Unimpressed with police work in Boston

[jgradyc]

I've puzzled over this all week. Maybe someone in law enforcement can put a different perspective on this for me, which is why I'm posting this here. All the press conferences and news channels are praising law enforcement for catching these bombers, but my take is that they have barely risen to a D grade.  What's your perspective?

 

Intel from Isreal in 2011 to check out the older brother... didn't help or put him him on a watch list. 

Did not catch bombers before the event, in spite of multiple purchases of suspicious IED material.

Did not catch before blast with bomb sniffing dogs.

Did not catch after blast.

Only ID'd the suspects AFTER the guy who lost both legs came out of surgery and gave a definitive description of bomber #2.

One silver lining: They did ID suspect number #1 after getting the eye-witness report above, so I give them a A on this.

Did not catch the bombers immediately after the event. They were able to escape.

Trail went cold. Put pictures on TV.

This would have been the end had these two bombers had any Plan B.

 

Then, for some inexplicable bone-head reasons, they 1) kill a cop sitting in a car 2) carjack a guy to get money from an ATM, tell the guy they're the bombers, and then LET HIM GO.

In the ensuing car chase, bomber #2 gets away IN SPITE OF A THOUSAND LEOs in the area.

Finally, a citizen reports seeing blood and a man in his boat. He calls 911. Bomber #2 is apparently too injured to run away this time, so they catch him. Barney Fife could have caught the guy once he was ID'd in the boat.

 

Am I being too hard on law enforcement? It looks like they just got lucky to me.

Edited April 20, 2013 by jgradyc

[RobertNashville]

I think you are painting with a VERY broad brush.

 

Were mistakes made by some law enforcement agencies....sounds like that may be the case. But an overall "D" for all law enforcement in this case; I think that's a bit harsh especially when giving the grade with the help of hindsight.

Edited April 20, 2013 by RobertNashville

[enfield]

Walk a mile in their shoes.

[Glenn]

The thing that blew me away was the amount of resources to catch 2 guys. Hell, if 100 people attacked a city all at once they would have to drop a nuke.

[DaveTN]

I saw a video of what appears to be the bombers carrying back packs that I guess it’s safe to assume contained the bombs. I didn’t see any bomb sniffing dogs following them.

I wasn’t aware they shot a cop while he was sitting in a car. But the California cop killer did that also. How would you suggest they should have stopped that?

I suspected they would be IDed by video. Thousands of video cameras were filming. They sifted through that and came up with suspects; apparently the right suspects.

They put all the information out to the public and the public responded.

You are correct that whoever did the background check prior failed. I am also surprised that in this day and age at an event like that someone could set a back pack down, walk away, and no one noticed it or became suspicious enough to call police.

We arm chair quarterback; that’s what we do. Sure its easy to say a lot of resources were used. But it worked; what would you have done?

[Dolomite`s Breezy]

Next time ,there is a tragic event...have them call you so you can do better.....

 

:rolleyes:

[DaveTN]

The thing that blew me away was the amount of resources to catch 2 guys. Hell, if 100 people attacked a city all at once they would have to drop a nuke.

If 100 people covertly attacked a city; it would be chaos on the level of Katrina in any city anywhere. If 100 people openly attacked most cities there would just be 100 dead bodies to bag; plus however many innocent citizens they killed in their attack.

[jgradyc]

My point about the dogs is that according to reports, there were bomb sniffing dogs at the start. It would seem pretty simple to bring them to the finish and patrol the stands and major crowd areas. I don't see any indication that was done. I question why dogs were present at the start and not at the finish.

