15 April 2013 - 2 Explosions at Finish line of Boston Marathon

[PuckChaser]

I believe them to be Homeland Security, I have seen them wear the tan pants, brown boot etc several times.

Makes perfect sense, the ones indicated on that site are all dressed in the same "uniform".

 

[cupper]

Crowdsourcing or witch hunt? Reddit, 4chan users try to ID Boston bomb suspects
Social-media users take the FBI's request for photo clues one step further by attempting to ID suspects without hard evidence or legal procedure.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57580148-1/crowdsourcing-or-witch-hunt-reddit-4chan-users-try-to-id-boston-bomb-suspects/



Boston bombing photos stir up amateur slueths

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/boston-bombing-photos-stir-up-amateur-slueths/2013/04/17/b6b3f30e-a799-11e2-b029-8fb7e977ef71_story.html?hpid=z2

Best Quote:

So online users set to work, playing a version of Where’s Waldo in which nobody knows who Waldo is, what he is wearing, if there is one Waldo or four.

 

[cupper]

In the era of the 24 hour news cycle, where we are subjected to endless hours of repetitive speculation and assumption when no new information is forthcoming, we need to take an almost jaundiced view of what is being reported. In the race to be the first to nail the big break in the story, it seems that caution may be thrown to the wind.

The media's 'marathon' meltdown

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/boston-marathon-media-meltdown-90241.html?hp=t1_3

The fast-moving news out of Boston on Wednesday snared some of the most respected reporters and news outlets in the country into offering false or conflicting information about whether a suspect had been arrested — leaving CNN and the Associated Press, among others, scrambling to clean up their reports as the day went on.

The flood of conflicting reports, confusion, and subsequent criticism reminded some of June 28, 2012, when many media outlets — most notably CNN — incorrectly reported the Supreme Court’s Obamacare ruling.

Now as then, many of the nation’s most trusted, established media organizations raced to broadcast breaking news, only to find themselves eating their words minutes later. Now as then, those who resisted the temptations of getting the story first were rewarded with getting the story right. And now as then, the media’s failures were widely mocked across social media.

As in June, no single news outlet on Wednesday bore more criticism than CNN (the network that describes itself as “the most trusted name in news”) and no single news outlet received greater priase for its restraint than NBC News — a fact that matters greatly not just to the reporters responsible (CNN’s John King and NBC’s Pete Williams) but to the executives in New York, who understand that the integrities of their respective brands are at stake.

When the dust settled, CNN released a statement defending its initial report of an arrest in the bombings: “CNN had three credible sources on both local and federal levels. Based on this information we reported our findings. As soon as our sources came to us with new information we adjusted our reporting.” (As in June 2012, Fox News did not respond to a request for comment.)

This was not the same as the apology the network had issued after the Supreme Court ruling, and it earned them more criticism on Twitter: “[The] problem with CNN, FNC saying sources led them astray: NBC News was RIGHT all day,” Bill Carter, who covers the television industry for the New York Times, wrote on Twitter. “Good sources WERE available.”

The media’s coverage had been in conflict from the beginning, even before CNN and NBC’s reports. At 1:42 p.m., the Associated Press, citing a law enforcement official, reported that an arrest was “imminent” and that the suspect would be brought to court. One minute later, Reuters, citing a government source, reported that investigators did not yet have the name of a suspect and made no mention of an arrest.

Then, at 1:45 p.m., CNN’s King - who had earlier broken the news the a suspect had been identified on video - went on air and said that “an arrest has been made.” King cited two sources: a local law enforcement source he had spoken with, and another unnamed source who had spoken with his colleague Fran Townsend, former President Bush’s terrorism advisor. Not long after, Fox News and The Boston Globe were issuing similar reports. CBS Boston, citing a law enforcement official, reported that an arrest had been made, but then quickly pulled that report from its website.

At 1:55 p.m. ten minutes after CNN’s initial report, NBC’s Williams went on air and said no arrest had been made.

”We’ve been told by several sources that there is no arrest. Then it begins to break down from there, about whether – let’s start at the other end – what do they know?” Williams reported. “Information that is pointing in totally different directions is coming from normally very dependable sources, and we can’t just flip a coin and pick one. We have to have them line up before we can say for sure what it is. All we can say for certain is that all of our sources say no arrest.”

