FBI releases images of Boston suspects

Using futuristic photo-analysis tools, federal agents on the Boston Marathon case last night released images of two potential suspects to enlist the public’s help in hunting down the bombers.

“No bit of information is too small for us to see,” Richard DesLauriers, the agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office, told a press conference, adding that the photos were available for public view at www.fbi.gov.

He said the photos came from surveillance cameras near the explosion sites.

The discovery of the surveillance video images and their release of the images to the public, raised hopes of a big break in the investigation even as authorities cautioned a nation hungry for answers not to expect the case to be cracked quickly.

“Not that we are moving to imminent resolution, but we are definitely moving in the right direction,” Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick said on his way into a memorial service where Obama and others honoured the three dead and more than 180 wounded in Monday’s twin blasts.

“We will find you,” President Barack Obama warned those behind the attack, bringing words of conviction and comfort in a visit to the shaken city.

At the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Obama declared to the people of Boston: “Your resolve is the greatest rebuke to whoever committed this heinous act.” He spoke in almost mocking terms of those who commit such violence.

“We finish the race, and we do that because of who we are,” the president said to applause.

“And that’s what the perpetrators of such senseless violence — these small, stunted individuals who would destroy instead of build and think somehow that makes them important — that’s what they don’t understand.”

Earlier in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano had said surveillance video pointed to more than one person the FBI wants to find and interview. In remarks to the House Homeland Security Committee, she gave no details on what the video shows.

A day earlier, City Council president Stephen Murphy said he was told by police that investigators are looking for a man seen in a department store surveillance video dropping off a bag and then walking away at the site of the explosions that tore off limbs and hurled nails and other shrapnel.

Seven victims remained in critical condition. Killed were 8-year-old Martin Richard of Boston, 29-year-old restaurant manager Krystle Campbell of Medford, and Lu Lingzi, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China.

Video and photos recovered in the investigation were examined and enhanced by an FBI unit called the Operational Technologies Division, said Joe DiZinno, former director of the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia.

Investigators will examine video frame by frame — a laborious process, though one aided by far more sophisticated facial recognition technology than is commercially available, forensic specialists said.

“When you have something that is this high-profile, they are going to use every available resource that they have,” said former Miami federal prosecutor Melissa Damian Visconti.

The investigation will collect about a million hours of videotape from fixed security cameras and cellphones and cameras used by spectators, said Gene Grindstaff, a scientist at Intergraph Corp, a Huntsville company that makes video analysis software used by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

But after years of investigating terrorist incidents and other crimes, the FBI is practiced at categorising and analysing such evidence and will winnow it down dramatically, he said.

“Back in the days of 20 years ago, you were lucky if you had video and it was probably of poor quality and it took a tremendous amount of enhancement. Today you have a completely different issue,” Grindstaff said.

Investigators can set the video analysis software so that it automatically searches for certain types of objects or people matching a height and weight description.

Naval check

- A suspicious substance was found at a US naval building near Washington, the Pentagon said last night, after authorities earlier discovered two letters laced with deadly ricin sent to President Barack Obama and a US senator.

“A suspicious substance was found in the mailroom of Building #12 at Naval Support Facility” in Arlington, Virginia, just outside the US capital, and all personnel were evacuated from the building as “a precaution”, the statement said.

A military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that officials found a “white powdery substance” and were checking to determine if it was ricin, or perhaps another poison.