The Story of the Boston Bombing
How Crowdsourcing and Social Media Shaped the Manhunt
On April 15 2013, more than 500,000 people lined the streets of Boston Massachusetts to watch the Boston Marathon. It was around the four hour mark in the race, which is when families crowd around the finishing line to see the majority of the recreational runners finish. Then at about 2:50pm there were two explosions, the first right next to the finish and line and the second about 70 meters down the street. Three people were killed and at least 264 were injured.
The massive manhunt for the perpetrators was described by the New York Times as “America’s first fully interactive national tragedy of the social media age”. Digital sleuths took to sites like Reddit to look for clues to the bombers’ identities by sorting through private footage of the race. Social media became a melting pot of the latest updates from citizens, officials and the media. The aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombing shows the potential and real dangers of an active social media public during a crisis. Officials and media companies had to navigate a new dynamic with the public in order to safely locate the perpetrators.
Digital Sleuthing to Identify Suspects
When the explosions went off an urgent investigation began to understand what had happened, started by the Boston Police and later overseen by the FBI. With the evidence on the scene and the nature of the injuries it was quickly concluded that the explosions were a result of small devices that were placed with intention of causing harm. By the next day President Obama had confirmed that it was a terrorist attack in an address at the White House. Unlike other attacks of this nature, those responsible for placing the bombs had neither been caught up in the blast or claimed responsibility. Desperate for a way to help, many people took to social media sites, especially Reddit, to comb through the thousands of pieces of private footage of the marathon to identify suspects. At the height of its activity the subreddit chain /r/findbostonbombers, dedicated to discovering the identities of the Boston Bombers, had hundreds of comments about potential suspects.
The Boston Marathon was a busy, popular event, in the age of the smartphone and social media. The minutes before the blasts went off were very well documented. The police appealed to the public to send in their footage. A number of internet communities took it a step further, mass uploading images to sites like Reddit and attempting to identify suspicious behavior in the moments before the blast. Grant Fredericks, a forensic video analyst, makes an argument for this kind of mass analysis of crowd images:
“If someone tries to sneak in and do something, that sneaky personal behaviour is much more likely to be captured in the background of someone’s private documentation.”
In the past online sleuthing has helped to solve cases that have caught the public’s attention including identifying a Brooklyn purse snatcher and providing evidence in the Steubenville, Ohio rape case. By pooling resources the internet community can act as additional eyes and ears for the police force. The open nature of these public forums allowed for people from all sectors to bring their expert knowledge to the footage. Most participants in the online sleuthing weren’t in the investigative profession, but this greater range of knowledge did produce some unexpected clues. For example, one radio controlled car enthusiast was able to identify how the perpetrators detonated the bombs and a local tire disturber was able to identify the hat a suspect was wearing. When users believed they had identified information that would be relevant to the case, they were encouraged to pass it onto the police.
However, in the case of the Boston Bombing, the flurry of digital investigation inundated the police with tips and falsely identified innocent bystanders as suspects. Criminal profiling and suspect identification can be damaging without effective law enforcement training. People in the crowd were identified as suspects because they were carrying a large backpack or by looking away from the race. These images were often ‘leaked’ outside the chat to be distributed across the internet and even in some cases appearing in the media. Missing American student Sunil Tripathi was identified as a possible bomber leading to his family receiving death threats. Later it was discovered that he had taken his own life long before the bombing. Also, in the end, all the digital sleuthing didn’t lead to the identification of the bombers.
While the digital sleuths were conducting their flawed investigations in public, the officials still had to identify the actual perpetrators as quickly as possible. One of the reasons that, despite the massive resources, digital sleuthing was ineffective in the case of the Boston Bombing was because there was little relationship between these online communities and the official investigation. Police departments have a history of shunning more assistance from citizen vigilantes. Between the initial appeal for footage and the formal identification of the suspects the police didn’t outline what public assistance would have helped the investigation. Equally citizens, especially those who participate in their own investigations, don’t always trust the police. This can lead to important evidence discovered in online groups not being passed on to the police or even vigilante justice, like the threatening of Sunil Tripathi’s family. The FBI did attempt to dissuade communities from public identifying suspects but with little success. Though official engagement with these forums were limited, it’s still a lot more than in the past. It may be that the sheer volume of the public mobilation required a response or it could be a sign that the police are starting to see some value in public engagement in investigations, or at least in directing it.
A safer way for investigators to harness the power of private footage is through using technology. The National Digital Evidence Processing Lab uses AI to help analyze large quantities of footage for police departments around the world. The technology encodes videos and images collected from private citizens and can identify the clothing of specific individuals and where they appear. Even in this process there has to be profiles set and the system will select a large number of people who are not involved. Unlike Reddit forums, these possible suspects are passed directly onto authorities to follow up with traditional investigation, instead of having their identities released to the public.