Confusion ensued. CNN and Fox News and even the AP would reiterate around the 2 o’clock hour that an arrest had been made. Meanwhile, CBS News and ABC News were reporting that one had not been made. POLITICO was among those citing CNN’s reporting, though it quickly revised its story to reflect other conflicting reports.

Around 2:10 p.m., Williams once again made his report clear: “All we can say for certain, is that all of our sources say no arrest,” he said on NBC. CNN held its ground. As late as 2:25 p.m., The Boston Globe was still reporting that a suspect was being taken to the courthouse.

Meanwhile, CNN started to seem nervous. On air, anchors and contributors discussed the importance of “not getting ahead of ourselves.”

Then, at 2:28 p.m. the tide turned: Tom Fuentes, the former FBI Assistant Director, came on CNN and cited three sources, including two high-level sources, all of whom said that no arrest had been made.

“There has been no arrest, and in fact a suspect has not been identified by name yet,” he told CNN anchors Chris Cuomo and Anderson Cooper. “They’re looking for someone, but they don’t have anyone in custody yet and they’re looking for identification.”

The discomfort on air was palpable. Cuomo scrambled: “Ok, that would be — we don’t know what’s right or not right at this point.” For more than five minutes, the anchors discussed the importance of being cautious.

Later, CNN’s Joe Johns would cite two Justice Department officials, both of whom also said that no arrest had been made.

Around this time, the FBI responded to the initial reports from CNN, the Associated Press, and others with a stern denial and a plea for more dilligent reporting.

“Contrary to widespread reporting, no arrest has been made in connection with the Boston Marathon attack,” FBI Special Agent Greg Comcowich said in a written statement on Wednesday afternoon. “Over the past day and a half, there have been a number of press reports based on information from unofficial sources that has been inaccurate. Since these stories often have unintended consequences, we ask the media, particularly at this early stage of the investigation, to exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting.”

While Twitter erupted with criticism of CNN, Williams was widely praised as being among the best reporters on his beat, if not the business.

Later, on MSNBC, which relies on the reporting resources of NBC News, Al Sharpton slammed the network’s competitors. “While many networks were racing to air, NBC News was careful and deliberate,” he said. “All of a sudden, the story on some other networks began to change. Look at the banners on the bottom of the screen — they began rolling it back.” He then played the footage from CNN.

King appeared on CNN minutes later to report on the latest development, but also to address his initial report.

”Clearly there was confusion or some misinformation,” he said.

 

[cupper]

FBI has released stills from video of the two suspects.

If you want to see it go to fbi.gov

But you may want to wait a while before you go there, the site is REALLY REALY slow due to all the activity (or poor government internet service).

Images aren't the greatest though.

 

[CougarKing]

Photos of the suspects released:

Yahoo News link

Here's a photo of one of them from the link above:

 

[Eye In The Sky]

More on the FBI website.

 

[R.C.]

Police state the possibility that last night's shooting of a police officer at MIT and the bombings are related. The "white hat suspect" is still at large...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/boston-police-say-white-hat-suspect-at-large-second-suspect-dead/article11400105/

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Article Link

1 Boston Marathon bombing suspect killed, 1 on loose

Explosive devices tossed, gunshots exchanged during pursuit

A massive manhunt is underway early Friday in the Watertown area outside of Boston for one of the suspects in the marathon bombing, following a carjacking and shootout with police that killed the other, authorities say.

The suspect pictured wearing a white hat in an image released by the FBI is now the subject of an intense hunt. The suspect in the black hat was shot and killed during a shootout overnight with police, authorities say.

Residents of Watertown are being told to stay at home and not to answer their doors except to a police officer. Heavily armed police have cordoned off the area of the search.

"We believe this to be a terrorist," said Boston Police Commissioner Ed David. "We believe this to be a man who's come here to kill people. We need to get him in custody."

