Boeing whistleblower found dead in US
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It would seem the police has concluded it was suicide ( see below) but it today's connected world it has become easy to bring someone to suicide using either social media ( normally traceable) but also phone calls. or simple F2F conversations. involving blackmail.
What I fond odd is the location , if you ae single in a hotel room , why using a shotgun in a parking lot? I hope someone finds out if there was foul play . I'm sure lots of lawyers are going to look into that on behalf of the family. .
Someone sent me this yesterday :
What I fond odd is the location , if you ae single in a hotel room , why using a shotgun in a parking lot? I hope someone finds out if there was foul play . I'm sure lots of lawyers are going to look into that on behalf of the family. .
Someone sent me this yesterday :
WASHINGTON, D.C. | MARCH 13, 2024 — National Whistleblower Center (NWC) grieves the tragic passing of whistleblower, John Barnett.
The Boeing whistleblower was found dead at the age of 62. Barnett’s cause of death has been determined to be self-inflicted.
Barnett’s passing has sent shockwaves through the whistleblower community. As a vocal whistleblower protecting the lives of traveler at one of the largest airlines in the world, Barnett’s contributions to public safety cannot be understated.
At NWC we fight for the rights and the protections of whistleblowers wherever they may be. NWC advocates for effective enforcement and is disgusted by the treatment Mr. Barnett suffered as a whistleblower at Boeing.
Self-harm is a tragic action, no person should be subjected to the anguish and trauma Mr. Barnett has faced. Corruption takes lives and whistleblower like Mr. Barnett protect the public from the abuse of our trust and keep corporations accountable. Whistleblowers like Mr. Barnett deserve to live and to be celebrated.
Boeing’s condolences are not enough to sooth the grief Mr. Barnett’s family must be experiencing today. Real change, the end of corrupt behavior, improved safety, and respect for whistleblower are urgently needed to bring justice to the lives of these courageous fighters. To honor Mr. Barnett’s life, please tell Congress to hold Boeing accountable by fully investigating and correcting the safety failures Mr. Barnett reported.
Our condolences go out to Mr. Barnett’s family, and any person who is currently struggling with the aftermath of experiencing retaliation or grieving the loss of a whistleblower. You are not alone. If you or someone you know is struggling with harmful thoughts or depression, help is available.
NWC Executive Director Siri Nelson is available for comment.
The Boeing whistleblower was found dead at the age of 62. Barnett’s cause of death has been determined to be self-inflicted.
Barnett’s passing has sent shockwaves through the whistleblower community. As a vocal whistleblower protecting the lives of traveler at one of the largest airlines in the world, Barnett’s contributions to public safety cannot be understated.
At NWC we fight for the rights and the protections of whistleblowers wherever they may be. NWC advocates for effective enforcement and is disgusted by the treatment Mr. Barnett suffered as a whistleblower at Boeing.
Self-harm is a tragic action, no person should be subjected to the anguish and trauma Mr. Barnett has faced. Corruption takes lives and whistleblower like Mr. Barnett protect the public from the abuse of our trust and keep corporations accountable. Whistleblowers like Mr. Barnett deserve to live and to be celebrated.
Boeing’s condolences are not enough to sooth the grief Mr. Barnett’s family must be experiencing today. Real change, the end of corrupt behavior, improved safety, and respect for whistleblower are urgently needed to bring justice to the lives of these courageous fighters. To honor Mr. Barnett’s life, please tell Congress to hold Boeing accountable by fully investigating and correcting the safety failures Mr. Barnett reported.
Our condolences go out to Mr. Barnett’s family, and any person who is currently struggling with the aftermath of experiencing retaliation or grieving the loss of a whistleblower. You are not alone. If you or someone you know is struggling with harmful thoughts or depression, help is available.
NWC Executive Director Siri Nelson is available for comment.
As a vocal whistleblower protecting the lives of traveler at one of the largest airlines in the world, Barnett’s contributions to public safety cannot be understated.
Let's hope the local Sherrif and or Coroner haven't suddenly become significantly wealthier.
One curiosity is the media’s continued use of images for the Holiday Inn Riverview even though the location of the suicide was the Holiday Inn Express at 17 & 526, which is a couple of miles west of the Riverview location.
AFAICR, the depositions would remain admissible, and could only be impeached by evidence showing they were altered, at least under the laws of another English speaking nation.
Also,
Spirit mechanics were reportedly found using a hotel key card to check a door seal, which isn’t standard practice.
Sound a bit like a Mercedes Benz mechanic setting the valve clearances using a ringpull tab.
If he was harbouring a grievance against Boeing and was already suicidal then intimating that he was not suicidal - and that should anything happen it definitely wasn’t suicide - then taking your own life would certainly be a way of upping the ante so to speak.
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The unfounded speculation in this thread has already slipped into the realm of "conspiranoia." There's absolutely no good reason to think that Barnett's death would provide Boeing (or anyone else, as far as we know) a major advantage or benefit, certainly not one that would outweigh the surge in reputational damage in an already-damaging case. And we don't really believe Boeing is assassinating whistleblowers, now do we?
According to the reports by the police and coroner, so far, this tragic event looks very much like a suicide. Some of you seem to think that the local authorities were likely bribed or otherwise influenced to alter their findings. That's not impossible, of course, but it is unlikely in the extreme — so unlikely that promoting the notion without evidence is both nonsensical and reckless.
You should stop it.
According to the reports by the police and coroner, so far, this tragic event looks very much like a suicide. Some of you seem to think that the local authorities were likely bribed or otherwise influenced to alter their findings. That's not impossible, of course, but it is unlikely in the extreme — so unlikely that promoting the notion without evidence is both nonsensical and reckless.
You should stop it.
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I'd like to add, cautiously, a little bit different perspective. The whistleblower's deposition was in progress, set of continue (if I recall the news reports) the next day.
First, a somewhat sanitized story about a suicide of a prinicipal witness in a case I worked on some years back. The man was not a whistleblower per se, but rather the "ringleader" of the defection of a large cadre of employees of a client, who picked up en masse and moved to a competitor in the exact same line(s) of business. A competitor who was (at that time) only about ten times larger, and who also happened to be based in a large, and distant, U.S. ally. Fast-paced litigation ensued, based on the departing employees being subject to contractual agreements barring their use of company trade secrets in the service of a competitor. The case was resolved on terms mostly favoring my firm's client, with the ringleader being ordered by the court to adhere to more stringent restrictions than the others in the cadre (and to say more would leech over into "inside baseball").
Some time later we learned the ringleader had taken his own life. The word we received was that as he planned to lead the scheme to raid his employer and take an entire group to the competitor business, he had developed significant expectations of financial and other big-time status and success. And that these expectations spread to the group of employees who left the client with him. Which expectations, due to the illegality of the raid and the success in the court action against it, had not materialized, or not materialized nearly enough. This explanation was consistent with other information of a factual nature in the case record. Including deposition testimony.
It seems quite reasonable to think the whistleblower in similar fashion plausibly may have anticipated some level of reward - perhaps financial, perhaps in other forms - for his courageous exposure of Boeing's problems. Possibly in the course of the deposition, which still was in progress, the cold, harsh realities of the American legal process were brought into painfully stark relief. Lengthy and very difficult and tedious phases of the litigation process were yet to unfold, and if some rewards beyond the moral high ground had been envisioned, perhaps those hopes or expectations had crashed beyond recovery. I'm not saying this is what pushed the man to the brink and then over it - only that severely disappointed expectations relating to a major and risky personal decision could be the reason.
I hope his attorneys find a way to weave this tragic loss of a courageous seeker of truth into the claims still being litigated; just as an individual SLF who happens also to practice law, I believe Boeing holds indirect responsibility, morally at least, if not legally.
First, a somewhat sanitized story about a suicide of a prinicipal witness in a case I worked on some years back. The man was not a whistleblower per se, but rather the "ringleader" of the defection of a large cadre of employees of a client, who picked up en masse and moved to a competitor in the exact same line(s) of business. A competitor who was (at that time) only about ten times larger, and who also happened to be based in a large, and distant, U.S. ally. Fast-paced litigation ensued, based on the departing employees being subject to contractual agreements barring their use of company trade secrets in the service of a competitor. The case was resolved on terms mostly favoring my firm's client, with the ringleader being ordered by the court to adhere to more stringent restrictions than the others in the cadre (and to say more would leech over into "inside baseball").
Some time later we learned the ringleader had taken his own life. The word we received was that as he planned to lead the scheme to raid his employer and take an entire group to the competitor business, he had developed significant expectations of financial and other big-time status and success. And that these expectations spread to the group of employees who left the client with him. Which expectations, due to the illegality of the raid and the success in the court action against it, had not materialized, or not materialized nearly enough. This explanation was consistent with other information of a factual nature in the case record. Including deposition testimony.
It seems quite reasonable to think the whistleblower in similar fashion plausibly may have anticipated some level of reward - perhaps financial, perhaps in other forms - for his courageous exposure of Boeing's problems. Possibly in the course of the deposition, which still was in progress, the cold, harsh realities of the American legal process were brought into painfully stark relief. Lengthy and very difficult and tedious phases of the litigation process were yet to unfold, and if some rewards beyond the moral high ground had been envisioned, perhaps those hopes or expectations had crashed beyond recovery. I'm not saying this is what pushed the man to the brink and then over it - only that severely disappointed expectations relating to a major and risky personal decision could be the reason.
I hope his attorneys find a way to weave this tragic loss of a courageous seeker of truth into the claims still being litigated; just as an individual SLF who happens also to practice law, I believe Boeing holds indirect responsibility, morally at least, if not legally.
Last edited by WillowRun 6-3; 19th Mar 2024 at 02:38.
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I'd like to add, cautiously, a little bit different perspective. The whistleblower's deposition was in progress, set to continue (if I recall the news reports) the next day. . . . Possibly in the course of the deposition, which still was in progress, the cold, harsh realities of the American legal process were brought into painfully stark relief.
