17-04-2013, 09:29 PM
3:07 p.m. CDT, April 17, 2013
Two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing have been singled out in surveillance videos of the scene, sources told the Tribune Washington Bureau on Wednesday.
U.S. counter-terrorism and law enforcement officials said that the suspects in the Boston bombings were seen in a department store video that caught images of a man leaving a backpack near the finish line.
A second federal official said he has been briefed that authorities believe a second video or photo showed "two men with two backpacks."
A counter-terrorism official said the suspects were picked out because they were carrying black backpacks, as well as because of their demeanor and how they reacted to the bomb blasts. That official said authorities do not yet know the identities of those in the videos.
Media personnel were gathering at the Boston federal courthouse Wednesday afternoon in anticipation of a possible arrest.
Earlier, CNN reported a suspect was in custody, citing Boston and U.S. law enforcement sources, but later retracted its report.
Three Reuters sources also disputed there had been an arrest. Officials later confirmed the arrest report was inaccurate.
"Despite reports to the contrary there has not been an arrest in the marathon attack," Boston police said in a statement.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a statement asking the media to "exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting."
The identification of possible suspects marked the most significant, publicly-disclosed break since Monday's blasts at the Boston Marathon's finish line killed three people and injured 176 others in the worst attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
The bombs killed an 8-year old boy, Martin Richard, a 29-year-old woman, Krystle Campbell and a Boston University graduate student who was a Chinese citizen. Boston University has identified the student as Lu Lingzi.
The crowded scene in central Boston was recorded by surveillance cameras and media outlets, providing investigators with significant video of the area before and after the two blasts.
Investigators were also searching through thousands of pieces of evidence from cellphone pictures to shrapnel pulled from victims' legs.
Based on the shards of metal, fabric, wires and a battery recovered at the scene, the focus turned to whoever may have placed homemade bombs in pressure cooker pots and taken them in heavy black nylon bags to the finish line of the world-famous race watched by thousands of spectators.
Streets around the bombing site remained closed to traffic and pedestrians on Wednesday, with police continuing their work.
SENSE OF RELIEF
Rich Havens, the finish area coordinator at the Boston Marathon who also witnessed Monday's blasts, said he was relieved officials had identified suspects.
"When the police said we are turning every rock, they really meant it," Havens said. "There is a sense of relief that the amazing work they are doing - breaking through bits and pieces - is actually turning things up. And that they've gotten to this point in a matter of two days."
Bomb scene pictures produced by the Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force and released on Tuesday show the remains of an explosive device including twisted pieces of a metal container, wires, a battery and what appears to be a small circuit board.
One picture shows a few inches of charred wire attached to a small box, and another depicts a half-inch (1.3 cm) nail and a zipper head stained with blood. Another shows a Tenergy-brand battery attached to black and red wires through a broken plastic cap. Several photos show a twisted metal lid with bolts.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
"Whether it's homegrown or foreign, we just don't know yet. And so I'm not going to contribute to any speculation on that," said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who until January was Massachusetts' senior senator. "It's just hard to believe that a Patriots' Day holiday, which is normally such time of festivities, turned into bloody mayhem."
The head of trauma surgery at Boston Medical Center, which was still treating 19 victims on Wednesday, said his hospital was collecting the shards of metal, plastic, wood and concrete they had pulled from the injured to save for law enforcement inspectors. Other hospitals were doing the same.
"We've taken on large quantities of pieces," Dr. Peter Burke of Boston Medical Center told reporters "We send them to the pathologists and they are available to the police."
Security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said instructions for building pressure-cooker bombs similar to the ones used in Boston can be found on the Internet and are relatively primitive.
Pressure cookers had also been discovered in numerous foiled attack plots in both the United States and overseas in recent years, including the failed bombing attempt in New York's Times Square on May 1, 2010, the officials said.
Two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing have been singled out in surveillance videos of the scene, sources told the Tribune Washington Bureau on Wednesday.
U.S. counter-terrorism and law enforcement officials said that the suspects in the Boston bombings were seen in a department store video that caught images of a man leaving a backpack near the finish line.
A second federal official said he has been briefed that authorities believe a second video or photo showed "two men with two backpacks."
A counter-terrorism official said the suspects were picked out because they were carrying black backpacks, as well as because of their demeanor and how they reacted to the bomb blasts. That official said authorities do not yet know the identities of those in the videos.
Media personnel were gathering at the Boston federal courthouse Wednesday afternoon in anticipation of a possible arrest.
Earlier, CNN reported a suspect was in custody, citing Boston and U.S. law enforcement sources, but later retracted its report.
Three Reuters sources also disputed there had been an arrest. Officials later confirmed the arrest report was inaccurate.
"Despite reports to the contrary there has not been an arrest in the marathon attack," Boston police said in a statement.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a statement asking the media to "exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting."
The identification of possible suspects marked the most significant, publicly-disclosed break since Monday's blasts at the Boston Marathon's finish line killed three people and injured 176 others in the worst attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
The bombs killed an 8-year old boy, Martin Richard, a 29-year-old woman, Krystle Campbell and a Boston University graduate student who was a Chinese citizen. Boston University has identified the student as Lu Lingzi.
The crowded scene in central Boston was recorded by surveillance cameras and media outlets, providing investigators with significant video of the area before and after the two blasts.
Investigators were also searching through thousands of pieces of evidence from cellphone pictures to shrapnel pulled from victims' legs.
Based on the shards of metal, fabric, wires and a battery recovered at the scene, the focus turned to whoever may have placed homemade bombs in pressure cooker pots and taken them in heavy black nylon bags to the finish line of the world-famous race watched by thousands of spectators.
Streets around the bombing site remained closed to traffic and pedestrians on Wednesday, with police continuing their work.
SENSE OF RELIEF
Rich Havens, the finish area coordinator at the Boston Marathon who also witnessed Monday's blasts, said he was relieved officials had identified suspects.
"When the police said we are turning every rock, they really meant it," Havens said. "There is a sense of relief that the amazing work they are doing - breaking through bits and pieces - is actually turning things up. And that they've gotten to this point in a matter of two days."
Bomb scene pictures produced by the Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force and released on Tuesday show the remains of an explosive device including twisted pieces of a metal container, wires, a battery and what appears to be a small circuit board.
One picture shows a few inches of charred wire attached to a small box, and another depicts a half-inch (1.3 cm) nail and a zipper head stained with blood. Another shows a Tenergy-brand battery attached to black and red wires through a broken plastic cap. Several photos show a twisted metal lid with bolts.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
"Whether it's homegrown or foreign, we just don't know yet. And so I'm not going to contribute to any speculation on that," said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who until January was Massachusetts' senior senator. "It's just hard to believe that a Patriots' Day holiday, which is normally such time of festivities, turned into bloody mayhem."
The head of trauma surgery at Boston Medical Center, which was still treating 19 victims on Wednesday, said his hospital was collecting the shards of metal, plastic, wood and concrete they had pulled from the injured to save for law enforcement inspectors. Other hospitals were doing the same.
"We've taken on large quantities of pieces," Dr. Peter Burke of Boston Medical Center told reporters "We send them to the pathologists and they are available to the police."
Security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said instructions for building pressure-cooker bombs similar to the ones used in Boston can be found on the Internet and are relatively primitive.
Pressure cookers had also been discovered in numerous foiled attack plots in both the United States and overseas in recent years, including the failed bombing attempt in New York's Times Square on May 1, 2010, the officials said.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass