FBI Released Tsarnaev Photos To Counter Reddit, New York Post Misinformation

The days after the Boston Marathon bombing were not the best for the media.

As The New York Postgot the death toll wrong and clumsily attempted to name suspects with misguided front-page photos, CNNfalsely reported that one of the suspects had been identified as early as Tuesday afternoon.

Then again, the Internet didn’t cover itself in glory either. Thousands of users on link-sharing sites such as Reddit and 4Chan immediately became amateur sleuths, with thousands of images and videos pored over by users in a bid to find the bombers. Names of suspects were eventually released — but not the right ones. With the wrong suspects tagged on more than occasion, confusion and the threat of vigilante justice spread rapidly.

This flow of misinformation was, according to The Washington Post, one of the primary reasons the FBI released photos of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The bureau was keen to limit the damage being done by a frenzied media desperate for eyeballs and Internet detectives who were desperate to just be first.

FBI agents succeeded in identifying the suspects in the crowd late Wednesday afternoon and immediately had a decision to make. Worried that chaos would consume the investigation, they chose to release the photos of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the public. This, writes The Post, was the FBI’s way of wresting back control of the investigation.

The FBI was helped significantly by one of the victims in the bombing. Jeffrey Bauman, who lost both legs below the knee while waiting for his girlfriend to complete the race, was a key witness. A still-recovering Bauman wrote the following down on a piece of paper for agents:

“Bag. Saw the guy, looked right at me.”

That, reveals The Post, was a turning point for the FBI investigation and not something the public or media could have known about.

If anything, the flurry of misinformation around the Boston Marathon bombing is a timely reminder that vigilante detective work can often be counter-productive. Although they may occasionally get things wrong, it seems the police and FBI are often the best detectives with access to the strongest case-cracking resources.