Bruce Edwards Ivins

The FBI’s investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks revealed several failures of sensemaking, both at the level of specific FBI investigatory procedures, and at the broader level of organizational sensemaking and identity threats. The sensemaking model is helpful for understanding the FBI’s actions because the former failures in sensemaking likely caused broader identity threats that could have, and should have triggered sensemaking at the organizational level. The FBI, in its investigation of Mr. Hatfill and Dr. Ivins, erred far too heavily on their enacting role, essentially forcing their investigation into a mold that held one of these two men as the criminal, and essentially manufacturing evidence to fit that goal. This extreme failure to read cues, and heavy reliance on proactive shaping of the environment in spite of cues pointing to the suspects innocence, can rightly be called sense faking, since it ignores real cues in favor of a chosen interpretation of the criminal environment that is then forced upon the facts. During the fall of 2001, five or more letters were received in the mail by the offices of two U.S. Senators, and news organizations in New York and Florida. The letters contained a dry, powdered, and airborne form of the anthrax bacteria, as well as a handwritten note (D.O.J., 2010). As a result of these mailings, five people lost their lives, 31 more…

story. For instance, with their main suspect Dr. Bruce Ivins, they did not have any firm facts that he indeed laced the letters with anthrax and mailed them. But, the evidence and information that they dug up about his past were persuasive enough to mark him as the mastermind behind the anthrax mailings. After the FBI observed that the RMR-1029 was a likely candidate as the parent material they singled out Ivins as the main suspect (United States Department 2010). Ivins was the only scientist…