and the incident report from last night. Maybe you can see some shiz we can’t b/c the bossman is tough but he’s been in surgery a long time. 

.

Of course, whatever he can do to help. Spencer’s heavy heart-beat triples in his chest as pulls up the files and immediately prints them out so he can read through them faster. But then his mind sticks on something from the email. 

Boy Wonder.

Ms. Garcia knows how young he is.

She must have done a background check on him, that would make sense since he’s been consulting so much lately. But why would Garcia know his age, and not Hotch?

.

Ms. Garcia, did you update my dossier with the bureau after you ran my background check?

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If you’re referring to why Hotch seems to think you’re rocking the senior discount at restaurants and not still getting carded for beer, then no I didn’t update it. I’m very anti-gov files having every detail of our lives in them, that’s what I’m for, and I figured there was a reason he didn’t know. Your secret is safe with me, sugar bean.

.

The real reason is Agent Anderson of the LA field office is a dick, with a bully streak he never outgrew after high school, and didn’t bother filling out a full file on him the first time Spencer consulted for the FBI. Then, he couldn’t be bothered to update it when his consultations became more than a one time thing.

But that was all in the past now, and Spencer can’t even be upset about it. Because now he has Hotch.

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Thank you, Ms. Garcia. I’ll let you know my findings soon.

.

He skims the file quickly, pulling information out at lightning speed. It appears a very straight-forward case. As straight-forward as a murderous sociopath can be, anyway. Very anti-establishment, specified targets that devolved to anyone in a uniform. Anyone who appears too official, or lables as official. 

It’s easy to see, now why the unsub attacked Hotch instead of running from him. He practically served himself up on a silver platter. But there’s something about the kills that’s bothering Spencer. The knife wounds, bludgeoning, even the gunshots during the first murders -- it’s all overkill. Rage. Every single target has died from massive internal bleeding, M.E. reports all label the knife wounds and beatings as the cause. But the amount of blood left over, measured during autopsy, doesn’t add up. They bled too much. No wounds indicating intentional bleeding occurred, and the tox screens are all clean. 

Except, every victim has elevated potassium rates.

“Oh, God,” Spencer whispers, quiet and horrified. “Hotch.”

There’s no time for email.

He picks up his phone, goes to an older email that has full contact details in the footer, and dials Ms. Garcia’s direct line in Quantico.

“Speak, and behold greatness.”

“Ms. Garcia, it’s Dr. Reid,” Spencer says, and his tone and quickened speech patterns gives way to his panic.

“Dr-- Dr. Reid?” 

“Yes, quick there’s no time. Do you have Hotch’s hospital records in front of you still?” 

“Yes,” Garcia says, her voice a musical thing even in it’s breathless reaction to his heightened state of haste. “Updated every two minutes.”

“Is his potassium elevated?”

Some quick typing of keys that move faster than even he could ever hope to type. “... Yes.”

God. “Okay, okay I need you to call the hospital right now,” Spencer says in a spiel that all sounds like one word. “Whatever you have to do, he needs Sodium Polystyrene Sulfonate as soon as possible, to counteract the chemical imbalance or he’s going to go into kidney failure and bleed out.”

.

tbc...

[thisdaynews]

WikiLeaks, dog threats and a fake death notice: Roger Stone's odd friendship with Randy Credico

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/wikileaks-dog-threats-and-a-fake-death-notice-roger-stones-odd-friendship-with-randy-credico/

WikiLeaks, dog threats and a fake death notice: Roger Stone's odd friendship with Randy Credico

Credico’s 90-minute grilling by Stone defense lawyer Robert Buschel was high drama. Stone’s team painted Credico as a habitual liar who had repeatedly portrayed himself as someone who actually was in close contact with WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange as it mysteriously hinted that a huge dump of politically explosive material was coming.

As Credico and Buschel sparred, the judge presiding over the trial had to intervene multiple times. At one point, the witness simply threw up his hands and shouted back at his questioner.

“OK. I’m the big back channel!” Credico shouted, his answer laced with sarcasm. “I mean, come on, buddy.”

While Stone seems to have been the dominant figure in the relationship between the odd pair, Buschel contended that Credico’s repeated suggestions he had close ties to Assange and his inner circle actually backed up Stone’s case.

“So when Roger Stone got the impression you were an intermediary a go-between between WikiLeaks, you played him,” the defense lawyer said, prompting an objection from the prosecution. “You thought that you played Roger Stone?”

“That I played Roger Stone?,” Credico said incredulously. “I had to get Roger Stone off of my back, my friend.”

Stone and Credico actually have a working relationship going back more than a dozen years. It started with Credico’s work on a third-party New York gubernatorial campaign in 2002, included their mutual interest in reforming the state’s drug laws and later featured the two men appearing on each other’s radio shows as guests even though they are polar political opposites. The ties have also been strained and ruptured on several occasions.

