{"id":193981,"date":"2024-03-15T09:32:09","date_gmt":"2024-03-15T16:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/?p=193981"},"modified":"2024-03-18T13:16:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-18T20:16:12","slug":"dead-boeing-whistleblower-said-if-something-happens-it-was-not-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/2024\/03\/dead-boeing-whistleblower-said-if-something-happens-it-was-not-suicide.html","title":{"rendered":"Dead Boeing Whistleblower Said if Something Happens It Was Not Suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>John Barnett, 62, from Louisiana was found dead in his vehicle outside a Charleston hotel on Saturday morning. Barnett, who worked for Boeing for 32 years, filed a whistleblower complaint alleging safety concerns. The United States Department of Labor was working through the discovery phase of its investigation and is set to begin hearings on that complaint this June.<\/p>\n<p>Barnett had just completed two days of deposition on March 7 and March 8. According to his lawyers Rob Turkewitz and Brian Knowles, he was tired but committed to giving his third and final day of testimony. When he did not arrive in court on March 9 and did not answer their phone calls, Barnett\u2019s lawyers called the hotel where he was staying to check on him. <\/p>\n<p>A local ABC news channel reports, a close family friend of John Barnett said he predicted he might wind up dead and that a story could surface that he killed himself.<\/p>\n<p>But at the time, he told her not to believe it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I know that he did not commit suicide,&#8221; said Jennifer, a friend of Barnett&#8217;s. &#8220;There&#8217;s no way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sA44FFi95PA?si=m97ALTvQMPfLBtGO\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><i>The attorneys of a former Boeing employee who raised concerns about Boeing&#8217;s production standards have released a statement as an investigation into his death this weekend continues.<\/p>\n<p>Barnett\u2019s attorneys, Robert Turkewitz of the Law Office of Robert M. Turkewitz, LLC and Brian Knowles of Knowles Law Firm, PC, released the following statement Tuesday afternoon:<\/p>\n<p>John was a brave, honest man of the highest integrity. He cared dearly about his family, his friends, the Boeing company, his Boeing co-workers, and the pilots and people who flew on Boeing aircraft. We have rarely met someone with a more sincere and forthright character.<\/p>\n<p>Officers found the truck in the hotel\u2019s back parking lot, an incident report states. An orange truck was located Tuesday at an impound lot in North Charleston. The woman working the counter said the truck had Louisiana plates and was the subject of a police hold.<\/p>\n<p>Charleston County Coroner Bobbi Jo O\u2019Neal said Barnett died Saturday \u201cfrom what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.\u201d Police said Barnett had a silver handgun in his right hand with his finger still on the trigger and had suffered an apparent gunshot wound to his right temple.<\/p>\n<p>An employee told police they heard a \u201cpop\u201d sound near the car a less than an hour before police arrived, but the employee said they didn\u2019t think anything of it. Police also noted there was a white piece of paper \u201cresembling a note\u201d on the passenger seat of that car.<\/p>\n<p>He reportedly alerted managers about the company using sub-standard parts and oxygen systems with serious problems on several occasions. Those managers allegedly took no action to fix the issues and Boeing denied Barnett\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJohn was deeply concerned about the safety of the aircraft and flying public, and had identified some serious defects that he felt were not adequately addressed,\u201d Barnett\u2019s brother, Rodney, said in a family statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday. \u201cHe said that Boeing had a culture of concealment and was putting profits over safety.\u201d<\/p><div class=\"nextb-last-paragraph\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"nextb-937135641\">\r\n<div data-aaad='true' data-aa-adunit='\/339474670\/Nextbigfuture_A\/InContent_3'><\/div>\r\n<div data-onpage='true' data-adpath='\/339474670,3911572\/Nextbigfuture_B\/InContent_3'><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Rodney Barnett said working at Boeing created stress for John.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was suffering from PTSD and anxiety attacks as a result of being subjected to the hostile work environment at Boeing, which we believe led to his death,\u201d the brother said.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Barnett, 62, from Louisiana was found dead in his vehicle outside a Charleston hotel on Saturday morning. Barnett, who worked for Boeing for 32 years, filed a whistleblower complaint alleging safety concerns. The United States Department of Labor was working through the discovery phase of its investigation and is set to begin hearings on &#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more-container\"><a title=\"Dead Boeing Whistleblower Said if Something Happens It Was Not Suicide\" class=\"read-more button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/2024\/03\/dead-boeing-whistleblower-said-if-something-happens-it-was-not-suicide.html#more-193981\" aria-label=\"Read more about Dead Boeing Whistleblower Said if Something Happens It Was Not Suicide\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1307,1308],"tags":[10983,459,5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193981"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193981"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194043,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193981\/revisions\/194043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextbigfuture.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}