A new photo recorded overnight of the suspect at large shows him in a grey-hooded sweatshirt. It was taken at a 7-Eleven store in Cambridge, just across the river from Boston.
This suspect wanted in relation to the Boston Marathon bombing is the subject of a massive police search.This suspect wanted in relation to the Boston Marathon bombing is the subject of a massive police search. (Boston Police Department/Reuters)
The Middlesex district attorney said the chaotic scene overnight began with the fatal shooting of a campus police officer at the Massachusetts Insitute of Technology. Two men carjacked a vehicle soon after and for a period kept the driver hostage before releasing him.

Police pursued the vehicle into Watertown, a suburb of Boston, while explosives were reportedly thrown from the vehicle and gunfire exchanged.

During the pursuit, a police officer was injured and taken to hospital.

One of the suspects was critically wounded and taken to hospital. Doctors at Beth Israel Hospital told reporters the suspect had been deceased on arrival, showing signs of blast trauma and multiple gunshot wounds.

The state police bomb squad is assessing and removing any potentially explosive devices that may have been thrown on the street during the pursuit of the suspects.

The slain MIT officer had been responding to report of a disturbance Thursday night when he was shot multiple times, according to a statement from the Middlesex district attorney's office and Cambridge police.

Gunfire, explosions in Watertown

Boston cab driver Imran Sais said he was standing on a street corner at a police barricade across from a diner when he heard an explosion.

"I heard a loud boom and then a rapid succession of pop, pop, pop," he said. "It sounded like automatic weapons. And then I heard the second explosion."

He said he could smell something burning and advanced to check it out but area residents at their windows yelled at him, "Hey, it's gunfire! Don't go that way!"

More to come
---------------------------------------------------------------

RIP to the fallen MIT Officer. 

 

[muskrat89]

Now reports that they are Chechnyan brothers

 

[OldSolduer]

Now reports that they are Chechnyan brothers

Interesting. I wonder if these guys are just two Chechens that decided to terrorize America or are they part of a larger conspiracy?

 

[George Wallace]

Interesting. I wonder if these guys are just two Chechens that decided to terrorize America or are they part of a larger conspiracy?

Just to speculate, but if they were part of a larger conspiracy they would most likely have been better funded and not have to resort to attempting to rob a  7-Eleven .

 

[Remius]

Well, if you are on the run from the entire free world, desperation and errors in judgement may kick in.

I suspect we will know shortly what the motivation for all this was/is.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Well, if you are on the run from the entire free world, desperation and errors in judgement may kick in.

I suspect we will know shortly what the motivation for all this was/is.

I'm not sure we will.

Even given the governments wish to take them alive for questioning, I don't think these two subscribed to that plan.

Unless they've left behind some sort of manifesto or some group takes responsibility, if this second guy dies before they can talk to him, we may never know what the motivation was.

We may be able to speculate, given their upbringing, friends, groups, religious bent, etc.

However, if we can't get answers from him, that's what it is, speculation.

 

[observor 69]

More on the  recceguy line of thought:

New York Times latest:

8:54 A.M.Major Police Activity in Watertown.

Police were staging a major operation on Arsenal Street in Watertown, where residents have been ordered to shelter in place and not answer their doors since early this morning, after a gun battle in Cambridge with suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing.

In addition to the police and SWAT teams, heavily armored vehicles are assembling on Arsenal Street.


http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/updates-on-aftermath-of-boston-marathon-explosions-2/

 

[the 48th regulator]

Very good report on the second Perp;

Who Is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Man at the Center of the Boston Manhunt?

dileas

tess

 

[tomahawk6]

Police are searching a vehicle with Mass. plates at Niagra. Evidently both tango's have been in the US since 2001 or so.Probably became radicalized either online or  at a mosque. I feel sorry for their uncles who are left to explain their nephews action.

 

[CougarKing]

Here's some more of the latest info from a British news site:

Boston bomb suspects are from Islam-linked Chechnya
Published on 19/04/2013 11:46

THE two suspects in the Boston marathon bombing were from the Russian region near Chechnya, sources say, as a massive police manhunt continues for the surviving suspect.

One of the two men died in a shootout with police after the suspects shot dead an MIT police officer, injured a transit officer in a firefight and threw explosive devices at police during their getaway attempt in a long night of violence.

