Explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon

[Ghambit]

The story goes a 4channer had Sunil pegged over 4 hours ago once the FBI released the images, reddit then picked it up, then it got plastered on the news shortly after the scanner feed verified the subject's name.  Unreal.  This is why you dont keep fuckin info. from the public unless you absolutely have to.

Check out this video, kinda sad (a video for finding Sunil):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t12tfTJ10bU

[Abagadro]

Holy shit. They are basically setting up a perimeter, doing an exterior search, telling people to shelter in place, waiting for daylight, then going house by house and evacing people until the find the guy.

[Arthur_Parker]

It's pretty impressive how fast this happened, I'm just very sorry to learn a policeman has been killed.

[Arthur_Parker]

The story goes a 4channer had Sunil pegged over 4 hours ago once the FBI released the images, reddit then picked it up, then it got plastered on the news shortly after the scanner feed verified the subject's name.  Unreal.  This is why you dont keep fuckin info. from the public unless you absolutely have to.

His facebook page was the last thing I looked about before going to bed last night, over 8 hours ago, because of this post on SA.

[Ghambit]

100 Town Park?  Motion sensors tripping in a closed structure.  Perimeter set.  
This guy is apparently depressed and suicidal; he's not goin down w/o a fight.

[Abagadro]

100 Talcott Ave.  Pull up the google sat picture and you can follow where all this is going.

[schild]

SA has some shit on their face in that thread.

[Ghambit]

How in the fuck did Sunil make it out of there in a car?  What a useless roadblock they had.   He's been separated from most of his arsenal though; bombsquad disposing of the stuff now.

[Arthur_Parker]

SA has some shit on their face in that thread.

Yeah, lots of stupid on show there.

[DraconianOne]

Commissioner just confirmed that other suspect died at hospital.

[Ghambit]

Yah, that's Mulegeta... he left the cover of the car they were using in the gunfight and went out in a blaze of 'glory.'  He hit a cop in doing-so, officer is now in critical condition.

[Tale]

Police summary of what has happened so far: click here

They released this pic of the guy at large:



(Edit: I'm signing out now, hope they catch him.)

[MahrinSkel]

SA has some shit on their face in that thread.

The pages where they slowly realize that "Holy shit, 4chan/reddit were right about everything we've spent 300 pages making fun of them about" are textbook cognitive dissonance.

--Dave

[Abagadro]

Holy fuck. Radio chatter says that dude that died when being taken had an explosive device on his chest that detonated. Explains the slow roll ambo that has been on the cable news.  Guy was clearly DOA on scene.

[Cyrrex]

Mental.

I guess I am hoping they catch the other guy alive.  Somebody needs to stand trial for the death of an 8 year-old boy, not to mention all the other injuries and deaths.  That way he can stew in his own worthless misery for a while.

[Quinton]

This is just bloody insane.  Came up for air after an evening of gaming and holy crap.  Now I'm listening to the scanner feed and trying to catch up on what's been going on over the past few hours.

[Ironwood]

Christ.

[Quinton]

Been watching the video feed from these guys (muted, they have subs up) with the scanner in the background: http://livewire.wcvb.com/Event/117th_Running_of_Boston_Marathon

I keep meaning to turn it off and call it a night and then I hear something like "put your hands over your head and get down on your knees" shouted over the scanner feed, then nothing, then a minute or two of somebody trying to get back in contact with the guy who shouted that and he finally comes back on the channel and says all is okay.

Bloody hell.

[Teleku]

Been following the reddit feed as well:

http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1co395/live_updates_of_boston_situation_part_2/

Last thing posted said that second suspect is dead, but only seeing the media confirming the first one so far.

[Arthur_Parker]

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=200082141349599835237.0004daaf434ba5147dce8&msa=0&iwloc=A

[MahrinSkel]

Here's a good link for showing how people counted 4chan out too quickly: Venture Beat thinks 4chan sucks.
Almost as they were putting up that article, the destined-to-be-famous reddit/4chan post identifying Sunil as suspect #2 was going up, the high-res pictures found, and the picture and video of Sunil dropping the backpack was isolated.  All things that the FBI would have done eventually, in a few more days or weeks, but it happened in hours.