Back in 2011, Stone blasted out on social media that Credico had died of a drug overdose, a practical joke that Credico said alarmed his friends and family. Things kept going south in the wake of the 2016 campaign as Stone started implying that his way into the world around Assange was through someone he eventually identified as Credico.

The claim ended up pulling Credico into a legal thicket that continues to this day. But in the aftermath of a presidential campaign that divided the country, Credico said he feared his standing with his left-leaning friends would be destroyed as the Watergate-era operative and showman pointed to him publicly as his so-called “back channel” to WikiLeaks.

“I can’t work on his level,” the entertainer and activist said from the witness stand. “He plays hardball. He throws a lot of junk and I didn’t want to get hit.”

Stone looked on impassively during Credico’s tumultuous testimony, leaning in to look at exhibits being displayed on a TV monitor at the defense table and occasionally using a Sharpie to jot notes on pink index cards and pass them to his lawyers.

During a rapid-fire series of questions from a federal prosecutor earlier Friday, Credico acknowledged repeatedly that he felt intimidated as Stone urged him in 2017 and 2018 to avoid speaking to congressional and FBI investigators who’d been asking their own uncomfortable questions about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“I did not want to rile Mr. Stone,” Credico answered near the end of a 90-minute exchange of direct testimony that opened day four of Stone’s trial.

A federal grand jury Washington indicted Stone in January for deceiving lawmakers by concealing earlier efforts to dispatch a right-wing journalist, Jerome Corsi, to gather damaging Clinton emails from Assange. Stone is also charged with pressing Credico to stay silent in the face of government investigations by threatening his omnipresent therapy dog Bianca and making other overtures.

While Credico’s testimony bolstered prosecutors’ allegations that Stone lied and ignored repeated pleas from Credico to retract his testimony, one portion of what the liberal activist said on cross-examination appeared to undercut the most serious of the seven felony counts Stone faces — the charge of witness tampering.

The indictment against Stone treats an email he sent Credico in April 2018 as a serious threat. In the message, Stone calls him “a rat” and “a stoolie” and vows to “take that dog away from you.”

But Stone’s defense managed to get Credico to acknowledge that he did not think Stone would ever actually harm Credico’s dog.

Stone is a “dog lover,” Credico said on the witness stand. “I don’t think he was going to steal my dog. I think he was pretty riled up at that time. … I know he wouldn’t have ever touched that dog. It was hyperbole by him.”

That same email exchange also had another warning: “Lets get it on. Prepare to die, cocksucker.” It’s a statement that also appears in the Stone indictment, but it’s unclear whether prosecutors are arguing that Stone was actually threatening to kill Credico.

Prosecutors alleged that Stone’s effort to pressure Credico included threatening to reveal the role of one of Credico’s longtime friends in their discussions about WikiLeaks. The friend, Margaret Kunstler, was one of many lawyers working with Assange.

Credico testified that he emailed Kunstler at Stone’s behest in September 2016 asking a couple of questions about the possibility of WikiLeaks having some documents relating to Clinton’s Libya policies. Credico said he didn’t treat the request seriously, sending the message to an old America Online account he knew Kunstler wouldn’t regularly check hoping it would get Stone to stop asking him about the topic.

More than a year later, when Credico was considering what to say to investigators and the media, Stone dangled the prospect of making information about Credico’s outreach to Kunstler public.

“She’s a very close friend of mine,” Credico said, struggling to maintain his composure. “She’s an older woman. And, uh, I didn’t want to drag her through this. I didn’t want to drag her name through this.”

Stone, meantime, kept bringing up Kunstler’s name throughout 2018. In one text message from May, Stone wrote to Credico: “You are so full of shit. You got nothing. Keep running your mouth and I’ll file a bar complaint against your friend Margaret.”

Asked if he remained concerned about what Stone could do with respect to Kunstler throughout 2018, Credico replied “yes.” He added later, “That was the crux of it.”

Kuntsler also appeared as a government witness Friday, where she testified she had no inside knowledge about Assange’s efforts during the 2016 campaign. She also testified that she all but ignored Credico’s email asking for her help to pass along a message to Assange requesting information about the Clinton emails. It was an inappropriate thing for an attorney to do, and she said she let Credico know it.

“I told him I was not pleased that he did that,” she said. “The implication of that was he shouldn’t do it again.”

Government prosecutors have released emails and elicited testimony that showed Stone used other tactics to try to keep Credico quiet, including an April exchange where Stone wrote, “I’m going to take that dog away from you. Not a fucking thing you can do about it either because you are a weak piece of shit.”

Credico testified that he had no immediate family besides a sister, and Stone knew the importance of the dog. “I’m sure he did. I was with a dog. I’d been around the dog for the previous 12 years,” he said.