[Caster]

I do wonder why they didn't just back an armored truck up to that boat and drag his happy ass to jail. LOL

Seriously, why do they tip toe in the tulips at every scene? I'm not very educated so I guess they have their reasons. I've seen foreign police videos though. When Israeli police go after a wanted person who is on the run....well, they don't use a megaphone to holler "come out with your hands up. " Don't even mention Russia! LOL. No I don't wanna live in a place like that but they have a point. When you've been told by the authorities to give up, and you don't, why should they try to be nice about it? I suppose its a good thing though, abuse of power is already a problem. I just don't know why one 19 year old kid could cause that many grown TRAINED men to have such pause. I wasn't there, I have no training or experience and it's easy for me to say such things but it seems like they shoulda moved in quick, in the dark (that's what night vision is for!) snatched him outta there, pulled off their tactical belt and whooped his ass all the way to the nearest squad car.

I don't k ow what disgusts me more, the bottom feeding vultures in the media, or the whole country's lust for excessive drama. Edited April 20, 2013 by Caster

[hipower]

Since the speculation here, has anything been determined about the exploxive media used? Still thinking that black powder was the material? And is it true that the Bomb Dogs aren't trained for or can't detect the black powder?

[TMF]

My point about the dogs is that according to reports, there were bomb sniffing dogs at the start. It would seem pretty simple to bring them to the finish and patrol the stands and major crowd areas. I don't see any indication that was done. I question why dogs were present at the start and not at the finish.

And how many seconds passed from the time they dropped the bombs to the time they went off? Would it have mattered? Absolutely not, unless they had 100s of explosives detections dogs stationed all over that area actively involved in doing detection. Despite what you think you know about EDDs, it wouldn't have mattered if there was one 20 ft away from where the first bomb was. If he wasn't actively doing detection it would not have done anything.

Dogs can only do detection for so long before they are cashed. So unless there just happened to be one there, doing detection in the limited window that the backpack was there then your point is, well, pointless.

[TMF]

Since the speculation here, has anything been determined about the exploxive media used? Still thinking that black powder was the material? And is it true that the Bomb Dogs aren't trained for or can't detect the black powder?

They should be trained on just about everything out there. Would it have mattered? No.

[jgradyc]

. But it worked; what would you have done?

That's a bit of why I posted this here. I'm not in law enforcement and 20/20 hindsight is easy.  Still, Once the hijacked guy reported that he had been hijacked by the bombers, I'd have responded with every vehicle in the city.

 

I'd have multiple helicopters with thermal imaging in the greater Boston area on alert status, just like the US Air Force keeps its fighter and bomber crews.  A helicopter over  in the car chase and gun battle could have tracked the guy when he got away from the scene.

 

I appreciate the input. Mostly, I'm upset because many of my friends were there and one friend was injured... minor injury thankfully.

[Mister L]

With all the shots fire and only a few hits, I think some range time is needed.

[enfield]

I do wonder why they didn't just back an armored truck up to that boat and drag his happy ass to jail. LOL

Seriously, why do they tip toe in the tulips at every scene? I'm not very educated so I guess they have their reasons. I've seen foreign police videos though. When Israeli police go after a wanted person who is on the run....well, they don't use a megaphone to holler "come out with your hands up. " Don't even mention Russia! LOL. No I don't wanna live in a place like that but they have a point. When you've been told by the authorities to give up, and you don't, why should they try to be nice about it?  . . .

 

Lawyers.

[DaveTN]

Seriously, why do they tip toe in the tulips at every scene? I'm not very educated so I guess they have their reasons.

They are engaging a suspected bomber. Walking up on him or shooting at him (unless he is an active shooter) could result in a bomb going off.

[45guy]

What seems odd to me is that they brought in every available resource and nothing they did caught the guy. It was an aware citizen that found him. The police said at a press conference after the standoff ended that.

 

 

“Tsarnaev had escaped their manhunt and hid himself in the boat just one block outside of the perimeter they were searching.”

 

 

As soon as the police lifted the restriction allowing people to go outside someone found this guy. I guess you could say the best thing they did to catch this guy was to allow people to leave their houses.

Edited April 20, 2013 by 45guy

[Romad7]

In a city that size and that busy of an event, I'm pretty impressed with the work that they did.

