One Boston Marathon Bomb Suspect Dead, Other At Large After Shootout With Police 1109
theodp writes "During the night, The Tech broke news that gunshots were reported at MIT near 32 Vassar Street (the Ray and Maria Stata Center for Computer, Information, and Intelligence Sciences), and one officer was shot and taken to Mass General Hospital. MIT's Emergency Information page also reports that injuries have been reported. Sadly, CNN is now reporting that the university police officer has died. Look for updates on Twitter."
The two suspects identified earlier as being behind the Boston Marathon bombings are believed to be responsible for this. They were found by police. One suspect, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed in a shootout. The other suspect, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is still being pursued. The Associated Press reports that the two are believed to be from the Russian region near Chechnya. During the firefight, the suspects threw explosive devices at police. Public transit in Boston has been shut down, and hundreds of thousands of people have been asked to not leave their homes. Here are live feed for local TV news and emergency services audio. Police have been warned that the remaining suspect may have a suicide vest.
Reader Okian Warrior points out a related story worthy of notice: "The 4chan crowd, poring over images of the Boston marathon, identified two dark-skinned and bag-carrying suspects (among others). This was then picked up by The New York Post, who ran the image on Thursday's front page with the headline 'Feds seek these two pictured at Boston Marathon.' And now, a completely innocent teen now finds himself scared to leave his home."
Reader Okian Warrior points out a related story worthy of notice: "The 4chan crowd, poring over images of the Boston marathon, identified two dark-skinned and bag-carrying suspects (among others). This was then picked up by The New York Post, who ran the image on Thursday's front page with the headline 'Feds seek these two pictured at Boston Marathon.' And now, a completely innocent teen now finds himself scared to leave his home."
Will Box for Passport (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:infowars.com (Score:5, Interesting)
there are military at nearly every marathon with backpacks.
especially the big ones
they hike the course alongside the runners.
i've run 8 marathons (including this years boston marathon) and at 6 of them there were various military hikers. they are always very supportive of the runners and vice versa
this has nothing to do with the bombings.
vk.com site + New York Times Article review (Score:5, Interesting)
The New York Times [nytimes.com] is reporting that the two suspects attempted to light a bomb while engaging in gun-fire with the police during a standoff outside of the Watertown, MA, house of Andrew Kitzenberg. Andy Kitzenberg has been live tweeting [twitter.com] images of the police activity, shootout, and bomb explosions, and a bullet going through his wall and his armchair on twitter as linked above.
One of the brothers went to Cambridge Rindge and Latin [wikipedia.org], one of the oldest high schools in the USA.
Re:One Suspect Dead (Score:5, Interesting)
"don't want to risk more of their men." Isn't that their job?
Perhaps the best argument for gun control (Score:5, Interesting)
I know...mod me down as an anti-gun nut. But at least try to make the connection.
The advantage of crowdsourcing is that you get a shit-ton of information quickly, and it gets disseminated just as quickly. Everybody with a cell phone and a social media account has had this stuff in front of them since the bombing. It's great because it happens so fast, and millions of people being on alert can make for a quicker break in the case. It also has the downside of putting up a lot of false positives.
The NRA's stance is that if everyone had a gun, criminals would know not to so bad stuff and if they did there would be someone right there to stop them. It's basically crowd sourcing police/law enforcement work. Yes, there are now lots more people who can intervene with a criminal who is armed and dangerous. Just as everyone with a cell phone can photograph a scene and post the pictures on line for the world to peruse and instantly identify criminals.
Thing is, the more people who are involved, the higher the likelihood of a false positive. In the case of photos and social media, the mis-identified have a reason to be concerned short term, but once the media self-corrects and the correct criminals are identified their lives will slowly get back to normal. When guns are involved, a mis-identified person or bystander doesn't get a new life when the actual criminal is killed. The "oops" is permanent.
If you don't think there isn't the equivalent of 4chan in the vigilante world, you're sorely mistaken. It's part of the human condition to jump to conclusions based on limited evidence and not everyone will have the forethought or presence of mind not to take out someone who they think is about to cause harm to others.
If we used the NRA method of justice, Salah Eddin Barhoum would have been dead before the FBI even published the photos of the actual bombers.
(nb: I am a gun owner)
"From the Russian region near Chechnya"? (Score:5, Interesting)
He's not from _near_ Chechnya. It's not a city, it's a region. They are Chechens. References to "his native Chechnya". (The capital is Grozny).
He doesn't consider himself Russian, and he doesn't think he comes from "the Russian region near Chechnya". It was a de facto republic that Russia regained control of militarily.
He's likely a Sunni muslim, but it's quite possible that isn't really a factor here; this could simply be an international protest bombing regarding the west's stance on Chechen independence. Chechens are Muslims the way that Russians are Orthodox Christians and Americans are Catholic or Calvinist in origin; Islam hasn't as far as I understand it been a feature element of their struggle.
Well Slate.com is saving the day (Score:2, Interesting)
Slate is twisting itself in new corners. Now that it seems the bombers are Tjetchen, they are claiming that since they are technically Caucasian, they are white and therefor it ain't brown people just as they said.