Ultimately, it’s believed that Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who were found responsible for the bombings, were identified through traditional testimony from a victim. Jeff Bauman contacted the police once he regained consciousness in the hospital. He had seen a man, later identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, place the bag containing the explosive at his feet and walk away. He was able to give a full description of him. The police were then able to use their software to track down and identify Tamerlan and Dzhokhar in the footage they had of the race.
According to FBI sources, public engagement did prompt them to release the images of the Tsarnaevs earlier in order to fight speculation and focus the public’s attention. Once the images of the Tsarnaev brothers were released online forums pivoted, with more success, to tracking images of them in the moments before the bombing. They were even able to find the now famous image of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev yards away from eight-year-old Martin Richard, the youngest casualty of the blast.
Though online sleuthing didn’t ultimately identify the Tsarnaev brothers as the suspected bombers, this case proves the immense power of public interaction when searching for evidence. When left to their own devices these forums were dangerous to innocent members of the public. However, when given specific guidance from the officials, internet sleuths were able to help track suspects using private footage.
The Social Media Manhunt
Just because the Tsarnaev’s were identified as prime suspects, doesn’t mean this was over. They were still at large and the following days held one of the largest manhunts in US history marked by immense amounts of information and misinformation released through social media.
On April 18th, the same day the images of the brothers were released, a police officer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was shot and later died. Overnight, the brothers carjacked a van and led the police in a high-speed chase and shootout that left Tamerlan, but Dzhokhar escaped. During these events, and the following manhunt for Dzhokhar Boston residents’ movements were restricted. With the city still in shock, and a high stakes, fast paced manhunt taking place outside, residents (and outside spectators) swarmed to social media to gather and share the latest updates from the investigation. The nature and timing of the crisis lead to a heavy reliance on social media for the updates and speculation. Some rumors were so prevalent they even made it on traditional media outlets. However, officials also used social media to quickly address these rumors and to spread information to keep people safe.
At about 3pm on April 15th the first online report of the Boston Bombing was a tweet reading “Uhh explosions in Boston”. By 4:10 p.m. there were more than 300,000 mentions on Twitter of “Boston explosions”. From there Twitter became a major source of information about the manhunt for the perpetrators. Tweets with information about the suspects or any movement in their capture went viral, whether they were from official sources or shared by local residents. This led to a number of issues, mainly that false information was widely reported and believed. A number of users tweeted out information from police radio scanners which then got retweeted, leading to some misunderstandings by the public. For example, Mike Mulugeta was confidently identified as being connected with the brothers. Only there was no one named Mike Mulugeta, as the information was based on a mishearing of a police scanner.
While tv news was still reported as the most used source for news during the incident, survey respondents criticized the TV coverage as too slow and prefered internet sources. The media, under pressure from an impatient audience, went on to report a number of these rumors including that a suspect was already in custody and even shared images of “suspects” earlier identified by digital sleuths. The New York Post ended up getting sued for putting a photo of two dark skinned students identified as suspects (for wearing large backpacks) on the front page. CNN, the AP and the Boston Globe, all traditionally reliable outlets reported on the arrest of a suspect on April 17th when in fact none had taken place. Traditional journalists weren’t able to put information as quickly as the rumors could circulate because they had checks that needed to be followed through. When these were ignored for the sake of speed, they got things wrong, further devaluing them in the eyes of the public.
But social media’s affect on the manhunt wasn’t entirely negative. While it cultivated the environment to encourage rumors, it also provided the perfect environment to address them.Twitter is set up so that users who are interested in the story can easily question and correct information. Throughout the crisis officials were able to quickly confirm or deny information spread on social media by tweeting themselves. Incorrect identifications of suspects were quickly snuffed out by Tweets from the police. Boston Police confirmed many tweets from the Boston Globe so users could be sure of their validity.
Additionally vital safety information was shared on social media including updates on the lockdowns that took place in Watertown as the FBI searched for Dzhokhar. The Cambridge Police Twitter was used to regularly remind people what to look out for and where to report suspicious behavior. Photos of the suspects were regularly distributed online. There were even times when social media interaction appeared to allow institutions to more easily share information with each other. When the Boston PD tweeted that there was another incident developing at the JFK library, the library was able to respond saying the incident (a mechanical fire) was unrelated.
At 8:15pm on April 19th, 2013 the news that the final suspect was in custody was released by the authorities, on Twitter. Watertown and the Greater Boston Area had been on lockdown from most of the day while armored vehicles carried SWAT teams door to door. The fast paced, human based nature of The Boston Bombing lead to massive amounts of public interaction. Whether or not officials approve, social media has provided an interested public with the tools to analyze clues and share information. WIth this comes increased danger of misplaced vigilantism and widespread misinformation. Police departments and media companies have steps they can take to midgate damage and take advantage of the tools by steering the public and correcting misinformation.