The FBI identified them by their behavior, while 4chan was distracted by guys who didn't look normal because they were security the FBI knew who those guys were from the beginning.  Sunil *was* on the radar at 4chan, while he wasn't at the FBI even though they were *also* investigating his disappearance, *and* what is now obviously the test runs in Hanover.  4chan had those pieces put together, as one of many theories.

That's what crowdsourcing does, it pursues *all* possible avenues and as better facts become available it homes in on the ones that fit them.  And it does it incredibly fast.  Even if the fact that 4chan/reddit was right on their ass had nothing to do with bringing on the endgame (and I will not be at all surprised to find out it did), 4chan/reddit had leaped ahead in the investigation to get exactly where the FBI would have wound up...in a few weeks, probably after more bombings (they obviously had quite a few bombs ready to go, they weren't planning on laying low and waiting for people to get complacent, they were going to strike again *soon*).  Somebody at 4chan/reddit would have convinced somebody at the FBI to take a serious look at Sunil, and the wheels would have been set in motion well ahead of schedule.

If they really did bring things to a head early, 4chan and reddit may have saved dozens of lives, because I'm pretty damned sure there would have been a bombing this weekend.  Score one for the good guys, the Internet Detective Squad.  Maybe next time the FBI won't put out the information in little dribs and drabs that send them off into blind alleys.

--Dave

[Ironwood]

I'm not arguing with any of that.

[Arthur_Parker]

The two suspects have not been 100% positively identified as yet, I think it's safe to say the FBI press briefing generated a lot of interest and useful information but if it turns out what we currently think is wrong, that happens too.

[Ironwood]

I take it there's been fuck all about motive as yet ?  Or am I missing something ?

[Tebonas]

You can't have Law Enforcement Officers trolling unrelated internet boards for clues. For that one right 4chan guess there would have likely been hundreds that were wrong all over the Internet.

[Ingmar]

The other side of the Internet Hero story, of course:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2311248/Sala-Barhoum-track-star-teenager-denies-involvement-Boston-Marathon-bombing-picture-widely-circulated.html#ixzz2QtykVSr5%20

[luckton]

What the hell did I just wake up to?  Boston sounds like a fucking warzone right now 

[Hawkbit]

lol at the cop on scanner "that's why they call me Kevin 'in and out' Brennah"  immortalized forever to the world.

[Quinton]

"All available units into Charles Circle"

"Yeah we've got him.  He's in custody right now."

...

"We got a boston cab 375"

"As of right now they're all on the deck outside the car.  We haven't checked the trunk yet."

"Don't check the trunk.  Don't do it yourself."

...

then lost the scanner to an announcement that pubtrans is shut down and people should stay at home and not open their doors except to police

...

No clue what's going on now.

[Arthur_Parker]

A cop pulled over a suspicious cab.  (Guessing not related)

[MahrinSkel]

The other side of the Internet Hero story, of course:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2311248/Sala-Barhoum-track-star-teenager-denies-involvement-Boston-Marathon-bombing-picture-widely-circulated.html#ixzz2QtykVSr5%20

I notice that the Mail leaves out one major salient point: The NYP sticking the picture on the front page and claiming that the FBI was circulating it as suspects.  They even use the same shot without the NYP's "BAGMEN!" overlay (and it's not one of the shots that 4chan was using, so where did the Mail get it?).  That might have carried a little more weight in making him recognizable around town than 4chan.

--Dave

[Quinton]

Yeah, sounds like they found the red backpack guy somebody called in trying to flag down a cab earlier.  Guess he wasn't their guy.

[DraconianOne]

Twitter guy who lives on Laurel Street is posting several pictures of bomb disposal droids and SWAT teams. Also, this:



"Bullet hole through our wall and the chair #mitshooting #mit #boston"

EDIT: just noticed Ghambit posted this link on page 1 - sorry for the BW

[luckton]

I don't know why, but whenever news gets all "breaking" and uppity, this theme pops into my head.

[Ingmar]

And maybe all those Internet heroes were just flat out wrong:

The Associated Press @AP
BREAKING: AP sources: Boston bomb suspects from Russia region near Chechnya, lived in US at least 1 year. -SS
5:39am · 19 Apr 13 · SocialFlow

Can't stay up any later.

EDIT: One last tidbit:

The Associated Press ‏@AP 1m
BREAKING: AP: Surviving Boston bomb suspect identified as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, of Cambridge, Mass. -SS

So much for the triumph of 4chan. (Unless this turns out to be BS too of course.)