I'm sure they want to take suspects alive and not unecessarily risk the lives of their people, one idiot college student in a building with an AK can still kill a highly trained person. Dead bad guys can't tell them where to find the other bad guys.

[Joseg]

Open field vs Urban environment are too different things. Urban environments (based on my Infantryman training circa 90-95) are the most dangerous working environment, because around every corner their could be a shooter or device waiting on you, so you have to be methodical when in this environment. I think the US Army FM on this is available and not classified, you should get it and read up on it. Keep in mind this was more of a Cordone and Search operation, they had no intel on where he was exactly till the tip after they told everyone they could go outside their homes. 

 

They did good by flooding the area with LEOs, but they did it in a methodical way, K9, SWAT, and other units to back them up, to include EMS. 

 

Keep in mind this all started with the FBI showing the pictures and video of them, which caused them to panic and want to flee, could they have had intel on where he was prior to the press conference and wanted to keep it a secret in case, he was using his phone to get police updates or someone was assisting him via phone. We will never know, but one thing is for sure, that kid is lucky, that he didn't try to go out pointing a weapon at the officers when surrounded..  

 

So I say Bravo Zulu to the LEOs, the surrounding States that provided resources, the Federal agencies that were involved. less than 5 days after the bombing to capture or kill is pretty impressive. And should sent a message to wannabee terrorist that the US will not play.. 

Edited April 20, 2013 by Joseg

[bigwakes]

I agree with the OP. I don't see how they have a car chase, 200 rounds fired, one bad guy down, and one bad guy gets away in the car that was being chased. That sounds like the Dukes of Hazzard to me.

Why did they wait nearly a full day to release photos of the bad guys. They say we have the suspects photos at a press conference, but we are only releasing them to law enforcement. That makes no sense now and made no sense when I heard it the first time.  I think they could have saved a cops life by releasing the photos to the public. The bad guys were found within 12 hours of the release.

 

I don't pretend to think I could do better, but we have the best and brightest federal and local agents on the scene and they decide to not let millions of people id the BG's as soon as possible.

[Guest drv2fst]

It's clear to me that the only reason these bombers were caught still in this country is that they were completely incompetent and gave absolutely NO thought to what happens to after the bombs go off.  If they had ANY reasonable plans for escape it would have taken 10 years to find them in another country somewhere so that we can begin asking for extradition.

 

We can be thankful that these were only a couple of severely misguided/brainwashed young men.  If they had serious support and/or training, we would not have this relatively swift resolution.  I fear for how we will fare against a more determined enemy of our freedoms and way of life.

[TMF]

What seems odd to me is that they brought in every available resource and nothing they did caught the guy. It was an aware citizen that found him. The police said at a press conference after the standoff ended that.

Because that's how it usually goes. There were only a few thousand police officers actively searching compared to nearly 1 million civilians keeping their eyes peeled as well. I'm no numbers genius, but it seems more likely that he'd be spotted by a citizen before police.

[JPR1959]

Had police searched the property where he was found?  If so, that's bad.  I haven't kept up with all of the details, but it just shows how tough of a job LE and counterterrorism really is.  It's hard to imagine how many sleeper cells there are in this country.

 

I don't mean to sound this way either, but I'm glad it was a Muslim and NOT an American if you get my drift.

 

I also wonder how many citizens wish they could have had a firearm for protection during the lockdown.

[DaveTN]

I also wonder how many citizens wish they could have had a firearm for protection during the lockdown.

Why couldn’t they have a gun?

[45guy]

Because that's how it usually goes. There were only a few thousand police officers actively searching compared to nearly 1 million civilians keeping their eyes peeled as well. I'm no numbers genius, but it seems more likely that he'd be spotted by a citizen before police.

 

I don’t know about that. I am not sure what happened with this is “usual” I cannot remember an event like this with the manpower used that failed completely only to have a citizen find the guy. Maybe it’s out there but I cannot remember one. (Of course my memory is not what it used to be)