EXCEPT that in the shooting of Trevor by a Hispanic guy, suddenly Hispanic does NOT mean your white because they are Caucasian... wow, it certainly seems as if being white and Caucasian are only the same thing if it is convenient. (By the way, this goes for the left and right).
And by the way, slate is NOT left wing, it is the bleeding heart wing. Real left can and often is very hard and most definitely anti-faith.
Re:Will Box for Passport (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:News for nerds? (Score:5, Interesting)
The other nerdy part, the elephant in the room everyone is dancing around, is how the much vaunted "crowdsourced" media got it wrong - badly so. That part will go down the memory hole as people confuse "the authorities going through the photos from the crowds" with "the crowds going through the photos".
Re:MIT (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Holy crap! (Score:3, Interesting)
Time to get my Concealed Carry Permit.
Won't stop a bomb, but would be pretty handy if people like these two chuckle heads decide to start shooting things up instead of blowing them up.
Re: Holy crap! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sexist!!!!!!!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is it always MALES??
I know you're being silly, but the real reason is that the vast majority of the world's cultures (much of the US included) see violence as something that women do only when protecting their kids.
This has lots of other implications, such as the significant number of people who believe that men can't be raped by women or be victims of domestic violence.
Re:Not News For Nerds (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Watch the total absence (Score:5, Interesting)
Look at the IRA's death toll. Apparently, they were whispering those "warnings" up the Bishop's ass.
There's not that much difference between the IRA and Al Qaeda. Both self-righteous religious murderers.
Re:MIT (Score:1, Interesting)
the profession gets a bad rap because "one bad apple spoiles the bunch", and the 'good' cops don't stop the bad cops, they just look the other way.
It's understandable really, if you rat out other (bad) cops, every fellow officer will look at you as a traitor (the whole thin blue line crap).
Consequently for a cop looking the other way is the optimal solution when judged from a selfish perspective. Contrarily when judged from a general social perspective it's the worst possible choice.
Since the 'spoiles the bunch' part of the saying still applies, they all get tarred with the same brush.
As for just doing his job.... at least he _chose_ a job with the expectation (if he has any sence) that he would sooner or later be confronted with violence (which is why they are equipped and trained to deal with it). Compare that with somemody working in a grocery store/gas station that gets robbed.
Re:Will Box for Passport (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not trying to downplay the seriousness of what he's done, if he's done it, but I rather suspect that is a common experience for immigrants to the USA now, especially muslim immigrants whose backgrounds are poorly understood. It's merely honest.
Really? In my dorm there were students from all over the world, they ranged from outgoing to painfully shy, but none were friendless.
Re:One Suspect Dead (Score:5, Interesting)
Police are trained to "shoot to stop", not "shoot to kill."
Law enforcement, however, generally dislikes the term “shoot to kill,” insisting it’s technically inaccurate even though many officers acknowledge it also would be inaccurate to say they try to “shoot to wound.” Instead, departments use various renditions of this phrase: shooting “until the threat ends or stops.” . . .
. . . in a recent email Spokane Police Sgt. Dave McCabe offers a good explanation of what he and others see as a distinguishable difference between shoot-to-kill and shoot-to-stop the threat: “The suspect does not have to be dead to no longer be a threat,” McCabe wrote -- “Shoot to kill” vs. shoot to stop threat [spokesman.com]
Re:One Suspect Dead (Score:5, Interesting)
Seven mistakes that cost De Menezes his life [independent.co.uk]
Re:One Suspect Dead (Score:5, Interesting)
Russia had a terrorist attack about a decade ago where Terrorists took an entire theater of people hostage. Russians pumped the theater full of Fentanyl gas (Fentanyl is a synthetic opiate, very strong, but colorless, odorless and tasteless). They did this because opiates put you to sleep rather quickly and you are often unaware it's happening.
To ensure they had enough gas in there to knock out the biggest (body mass) terrorist they basically ended up killing everyone in the theater that was under about 180lbs (more than 100 innocent people). Using opiates as knock out drugs is a good way to kill someone because if you miss dose even a little bit they stop breathing.
Re:Sexist!!!!!!!!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously? How does that work?
Kinda hard to rape the willing...what guy doesn't like getting laid, and if she was that fugly...how would he get it up?
Re:Sexist!!!!!!!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:MIT (Score:5, Interesting)
When the video footage of the Marathon Bombing started to be played, I pointed out to my wife that the it was a perfect example of the difference between the "average cop" and many people's perception of the average cop - the cops were the ones running TOWARD the explosions while everyone else ran AWAY.
Just something to keep in mind....
Re: Holy crap! (Score:4, Interesting)
Wrong.
The higher you raise the bar to do it, the fewer people who commit suicide.
This has been seen over and over again around the world.
The most recent example that pops to mind is England. The number 1 suicide rate was overdosing on over he counter pain reducers (Tylon et al.). So they passed a law saying all over the counter pills need to be in a pill packet.
The number of suicide using that method was cut in half, and no other method of suicide saw an increase.
Having a gun right there is the simplest and easiest way to kill oneself.
Give them a delay, even a slight one, and there is a good chance they won't do it.
Another fact: Most people who survived suicide, or was stopped, had no plan to commit suicide. They just decided to do it.