A law enforcement intelligence bulletin obtained by the AP identified the surviving suspect as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Two law enforcement officials said Tsarnaev and the other suspect who was not immediately identified have been living legally in the US for at least one year.

<snipped>

Police are locking down some neighbourhoods in Boston and its western suburbs as they search for the remaining suspect known as the man in the white hat from marathon surveillance footage.

Authorities urged residents in Watertown, Cambridge and other towns west of Boston, as well as the Allston-Brighton neighbourhoods of western Boston, to stay indoors.

All public transport was shut down and businesses were asked not to open. People waiting at bus and subway stops were told to go home.

<snipped>

The Middlesex district attorney said the two men are suspected of killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer on campus in Cambridge in a late nigh shooting, then stealing a car at gunpoint and later releasing its driver unharmed.

Hours earlier, police had released photos of the marathon bombing suspects and asked for the public’s help finding them. A new photo of the suspect on the loose was released later showing him in a grey hoodie sweatshirt. It was taken at a 7-Eleven store in Cambridge, just across the Charles River from Boston.

The first images were released hours after President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama attended an interfaith service at a Roman Catholic cathedral in Boston to remember the bombing victims.

Authorities say the suspects threw explosives from the car as police followed it into Watertown. The suspects and police exchanged gunfire, and one of the wanted men was critically injured and later died at a hospital while the other escaped.

The FBI said it was working with local authorities to determine what happened.

Doctors at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston where the suspect was taken and later died said they treated a man with a possible blast injury and multiple gunshot wounds. They wouldn’t say if the patient they treated, who came in with police, was the suspect in the black hat.

The MIT shooting on the Cambridge campus night was followed by reports of gunfire and explosions in Watertown, about 10 miles west of Boston.

The MIT officer had been responding to report of a disturbance when he was shot multiple times, according to a statement from authorities. There were no other victims.

In Watertown, witnesses reported hearing multiple gunshots and explosions at about 1 am local time. Dozens of police officers and FBI agents were in the neighbourhood and a helicopter circled overhead.

<snipped>

MIT said right after the 10:30 pm shooting that police were sweeping the campus in Cambridge and urged people to remain indoors. They urged people urged to stay away from the Stata Centre, a mixed-use building with faculty offices, classrooms and a common area.

Hours later, MIT, the prestigious university with about 11,000 students, said the campus was clear but the shooter was still on the loose.

Militants from Chechnya and other restive regions in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus have targeted Moscow and other areas with bombings and hostage-takings, but the allegations of involvement in the Boston Marathon explosions would mark the first time they had conducted a terror attack in the West.

<snipped>

 

[Pryce]

InfoWars is typically  a little too much "tinfoil hat" for me, but I admit, these photographs are pretty interesting.

http://www.infowars.com/boston-bombing-culprits-found/

http://www.infowars.com/navy-seals-spotted-at-boston-marathon-wearing-suspicious-backpacks/

Not Alex Jones  :facepalm: ... what really turned me off is that they used this as edvidence.

The images show the men looking away from the marathon runners, talking on cellphones and running from the scene immediately after the blast.

 

[muskrat89]

Not Alex Jones 

Thus the "tinfoil hat" caveat

 

[a_majoor]

National Post has some background on the Chechnyan connection to the bombings. If culture is paramount then these two came from a truely horrific cultural background:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/04/19/jonathan-kay-how-chechnyas-culture-of-terror-came-to-the-streets-of-boston/

Jonathan Kay: How Chechnya’s culture of terror came to the streets of Boston
Jonathan Kay | 13/04/19 | Last Updated: 13/04/19 11:39 AM ET
More from Jonathan Kay | @jonkay

For the last week, most of the world has been playing a lurid guessing game in regard to the Boston bombings. Arabs? White supremacists? A loner nut?

But Chechens? Didn’t see that coming. Their two-century-long-and-counting war is with Russia, not the West.

Yet the Boston bombings wouldn’t be the first time that Chechens have taken up arms against the United States. As CIA veteran Gary Schroen wrote in his 2005 book, First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan, Chechens were among the most bloodthirsty enemies that U.S. special forces and allied troops faced in their campaign to oust the Taliban from power in the months after 9’11.