As you know, but not everyone does, being deposed is seldom a peasant experience and being deposed by high-powered, take-no-prisoners litigators in a case as hotly contested as this one is likely to be a pretty brutal experience. I've seen people shattered in relatively-minor business lawsuits where the stakes weren't nearly as high.
I hope his attorneys find a way to weave this tragic loss of a courageous seeker of truth into the claims still being litigated; just as an individual SLF who happens also to practice law, I believe Boeing holds indirect responsibility, morally at least, if not legally.
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And we don't really believe Boeing is assassinating whistleblowers, now do we?
I'd like to add, cautiously, a little bit different perspective. The whistleblower's deposition was in progress, set of continue (if I recall the news reports) the next day.
First, a somewhat sanitized story about a suicide of a prinicipal witness in a case I worked on some years back. The man was not a whistleblower per se, but rather the "ringleader" of the defection of a large cadre of employees of a client, who picked up en masse and moved to a competitor in the exact same line(s) of business. A competitor who was (at that time) only about ten times larger, and who also happened to be based in a large, and distant, U.S. ally. Fact-paced litigation ensured, based on the departing employees being subject to contractual agreements barring their use of company trade secrets in the service of a competitor. The case was resolved on terms mostly favoring my firm's client, with the ringleader being ordered by the court to adhere to more stringent restrictions than the others in the cadre (and to say more would leech over into "inside baseball").
Some time later we learned the ringleader had taken his own life. The word we received was that as he planned to lead the scheme to raid his employer and take an entire group to the competitor business, he had developed significant expectations of financial and other big-time status and success. And that these expectations spread to the group of employees who left the client with him. Which expectations, due to the illegality of the raid and the success in the court action against it, had not materialized, or not materialized nearly enough. This explanation was consistent with other information of a factual nature in the case record. Including deposition testimony.
It seems quite reasonable to think the whistleblower in similar fashion plausibly may have anticipated some level of reward - perhaps financial, perhaps in other forms - for his courageous exposure of Boeing's problems. Possibly in the course of the deposition, which still was in progress, the cold, harsh realities of the American legal process were brought into painfully stark relief. Lengthy and very difficult and tedious phases of the litigation process were yet to unfold, and if some rewards beyond the moral high ground had been envisioned, perhaps those hopes or expectations had crashed beyond recovery. I'm not saying this is what pushed the man to the brink and then over it - only that severely disappointed expectations relating to a major and risky personal decision could be the reason.
I hope his attorneys find a way to weave this tragic loss of a courageous seeker of truth into the claims still being litigated; just as an individual SLF who happens also to practice law, I believe Boeing holds indirect responsibility, morally at least, if not legally.
First, a somewhat sanitized story about a suicide of a prinicipal witness in a case I worked on some years back. The man was not a whistleblower per se, but rather the "ringleader" of the defection of a large cadre of employees of a client, who picked up en masse and moved to a competitor in the exact same line(s) of business. A competitor who was (at that time) only about ten times larger, and who also happened to be based in a large, and distant, U.S. ally. Fact-paced litigation ensured, based on the departing employees being subject to contractual agreements barring their use of company trade secrets in the service of a competitor. The case was resolved on terms mostly favoring my firm's client, with the ringleader being ordered by the court to adhere to more stringent restrictions than the others in the cadre (and to say more would leech over into "inside baseball").
Some time later we learned the ringleader had taken his own life. The word we received was that as he planned to lead the scheme to raid his employer and take an entire group to the competitor business, he had developed significant expectations of financial and other big-time status and success. And that these expectations spread to the group of employees who left the client with him. Which expectations, due to the illegality of the raid and the success in the court action against it, had not materialized, or not materialized nearly enough. This explanation was consistent with other information of a factual nature in the case record. Including deposition testimony.
It seems quite reasonable to think the whistleblower in similar fashion plausibly may have anticipated some level of reward - perhaps financial, perhaps in other forms - for his courageous exposure of Boeing's problems. Possibly in the course of the deposition, which still was in progress, the cold, harsh realities of the American legal process were brought into painfully stark relief. Lengthy and very difficult and tedious phases of the litigation process were yet to unfold, and if some rewards beyond the moral high ground had been envisioned, perhaps those hopes or expectations had crashed beyond recovery. I'm not saying this is what pushed the man to the brink and then over it - only that severely disappointed expectations relating to a major and risky personal decision could be the reason.
I hope his attorneys find a way to weave this tragic loss of a courageous seeker of truth into the claims still being litigated; just as an individual SLF who happens also to practice law, I believe Boeing holds indirect responsibility, morally at least, if not legally.
There's absolutely no good reason to think that Barnett's death would provide Boeing (or anyone else, as far as we know) a major advantage or benefit, certainly not one that would outweigh the surge in reputational damage in an already-damaging case. And we don't really believe Boeing is assassinating whistleblowers, now do we?
Hypothetically the benefit would be to scare other whistle-blowers who have been retaliated against, coming forward and launching their own court cases. Also the reputational damage of a 'suicide' is far less than the publicity of a precedent being set against Boeing and the media focussing on this poor person, when he won his court case.