Ethereal
01-28-2016, 06:36 AM
Long story short, an activist in Fresno, California named John Lang claimed on social media that the Fresno Police Department were going to have him murdered. Five days later, he was found dead in his residence. Via the Fresno Bee:
Man found dead after suspicious central Fresno fire identified (http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/crime/article56494078.html)
John Lang, 51, sustained stab wounds
A man who died in a central Fresno fire that police described as suspicious was identified as John Lang, 51.
The man had multiple stab wounds to his abdomen and upper back, authorities said.
The house fire occurred Wednesday at 648 North Van Ness Avenue, just north of Belmont Avenue. Fresno police reported the man’s body was found around 3:15 p.m. by Fresno firefighters inside the house.
He was not responsive when firefighters found him. He was rushed to Community Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
It is unclear whether he died as a result of the stab wounds or the blaze, which damaged much of the home. Investigators are looking into the cause of the fire.
No one else was found inside, and neighbors have not come forward with any information.
For some reason, the article fails to mention that he predicted his own death on social media just five days earlier:
http://goo.gl/iA5F4P
According to a more in-depth analysis conducted by a Fresno blogger, John Lang had been a vocal critic of the Fresno Police Department prior to his death:
Activist Predicts Death, Says The Cops Killed Him (http://fresnopeoplesmedia.com/2016/01/2829/)
...
I simply voice my opinion regarding local government and politics on local blogs. I also discovered local law enforcement had been running a license plate scanning scam where Fresno Cops would scan license plates at Retail Store parking lots (Save Mart, Von’s, HomeDepot, etc.) in lower income neighborhoods. After collecting hits of violations they then would pull the unsuspecting drivers over a few blocks away from the store location in a marked police vehicle claiming they simply came across their vehicle through routine driving patrols. This unethical and possibly illegal activity was simply motivated by “profit” and unfairly targeted Fresno’s poorer residents. I also discovered the Fresno Bee was sharing chat log data with Fresno Law Enforcement of Fresno citizens who were critical of local Fresno Government and Fresno Law Enforcement. Fresno Law Enforcement subsequently used the ip addresses in the chat logs provided by the Bee to track down, stalk, and harass those chat bloggers who were critical of local politics and local law enforcement. Since publicly exposing these local law enforcement activities it’s been a constant onslaught of stalking, harassment, and intimidation directed toward myself from Fresno Law Enforcement. They even tried to set me up and plant false evidence in my home. I filed a request for an Internal Affairs Investigation and that seemed to enrage them even more. They are simply trying to destroy me by any means possible. I am in constant fear for my life. As Kevin Arial, a Face Book pseudonym and alias of a known local cop so eloquently posted to my Face Book page recently: “First rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club, You should know this Mr. Lang! ; D”.
This story is starting to circulate heavily on social media, so I figured it would be a fun forum project to try to confirm or debunk the theory that he was murdered by the Fresno Police. I welcome all forum members to contribute to either position.
So as to help the project along, I've come up with what I think are the most likely explanations for what occurred. In no particular order:
1. He was murdered by the Fresno Police or someone acting on their behest.
2. He was murdered by someone who was colluding or cooperating with the Fresno Police.
3. He was murdered by someone totally unrelated to the Fresno Police.
4. He committed suicide.
I've already done a little digging myself and have found some oddities, which is all they are at this point. Still, I thought they were interesting enough to share.
Here is one of many security videos that Lang recorded outside his home in Fresno four days before his death:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5acGmgBGN8
According to Lang's interpretation of this event, these men were surveilling his house. I noticed that the van had a phone number and the company name on the side so I Google'ed the information and the results were largely inconclusive.
The phone number yielded numerous results that matched up with the company. Here is the entry on White Pages:
http://goo.gl/1UkJlK
So far, so good. But what struck me as a little strange was the fact that all their entries on the various web pages seemed rather sparse. Little or no reviews/comments on their business, for example. And the location of the business according to Google Maps is a home in a residential area. Not crazy or anything, but slightly odd:
http://goo.gl/zWOyWT
I know the address says 1916 instead of 1907, but that's just a glitch in the Google Maps display. That is the correct location you're looking at.
But what I found more than just a little odd was the fact that their White Pages entry had no history on the Way Back Machine, which is a website dedicated to indexing and archiving web pages: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.whitepages.com/business/guarantee-carpet-care-fresno-ca
However, if you search the archive using only the 'business' subdomain (https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.whitepages.com/business/*), you get 225,216 results, meaning the Way Back Machine managed to index and archive approximately that many unique business entries on White Pages. Oddly enough, Guarantee Carpet Care was not one of them. So either the Way Back Machine failed to index and archive that entry or it was created very recently, which I would consider pretty suspicious in light of the circumstances.
Granted, this is not dispositive by any means, but it's certainly intriguing.
I'm really tired right now, so I will just leave it at that for now, but I welcome any of our forum detectives to contribute their investigative skills to this little mystery. Perhaps someone could call the number on the side of the van? If you do, though, I would highly recommend doing so anonymously. One way to go about that is by using a spoofing application that masks your real phone number from caller ID. These kinds of applications can be downloaded for free on your smartphone.
