Mount Vernon – The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a federal law enforcement organization within the United States Department of Justice gathered the charred remains of Community Activist Samuel L. Rivers’ firebombed Mercedes, Sunday morning, according to Rivers. The ATF is turning over the evidence to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“We hope Spiezio is put out of business once and for all so he is not allowed to bring this type of destruction to anyone else’s door step,” Mr. Rivers tells BW.
BW exclusively broke the story of Mr Rivers’ Mercedes being firebombed late Friday night at approximately 10:49 P.M., outside of his mother’s house on Rockledge Avenue in Mt. Vernon.
City officials told News 12 that they believe that there was no bomb. While that may very well be the case, BW is told the MVPD is not trained in bomb evidence gathering. So how can the MVPD make a statement like that within hours of the incident without any testing? If a federal agency like the ATF has gathered the evidence and saw fit to turn it over to the FBI, this quite possibly may be much bigger than the MVPD claims.
“The Thomas administration is the most transparent government Mount Vernon has ever seen and some people don’t like it. Now, the truth is, there’s always going to be people that want to keep Mount Vernon down. There are those that were comfortable with the old way of doing business. They want to keep the money in the hands of a select few and that includes some elected officials,” Mayor Thomas says in his statement titled, What Transparency Look Like.
In true transparency, that Mayor Richard Thomas has been proudly proclaiming his administration is about, the investigation should be done by an outside out agency since Mr. Rivers has alleged the attack of his car was a retaliatory act by Deputy MVPD Police Commissioner Joseph Spiezio. The Fraternal Police Organization, Blacks In Law Enforcement of America (BLEA) have been calling for a federal investigation of the MVPD for months.
Mayor Thomas refers the attack on Mr. Rivers as; “a suspicious car fire in front of a political cyber bully’s mom’s house,” in that same statement and again in the Yonkers Tribune.
“The fire is deemed suspicious. Vehicle impound as evidence. Investigating, no suspects at this time,” Acting Police Commissioner Ronald Fatigate tells BW via text message. Fatigate denies that there is a Federal investigation.
One thing is for sure, no matter what side you believe there is much more to this story and this incident is part of a much bigger picture of what is going on in the city of Mount Vernon these days. The BLEA and many others, including several residents speaking at City Council meetings have been calling for the feds to come in and get to the bottom of things for months, well it looks like they may be here now. It just took Sam Rivers’ car being torched to set things in motion.
Stay Tuned to BW for more on the developing story.
***Story updated Sunday, 4:09 P.M. to include Acting Commish Fatigate quote****