Schroen describes one battle this way: “‘Chechnya! Chechnya!’ The cry was picked up by the others. ‘Chechnya!’ A wave of panic and fear … swept through the line of [Afghan] men [fighting alongside U.S. special forces and CIA officers] on the hilltop … As if on signal, the entire group of 60 men turned and began to run from their positions. Craig was shouting for them to stop, and grabbed at one man near him. But the man jerked free, staggered, and turned to join his comrades in a headlong run down the backside of the hill.”

Related
What we know about the Boston Marathon bombing suspects
Suicide bomber kills Sufi cleric as Russia struggles to contain Islamic insurgency
The Canadian who converted to jihad: Boxer turned militant killed in Dagestan

The Afghans who fought alongside the Americans 12 years ago were tough, battle-hardened men inhabiting one of the most violent places on the planet. But they still were absolutely terrified by Chechen jihadis, who were regarded as pitiless and fanatical — even by the standards of Islamist terrorism. After watching his entire force of five dozen men run shrieking from a trio of Chechens jogging nonchalantly toward their camp, Schroen observed: “Those are three of the bravest men I’ve ever seen, or they’re [crazy]. Either way, I don’t want to stay around and meet them.” He ends up calling in a B-52, which obliterates the Chechens with a 2,000-pound bomb, even as they taunted the American-led force with shouts of “Allahu Akbar!” (combined, bizarrely, with crotch-grabbing and obscene hip gyrations).

This week’s killing of three Marathon-watchers in Boston, including an eight-year-old boy, was seen in the West as an epic act of savagery. But by the standards of Chechen terrorists, it was standard fare
It is not just on proper battlefields where Chechen jihadis have attained a reputation for viciousness: Two of the most morally horrific jihadi attacks against civilians the world ever has witnessed were committed in this formerly obscure North Caucasus neighbourhood. In 1995, Chechen Islamists attacked a hospital  in the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk and took 2,000 hostages — including women and their newborn infants. (More than 100 hostages died.) A decade later, Chechen and Ingush gunmen attacked a school in the town of Beslan and took over 1,000 hostages — including 777 children. Almost 400 people died.

This is terrorism of the most hideous form: Even al-Qaeda does not make a practice of targeting elementary schools and maternity awards. This week’s killing of three Marathon-watchers in Boston, including an eight-year-old boy, was seen in the West as an epic act of savagery. But by the standards of Chechen terrorists, it was standard fare.

On the fuzzy left, the lazy explanation for terrorism is the psychology of personal alienation. On the hard right, the lazy explanation for terrorism is the alleged inherent evilness of Islam. But neither explanation fits Chechnya, whose on-and-off battle against Russian expansionism, typically fought under the Islamist flag, dates to the era of the French and American revolutions.

The miserably unfortunate patch of real estate known as Chechnya has been destroyed by an overlay of two totalitarian ideologies
The Czars could be brutal. But Stalin went further: Much as the Turks threw out the Armenians in World War I, Stalin removed the region’s entire ethnic Chechen population to Kazakhstan and Siberia, out of fear that they sympathized with the Germans. And when the returned Chechens rose up in the 1990s amid the ruins of Soviet empire, the Russian troops who came swarming in — not once, but twice — were not the disciplined, well-trained Western sharp-shooters who went to Afghanistan, but cruel, often drunk Russian conscripts. The carnage (on both sides) is legendary — and would be more so if the Russian journalists who wrote about it didn’t have such a nasty habit of turning up dead.

As with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq — whose Baathist ideology was deeply influenced by the Nazis — the miserably unfortunate patch of real estate known as Chechnya has been destroyed by an overlay of two totalitarian ideologies:  Stalin’s mass-murdering secular police state, and militant Islam. Add in the ferocious tribalism that infects the whole region, plus an industry of gangster kidnapping and murder that grew out of the post-Soviet vacuum, and you get perhaps the most violently dehumanized place on the planet.

What happened in Boston on Monday is just a taste of the slaughter that Chechens and their neighbors have born witness to for decades. Let us hope it is the last taste we ever get.

jkay@nationalpost.com

— Jonathan Kay is Managing Editor for Comment at the National Post, and a Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C.