Stone had also tangled with Credico in other ways. On Thursday, the liberal activist said the two men had a falling out in 2011 after Stone sent out word on the internet that Credico was dead. “It caused some problems,” Credico said. “It’s a big practical joke except by my friends and family.”

They talked about another incident in March 2018, after Stone published ablog postthat further explained their relationship. Stone wrote about how he was “probably over dramatizing the role” Credico played as his backchannel to WikiLeaks. He also described in the article a purported incident where Credico did a Stone impression on a late-night voicemail message left for the father of New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer.

On the witness stand, Credico denied that he made any such call to “old man Spitzer.”

“First of all, it was so absurd. Who’d want to do something like that? I don’t even know the guy,” Credico said.

That was one of many incidents between Credico and Stone. “We’ve had many, you know, squabbles,” Credico said.

All that bad blood found its way into court, which Buschel tried to highlight during his cross-examination. “You have lied to him throughout the years?” Stone’s lawyer asked.

“You really want to go into that, about lies?” Credico replied.

At another point, Credico complained that Buschel was hairsplitting and quoting him inaccurately. “Is that the exact words? That’s not the exact words,” Credico snapped. “You’re paraphrasing. Why don’t you just give it to me directly.”

As the two men heatedly talked over each other, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson jumped in to call a time-out.

After Credico apologized, the judge replied, “I’m not saying you did anything wrong. I’m just trying to calm things down here.”

Read More

[kacydeneen]

FDOT Warned Avoiding Cracks in FIU Bridge Would Be 'Tricky'

Within six hours of the Florida International University pedestrian bridge collapsing, killing six, Gov. Rick Scott’s press office sent out a “fact sheet” that claimed his Department of Transportation (FDOT) had little to do with the project.

In emails obtained by the NBC 6 Investigators, members of the FIU’s project team almost immediately expressed “shock” at the governor’s “misstatements and misinformation,” calling the press release “fake news” and saying FDOT had “extensive involvement.”

“This is so not accurate and we were shocked” by FDOT’s claims, wrote Ken Jessell, FIU’s chief financial officer, to a senior staff member at the state university system.

“FDOT was involved every step of the way…Every plan was reviewed and signed off by FDOT,” he said. 

In its March 15 statement, FDOT said it did just a “routine preliminary review” of the project, while issuing traffic permits, passing through federal money and authorizing FIU to occupy the space above Eighth Street for what was to be its showcase concrete pedestrian bridge.

But records obtained by the NBC 6 Investigators suggest the state was much more involved and concerned than it has let on.

FDOT engineer Thomas Andres, who oversees bridge design plans, informed FIU’s design-build team nearly two years before the bridge came crashing down that avoiding cracking in the bridge during construction would be difficult.

Commenting on the bridge’s preliminary plans on March 25, 2016, Andres wrote “maintaining stress limits throughout all intermittent phases to avoid cracking of the members will be extremely tricky” and he expressed concern that the early design may not have adequately compensated for “shear” – the very force that engineers say appears to have led to the bridge’s collapse.

What, if anything, FIU’s design-build team - FIGG Bridge Engineers and Munilla Construction Management (MCM) did in subsequent designs to address FDOT’s concerns is not yet known.

The companies say they are prohibited from commenting while they participate in the National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the failure.

FDOT has not responded for weeks to requests for emails and other records that may shed light on what FDOT did or did not do to make sure their concerns were addressed. Nor would FDOT or Andres answer questions about Andres’ role and how it may conflict with the state’s claim that FDOT was barely involved in the design plans.

An NBC 6 public records request with FIU for all emails mentioning Andres’ name and any responses to his concerns is also pending.

But this we did confirm: A telephone message from FIGG’s bridge engineer, Denney Pate, informing FDOT of cracking in the bridge two days before the collapse was left with Thomas Andres - the same engineer in the state structures design office who early on expressed concerns about potential cracking and design issues.

Pate described for Andres “some cracking that’s been observed on the north end of the span...and obviously some repairs or whatever will have to be done but from a safety perspective we don’t see that there’s any issue.”

FDOT said Andres did not listen to the voicemail until March 16, the day after the collapse, and FDOT and Andres have so far declined to say what Andres might have done had he heard it, including possibly ordering closure of Eighth Street.

The NBC 6 Investigators showed Andres’ comments, along with plans, calculations and other documents obtained through public records requests, to Al Brizuela, a Miami-based professional engineer.

“He’s thinking this is going to be problematic,” Brizuela said, referring to how the complex, aggressively designed truss bridge was going to be stressed before it was lifted, rotated and placed on supports above Eighth Street.

That operation was completed the morning of Saturday, March 10, and severe cracking was documented on the north end of the span within days.