Happy hunting!
Man found dead after suspicious central Fresno fire identified (http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/crime/article56494078.html)
John Lang, 51, sustained stab wounds
A man who died in a central Fresno fire that police described as suspicious was identified as John Lang, 51.
The man had multiple stab wounds to his abdomen and upper back, authorities said.
The house fire occurred Wednesday at 648 North Van Ness Avenue, just north of Belmont Avenue. Fresno police reported the man’s body was found around 3:15 p.m. by Fresno firefighters inside the house.
He was not responsive when firefighters found him. He was rushed to Community Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
It is unclear whether he died as a result of the stab wounds or the blaze, which damaged much of the home. Investigators are looking into the cause of the fire.
No one else was found inside, and neighbors have not come forward with any information.
For some reason, the article fails to mention that he predicted his own death on social media just five days earlier:
http://goo.gl/iA5F4P
According to a more in-depth analysis conducted by a Fresno blogger, John Lang had been a vocal critic of the Fresno Police Department prior to his death:
Activist Predicts Death, Says The Cops Killed Him (http://fresnopeoplesmedia.com/2016/01/2829/)
...
I simply voice my opinion regarding local government and politics on local blogs. I also discovered local law enforcement had been running a license plate scanning scam where Fresno Cops would scan license plates at Retail Store parking lots (Save Mart, Von’s, HomeDepot, etc.) in lower income neighborhoods. After collecting hits of violations they then would pull the unsuspecting drivers over a few blocks away from the store location in a marked police vehicle claiming they simply came across their vehicle through routine driving patrols. This unethical and possibly illegal activity was simply motivated by “profit” and unfairly targeted Fresno’s poorer residents. I also discovered the Fresno Bee was sharing chat log data with Fresno Law Enforcement of Fresno citizens who were critical of local Fresno Government and Fresno Law Enforcement. Fresno Law Enforcement subsequently used the ip addresses in the chat logs provided by the Bee to track down, stalk, and harass those chat bloggers who were critical of local politics and local law enforcement. Since publicly exposing these local law enforcement activities it’s been a constant onslaught of stalking, harassment, and intimidation directed toward myself from Fresno Law Enforcement. They even tried to set me up and plant false evidence in my home. I filed a request for an Internal Affairs Investigation and that seemed to enrage them even more. They are simply trying to destroy me by any means possible. I am in constant fear for my life. As Kevin Arial, a Face Book pseudonym and alias of a known local cop so eloquently posted to my Face Book page recently: “First rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club, You should know this Mr. Lang! ; D”.
This story is starting to circulate heavily on social media, so I figured it would be a fun forum project to try to confirm or debunk the theory that he was murdered by the Fresno Police. I welcome all forum members to contribute to either position.
So as to help the project along, I've come up with what I think are the most likely explanations for what occurred. In no particular order:
1. He was murdered by the Fresno Police or someone acting on their behest.
2. He was murdered by someone who was colluding or cooperating with the Fresno Police.
3. He was murdered by someone totally unrelated to the Fresno Police.
4. He committed suicide.
I've already done a little digging myself and have found some oddities, which is all they are at this point. Still, I thought they were interesting enough to share.
Here is one of many security videos that Lang recorded outside his home in Fresno four days before his death:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5acGmgBGN8
According to Lang's interpretation of this event, these men were surveilling his house. I noticed that the van had a phone number and the company name on the side so I Google'ed the information and the results were largely inconclusive.
The phone number yielded numerous results that matched up with the company. Here is the entry on White Pages:
http://goo.gl/1UkJlK
So far, so good. But what struck me as a little strange was the fact that all their entries on the various web pages seemed rather sparse. Little or no reviews/comments on their business, for example. And the location of the business according to Google Maps is a home in a residential area. Not crazy or anything, but slightly odd:
http://goo.gl/zWOyWT
I know the address says 1916 instead of 1907, but that's just a glitch in the Google Maps display. That is the correct location you're looking at.
But what I found more than just a little odd was the fact that their White Pages entry had no history on the Way Back Machine, which is a website dedicated to indexing and archiving web pages: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.whitepages.com/business/guarantee-carpet-care-fresno-ca
However, if you search the archive using only the 'business' subdomain (https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.whitepages.com/business/*), you get 225,216 results, meaning the Way Back Machine managed to index and archive approximately that many unique business entries on White Pages. Oddly enough, Guarantee Carpet Care was not one of them. So either the Way Back Machine failed to index and archive that entry or it was created very recently, which I would consider pretty suspicious in light of the circumstances.
Granted, this is not dispositive by any means, but it's certainly intriguing.
I'm really tired right now, so I will just leave it at that for now, but I welcome any of our forum detectives to contribute their investigative skills to this little mystery. Perhaps someone could call the number on the side of the van? If you do, though, I would highly recommend doing so anonymously. One way to go about that is by using a spoofing application that masks your real phone number from caller ID. These kinds of applications can be downloaded for free on your smartphone.
Happy hunting!