Police, citizens and technology factor into Boston bombing probe
Police, citizens and technology factor into Boston bombing probe
BOSTON Within hours of the Boston Marathon bombing, investigators were already overwhelmed. Bloody clothing, bags, shoes and other evidence from victims and witnesses were piling up. Videos and still images, thousands of them, were beginning to accumulate.
Quickly, the authorities secured a warehouse in Bostons Seaport district and filled the sprawling space: On half of the vast floor, hundreds of pieces of bloody clothes were laid out to dry so they could be examined for forensic clues or flown to FBI labs at Quantico in Prince William County for testing. In the other half of the room, more than a dozen investigators sifted through hundreds of hours of video, looking for people doing things that are different from what everybody else is doing, Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis said in an interview Saturday.
The work was painstaking and mind-numbing: One agent watched the same segment of video 400 times. The goal was to construct a timeline of images, following possible suspects as they moved along the sidewalks, building a narrative out of a random jumble of pictures from thousands of different phones and cameras.
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Full four page article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/inside-the-investigation-of-the-boston-marathon-bombing/2013/04/20/19d8c322-a8ff-11e2-b029-8fb7e977ef71_story.html
BeyondGeography
(39,379 posts)Highly rec'd.
elleng
(131,107 posts)'The decisive moment came on Wednesday afternoon, when Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick (D) got a call from state police: The investigation had narrowed in on the man who would soon be known as Suspect No. 2, the man whom police captured Friday night bleeding and disoriented on a 22-foot boat in a Watertown driveway.
Patrick said the images of Suspect No. 2 reacting to the first explosion provided highly incriminating evidence, a lot more than the public knows.'
Tx4obama
(36,974 posts)elleng
(131,107 posts)WE'll have to be patient. GLAD FBI etc aren't.
Cha
(297,655 posts)More important, he said, he watched how first responders and ordinary citizens put people back together. Tourniquets, Davis said. Stemming the bleeding with their hands. Putting a man who was on fire out with their hands. These are the kind of things that came out of this savagery. It makes me proud.
I agree.. it's an excellent account.. thanks Tx~
elleng
(131,107 posts)that Tamerlan got involved in religious politics five years ago. She said FBI agents had been watching her son for three to five years. They knew what my son was doing. .?.?. They used to tell me that he was really a serious leader and they are afraid of him.
The FBI said Friday that at the request of a foreign government that was concerned that Tamerlan was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, the agency had interviewed him and his relatives but did not find any terrorism activity, domestic or foreign. Officials have acknowledged that the request came from Russia.
Once the photos of the men in caps were made public Thursday, the FBI tip line filled with calls, including one from the brothers aunt, who provided her nephews identity, according to federal law enforcement officials.
As investigators expected, making the photos public not only brought in new information, but also spurred the brothers into action. . .
The police commissioner said releasing images of the brothers may have spurred their violent rampage. We may have forced their hands by releasing the videos, he said. But he said that was nonetheless the right move: I truly believe they were planning more attacks, based on the evidence we saw at Watertown. I think that by forcing their hand, we saved a much larger loss of life. .?.?. These individuals were bent on murder and mayhem.'