(Updated, 3:15 p.m.)
BOSTON – Contrary to reports from the Associated Press and The Boston Globe, officials from both the Boston Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have said that there is currently no suspect in custody for the Boston Marathon bombings.
Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesman Jason Pack said in an e-mail that no arrests have been made at this point and shortly after 2:30 p.m. the Boston Police Department tweeted: “Despite reports to the contrary there has not been an arrest in the Marathon attack.”
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At 3:10 p.m. Boston.com tweeted that the federal court was being evacuated. “Federal courthouse evacuated; hundreds outside. People are being pushed back from building. Coast Guard and police boats in water,” said the tweet, followed by: “The courthouse is where a large contingent of media had gathered for an expected appearance by the suspect in Marathon bombings.”
The news source also reported that Brigham and Women’s Hospital was being evacuated, but the evacuation was due to a false alarm. A locked car with gas cans in the back had been left locked at the valet, said the news source’s Twitter page.
Investigators combing the site of the Boston Marathon bombing have recovered a piece of a circuit board they believe was part of one explosive device and the lid of a pressure cooker blown onto a rooftop, according to federal law enforcement officials. Increased security
The additional pieces of the bombs that authorities believe were fashioned from ordinary pressure cookers packed with nails, ball bearings and other shrapnel may ease the task of tracing the manufacturer and possibly the place where the components were purchased, clues that might lead to the bomber.
The first days of the FBI-led probe of the April 15 bombing are providing a clearer picture of the devices that killed three people and injured more than 170 others in Boston. Investigators also found scraps of black nylon at the blast site that suggest the bombs were hidden in a black duffel bag or backpack.
With the investigation “in its infancy,” Richard DesLauriers, the special agent in charge of the Boston FBI office, yesterday asked members of the public to search their memories for any recollection of someone who may have talked about the marathon as a target or who showed an interest in explosives. The unexplained sound of a blast in a remote area might have signaled a test run, he said.
“The person who did this was someone’s friend, neighbor or co-worker,” DesLauriers said at a news conference yesterday. “Someone knows who did this.”
Witness photos
He also sought witnesses at the marathon on race day for information or photos of anyone carrying a heavy dark bag.
The bombing is one of the highest-profile acts of terror in the U.S. since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and Washington in 2001. No group or organization have claimed responsibility, and U.S. lawmakers and intelligence officials have said there were no indications of a plot beforehand.
President Barack Obama plans to travel to Boston on April 18 for a service for the victims of the bombing.
“This was a heinous and cowardly act and, given what we now know took place, the FBI is investigating this as an act of terrorism,” the president said yesterday at the White House, his second statement on the attack in less than 18 hours. “We don’t have a sense of motive yet, so everything at this point is speculation.”
Initial evidence suggests homegrown terrorism, Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters after the panel was briefed by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
“There are a lot of things that are surrounding this that would give an indication it may have been a domestic terrorist,” Chambliss said. Still, he said, officials can’t say for certain.
Representative Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House intelligence panel, said spy agencies are concerned the Boston attacks were the acts of a “lone wolf.”
The lack of chatter or any information in advance of the attacks points to the possible acts of an individual or someone who worked “very quietly” with a few people, he said, though he cautioned that’s still a crucial fact that the investigators have to determine.
DesLauriers said, “The range of suspects and motives is wide open.”
Pressure cooker
The FBI and Homeland Security Department yesterday circulated a bulletin to other law enforcement agencies showing a picture of a fragment of a pressure cooker that investigators believe was part of one of the bombs used in the attack.
The damaged metal pressure cooker, mangled and dented by the blast, was accompanied by a separate picture of a damaged black backpack that investigators believe may have held one of the two explosive devices placed near the race’s finish line.
The Homeland Security Department issued a 2004 warning on the “potential terrorist use of pressure cookers” in explosive devices, saying the technique was “commonly taught in Afghan terrorist training camps” and had been used in India. Instructions to build such a bomb are available on the Internet.
Some victims had 40 or more fragments of pellet- and nail- like shrapnel embedded in their bodies, said Dr. George Velmahos, chief of trauma surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. The fragments were uniform, indicating that they came from the blasts and not from the surrounding environment, he said in a news briefing yesterday.
Increased force
Using a metal pressure cooker — a variant on the more common pipe bomb — boosts the power and lethality of a blast.
William C. Mackey, surgeon in chief at Tufts Medical Center, said at a briefing that each projectile removed becomes part of the investigation and is turned over to authorities.
“In the operating room last night, the nurses were very careful to isolate all the foreign bodies that were removed from the wounds, put them in a specimen container with the patient’s name and turn those over to the police,” Mackey said yesterday.
Among the victims of the bombing still in critical condition is a 5-year-old boy, Peter Burke, the chief of trauma services at Boston Medical Center, said at a briefing this morning.
The nation was on heightened alert. A terminal at New York’s LaGuardia Airport was evacuated because of a suspicious package and a US Airways Group Inc. flight was stopped on the tarmac and diverted to a remote location at Boston’s Logan Airport so authorities could search a bag. Pedestrian access in front of the White House was restricted for a second day. Patrols were stepped up at landmarks in New York City.
Sporting events worldwide are looking to increase security. Organizers for the London Marathon, scheduled for April 21, and the Oklahoma City Marathon, scheduled for April 28, said they were reviewing protection plans. The Oklahoma City race commemorates victims of a bomb detonated in front of the city’s federal building on April 19, 1995.
Officials will be working for days at the mile-square scene of the attack in Boston, according to DesLauriers. He said citizens can help by sharing images.
Among the evidence turned over to the FBI were photographs taken by a viewer of a Boston television station before and after one of the explosions. The first shows a bag on the ground next to a mailbox and a race-route barricade. A second image, blurred by WHDH-TV because of its graphic nature, suggested the blast was centered where the bag had been placed. The viewer who took the pictures said there may be a lag of an hour or more between the images, said WHDH, which didn’t identify the viewer.
Photos sought
“There has to be hundreds, if not thousands, of photos and videos,” said Timothy Alben, superintendent of the State Police.
Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said security footage had been taken from nearby businesses.
The blasts near Copley Square occurred as recreational runners were finishing about 2:50 p.m. local time April 15, police said. Among the dead was an 8-year-old boy from the Dorchester neighborhood, Martin Richard. The family of Krystle Campbell of Medford, Mass., identified the 29-year-old yesterday as another person who died in the blast.
The third person killed was a graduate student at Boston University, President Robert A. Brown said in an e-mail. The victim’s name wasn’t released. China’s consulate in New York said a Chinese citizen was among the dead. It didn’t disclose the person’s identity at the request of family, according to the consulate website.
Obama said the nation won’t be cowed by such acts. He cited people running to hospitals to give blood, others who tore off their clothes to make tourniquets, and first responders who plunged into the chaos to save lives.
“If you want to know who we are, what America is, how we respond to evil, that’s it: selflessly, compassionately, unafraid,” the president said.
