Boston bombing suspects? Authorities seek IDs of two men seen on video (+video)
Boston bombing suspects: Investigators in the Boston Marathon bombing are working to determine the identities of two men, one carrying a backpack and the other dropping off a bag, who were at the scene prior to the explosions.
Investigators comb through the post finish line area of the Boston Marathon at Boylston Street, looking for evidence after two bombs exploded near the finish line on Monday.
(AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Three days after the Boston Marathon bombing hundreds of federal investigators are now chasing the name behind a face.
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Video security clips from a Lord & Taylor department store across the street from the spot where the second bomb exploded show a man acting suspiciously, according to FBI personnel. He drops a bag and then walks away.
Images show him reacting to the first explosion by quickly exiting the site where the second explosion is about to occur.
“The camera from Lord & Taylor is the best source of video so far,” Dot Joyce, a spokeswoman for Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, told The Boston Globe. “All I know is that they are making progress.”
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The person in question is a young white man wearing a black jacket, a gray hooded sweatshirt, and a white or off-white baseball cap on backwards, according to CBS News.
Investigators are now going through logs of cellphone calls line by line, trying to determine who made calls from that location around the time the bombing took place, says CBS. They have cellphone owner information they are trying to match to the elusive face.
CBS correspondent John Miller, a former FBI assistant director, said that on Wednesday federal authorities had decided to release images from the Lord & Taylor video so as to enlist the public in the effort to determine the man’s name. Then they pulled back.
Agents are still assessing whether to go forward with that tactic, said Mr. Miller.
“For investigators, there’s always a difficult choice because if the person doesn’t know you’re looking for him, he may stay in place, you may catch up to him. If he does know you’re looking for him, he may run. On the other hand, if you don’t get him, it’s always great to enlist 20 million or so more eyes in the public who may be able to give you a location right away,” said Miller.
It is possible that this decision was affected by the confusion surrounding the possible arrest of a suspect on Wednesday. Several news outlets, including CNN, Fox News, the AP, and The Boston Globe, reported that such an arrest had been made, citing law enforcement sources. The FBI late in the day issued a statement denying such an arrest and asking for the media to exercise responsibility and restraint in its reporting on the case.
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