The failure on March 15 came in that same area, as a work crew was carrying out previously unplanned re-stressing of steel bars that ran through a diagonal truss on that north end of the 175-foot span – an attempt, some engineers have theorized, to close the cracks that had formed on that truss.

The process is called “post-tensioning” and it is one of the things Andres warned about two years earlier, writing “predicting where the (post-tensioning) stressing actually goes will be tricky.”

While Brizuela cautions that not all the plans have been released – so any opinion is not yet fully informed - he questions whether the final plans and actual construction took into account Andres’ concerns about the careful sequencing of stressing bars and cables that run through the deck, canopy and trusses.

Even before the apparently fatal decision to re-stress the truss in the area of the failure on the day of the collapse, there is conflicting information in the available record about the sequence of stressing.

For instance, calculations done by FIGG dated Feb. 10, 2017, assumed stressing would begin with tendons in the canopy and post-tension bars in the two outermost diagonal trusses, followed by tendons in the deck.

But plans dated April 7, 2017 - marked “for construction” and signed and sealed by FIGG’s engineer Pate – call for the tendons in the deck to be stressed first, followed by the canopy and then the post-tension bars in the outermost trusses.

Also, a February 2018 memo from Bolton Perez & Associates, engineers hired by FIU to inspect the design-build team’s work, states the northernmost diagonal truss was stressed a day before its southern-end counterpart in late January, in preparation for the move to above Eighth Street. But the plans released so far call for those trusses to be stressed in the opposite order.

“They did it backwards,” Brizuela said, though again cautioning that is only an assumption based on the records available publicly so far. Another record appears to state they were stressed on the same day.

Moreover, it is not known whether altering those stressing sequences would make a significant difference in calculations conducted to determine if the structure can withstand the forces being applied to it during and after construction.

But, in his comments, Andres refers repeatedly to the importance of adopting the proper stressing sequence.

He said all 12 members of the main span “may have to be stressed to avoid cracking.” The “for construction” drawings released so far reveal that was not done for all 12 members.

Andres also warned that “the web truss will be very difficult to form without shrinkage cracking” on some of the members.

Cracking was indeed observed on two of those members on February 6 - one week after tension was applied to adjacent trusses, as the main span was being prepared on the roadside for lifting and movement to its resting place over the highway. Further, larger cracks were found weeks later on each end of the main span before the move.

Another concern of Andres that may not have been adequately addressed in subsequent plans: an 8-inch diameter drain pipe running down the bottom center of the deck “will likely create a weak point which will be a crack initiation point,” Andres noted.

Brizuela said the “for construction” plans he reviewed did not show any significant change in the design of the drain pipe, which remained at the same location and the same size.

Andres submitted his comments on the preliminary design into an FIU document called an “over-the-shoulder review” on March 25, 2016, according to records released by FIU.

He stated the comments were “for information only. No response is required. The comments are intended to assist in providing general feedback to the (design-build firm).”

Four weeks later, a FIGG bridge engineer acknowledged the comments, saying they were “intended to assist in progressing the (design-build firm’s) concept to 90% plans.”

On April 25, 2016 the record reflects Andres accepted that response and closed the comments section.

Taken as a whole, Brizuela said, Andres’ comments point to some of the same issues that he believes ultimately contributed to if not caused the bridge to collapse.

“He’s pointing out what’s going to happen. What could happen,” Brizuela said, concluding, “Unfortunately it looks like he was kind of predicting what was going to happen.”

Given Andres’ concerns about potential cracking and shear forces built into the original plans, Brizuela wonders what Andres would have done had he received Pate’s March 13 voicemail.

“I think he would’ve stopped traffic,” Brizuela suggested. “That’s the only thing you can do at that point. You want to protect the public.”

FDOT said it possesses no email discussing cracks in the week before the collapse, though FDOT’s local agency project assistant coordinator did attend a meeting held on the morning of the collapse where Pate and others, from MCM and FIU, discussed the cracks.

After that meeting adjourned, a crew from Structural Technologies was carrying out orders to re-stress bars in the northernmost diagonal truss, directly above where the most severe cracks had formed, when 950 tons of concrete collapsed onto the road below, killing a Structural employee who was working on the canopy and five people in cars below.

In addition to Andres not listening to his voicemail for three days while “out of the office on assignment,” there’s also no evidence he saw photographs of the cracks taken on March 13 by MCM and March 14 by Bolton Perez & Associates.

Brizuela said any engineer who did see those photos or the cracks themselves should have heard a clear message: “The bridge is failing. Once you see cracks (such as those in the photographs) in concrete, we know there’s a failure occurring within the concrete.”

FDOT Warned Avoiding Cracks in FIU Bridge Would Be 'Tricky' published first on Miami News