Suspect in Boston attack 'identified'
Source: Agencies |
April 18, 2013, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
Investigators believe they have identified a suspect from security video taken before Monday's blasts at the Boston Marathon killed three people and injured 176 others, a US law enforcement source said yesterday.
The source said an official announcement was expected later in what was the first major publicly disclosed break in the investigation.
Investigators have been searching through thousands of pieces of evidence from cell phone pictures to shrapnel shards pulled from victims' legs.
Based on shards of metal, fabric, wires and a battery recovered at the scene, the focus turned to whoever may have made bombs in pressure cooker pots and taken them in heavy black nylon bags to the finish line of the world-famous race watched by crowds of spectators.
A stretch of Boston's Boylston Street almost a mile long and blocks around it remained closed as investigators searched for clues in the worst attack on US soil since the hijacked plane strikes of September 11, 2001.
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 US 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 FBI was leading the investigation and asking witnesses to submit any photos of the blast site - which was crowded with tens of thousands of spectators, race staff and volunteers and runners. Many of them have turned in thousands of images, authorities said.
"Probably one of the best ways to get a lead is to go through those images and track down people coming and going with backpacks," said Randy Law, an associate professor of history at Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama and author of "Terrorism: A History."
"It's the needle in the haystack but when you have the resources that the local and federal authorities have, they can go through what I'm sure will be thousands and thousands of photos and hours of videos. You can find something occasionally," Law said.
The head of trauma surgery at Boston Medical Center, which was still treating 19 victims yesterday, 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.
Bomb scene pictures produced by the Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force 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 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.
The source said an official announcement was expected later in what was the first major publicly disclosed break in the investigation.
Investigators have been searching through thousands of pieces of evidence from cell phone pictures to shrapnel shards pulled from victims' legs.
Based on shards of metal, fabric, wires and a battery recovered at the scene, the focus turned to whoever may have made bombs in pressure cooker pots and taken them in heavy black nylon bags to the finish line of the world-famous race watched by crowds of spectators.
A stretch of Boston's Boylston Street almost a mile long and blocks around it remained closed as investigators searched for clues in the worst attack on US soil since the hijacked plane strikes of September 11, 2001.
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 US 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 FBI was leading the investigation and asking witnesses to submit any photos of the blast site - which was crowded with tens of thousands of spectators, race staff and volunteers and runners. Many of them have turned in thousands of images, authorities said.
"Probably one of the best ways to get a lead is to go through those images and track down people coming and going with backpacks," said Randy Law, an associate professor of history at Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama and author of "Terrorism: A History."
"It's the needle in the haystack but when you have the resources that the local and federal authorities have, they can go through what I'm sure will be thousands and thousands of photos and hours of videos. You can find something occasionally," Law said.
The head of trauma surgery at Boston Medical Center, which was still treating 19 victims yesterday, 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.
Bomb scene pictures produced by the Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force 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 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.
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