Boston(Araweelo News Network)The Federal Bureau of Investigation released photos of two suspects in Monday’s Boston Marathon bombings and
urged the public to come forward with information about them.
The head of the FBI’s Boston office, Richard DesLauriers, said the man he described as suspect #1 was wearing a dark cap, while suspect #2 was wearing a white cap.
Suspect #2 was seen in images of the event putting a backpack on the ground at the spot where the second bomb went off, the FBI said. This happened “within minutes” of the explosion, Mr. DesLauriers said.
Mr. DesLauriers said the suspects could be “armed and extremely dangerous,” and he said members of the public shouldn’t try to apprehend them.
He said the FBI doesn’t have any other suspects in the attack and is focusing now on finding the two men.
Images of the two were captured as they walked together on Boylston Street toward the marathon’s finish line. Suspect #2 was also seen walking west on Boylston Street after the bombs went off, but further whereabouts of the two aren’t known, Mr. DesLauriers said.
Earlier, President Barack Obama, speaking at an interfaith service in Boston, vowed that the U.S. would find and hold accountable those behind the explosions.
“Our fidelity to our way of life, for a free and open society, will only grow stronger,” Mr. Obama said. “You showed us, Boston, that in the face of evil, Americans will lift up what’s good.”
The president called those behind senseless acts of violence “small, stunted individuals.”
He said the city showed resilience in the face of the bombings and predicted to cheers from the audience that next year’s Boston Marathon would take place successfully.
“We carry on. We finish the race,” he said.
He also thanked the police officers, firefighters and others who helped people after the explosions. “You displayed grit, you displayed passion,” Mr. Obama said meeting with them after the memorial service.
The quest to tease useful information from a mountain of evidence, including what one lawmaker called the equivalent of hundreds of hours of video, bore its first fruit on Wednesday with the images of a suspicious person near the marathon’s finish line.
Investigators pored over surveillance video from retail stores and restaurants near the bombing site as well as video and photographs from citizens, news organizations and other sources, officials said.
he two explosives were placed in black bags or backpacks, the FBI has said, and officials said the bag seen in the video seemed to be made from material similar to the shreds of black nylon found at the bombing site.
Investigators have determined the bombs were assembled from household pressure cookers, a crude but effective explosive that has been thwarted in several prior U.S. terror plots.
Authorities found a pressure-cooker lid, believed to have been part of a bomb, that was catapulted onto the roof of a nearby building, a person briefed on the investigation said Wednesday. They also found a small piece of a circuit board they suspect was part of one of the explosive devices, the person said.
In the 2010 failed bombing in Times Square, investigators urged the public to help identify a person wearing a red shirt who was seen in a video leaving the scene. That person, it later turned out, had nothing to do with the incident.
The developments came amid a backdrop of bomb scares and other incidents across the nation. Suspicious parcels, reported bomb threats and seemingly odd pieces of mail prompted evacuations and emergency alerts from Washington to Arizona to Michigan.
The Boston federal courthouse was briefly evacuated because of a false alarm. In Washington, a letter sent to Mr. Obama initially tested positive for the poison ricin.
Kenneth Feinberg, who administered the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and the BP oil spill fund, on Wednesday was asked by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino to distribute funds that would assist victims of the bombings, called the One Fund Boston.
Mr. Feinberg, in an interview, said the fund, which has about $7 million dollars that was unsolicited, would distribute money quickly. The types of claims would depend on the overall amount of the fund, he said, with priority given to families of the dead. Mr. Feinberg will begin his duties on Friday.
The mourning for the victims of Monday’s attack reached northeastern China, home of the third person killed in the blasts, Lu Lingzi. The Boston University graduate student was in the crowd near the finish line with another Chinese student who was injured, China’s official news agency said.
Also killed in Monday’s attacks were 8-year-old Martin Richard of Boston’s Dorchester section, whose mother and sister were seriously injured; and 29-year-old Krystle Campbell, a restaurant manager from Medford, Mass.
Some said the rapid detection of a potential perpetrator or perpetrators of the attack shows the value of the growing number of surveillance cameras around the nation—a trend that has been decried by some civil-liberties groups.
The bombing prompted a reassessment of whether security measures at coming races are adequate. Organizers of an April 28 marathon in Oklahoma City said they would recheck what already represents a high level of security for such an event.
The bombs appeared to have been built by packing the pressure cookers with a black powder explosive as well as nails and pellets to maximize casualties, a lawmaker briefed by investigators said. The pressure cooker concentrates the blast, magnifying the effect of relatively weak explosives.
The devices are similar to those U.S. counterterrorism officials have warned about for years. Authorities said such bomb-making has been taught at terrorist camps in Afghanistan. In addition, instructions for making pressure-cooker bombs are available on the Internet.