Unimpressed with police work in Boston

[DaveTN]

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)

The recent California cop killer. Didn’t someone in the Unabomber’s family recognize his writing and turn him in?

[NRA]

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.

 

Gotta love all these arm chair quarter backs

 

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

Have you ever been in a gun fight? what about a gun fight when you also had bombs thrown your way? I bet all your shots would be spot on.

[DaveS]

Gotta love all these arm chair quarter backs

 

Have you ever been in a gun fight? what about a gun fight when you also had bombs thrown your way? I bet all your shots would be spot on.

I was just getting ready to ask that myself! 

 

Dave S

[Mister L]

They train for that kind of situation. Over 200 rounds fired. Got to be some dead dogs and cats somewhere.

[TMF]

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)

"Usually" as in most every manhunt ever in recent history. This is why we have things like Amber Alerts. The civilians are about 1,000 times more likely to spot the guy before a police officer, but yes, I guess all those Boston cops should turn in their badges since they didn't spot them first. Amateurs the lot of them I tell ya.

[DaveS]

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.

Do you deer hunt? Put 100 hunters in the woods and a buck will still slip through....no difference here. My cell phone on CNN will tell me EVERYTHING I need to know to elude the law!!! It works huh?

 

Dave S

[Oh Shoot]

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.

 

Yeah, I was initially thinking surely the perps would have disguised themselves, as just couldn't believe someone nowadays wouldn't know they'd be documented many times over in  situation like that.

 

It they had just researched and executed a bit of facial, hair, and maybe body padding disguise, whatever, they might have gotten away with it. Perhaps other factors would have eventually found them out, but they were outed by people who knew them from simply seeing the pix and if that avenue hadn't been there, who knows?

 

- OS

Edited April 20, 2013 by Oh Shoot

[jphillips63]

Actually they were waiting on the film crew "Cops" to arrive on scene to film the entire chase.

 

 This is just another example no matter what laws are in place Radicals will kill and cause terror in the world.

 

 Now that this is over go down to the local hardware store and see how far you get buying 2-3 pressure cookers, some nails ball bearings and other items that could be used in a bomb. Yet with no intent of building one. Hopefully this event will make others aware when such purchases are made. But on the other hand how would one know if purchases are spread out over time?

[RED333]

The Local LEO did a good job.

It was the alphabet gangs that dropped the ball on this, all the talk of watching what is going

on the net and they missed it BIG TIME.

[Lowpower]

1. they didn't have enough guys. I heard Conn State Police were being called up along with the National guard. 

2. they should have used drones.

3. they told the people who went to work to call and have someone pick them up while still looking for #2.

4. the whole state should have been on lockdown.

5. most of those guys would have been hard pressed to chase anyone down. perhaps too much time in a squad car, eating....?

 

ok, all joking aside....99% of the time the Police are there to investigate what happened not whats going to happen. That's why when you're

being attacked right now the Police are only minutes away. Not to be harsh but think about it. Unless your a LEO in a 7-11 that's being robbed

it's gonna happen with no one to stop it except perhaps an armed citizen.  

 

One thing to remember if you don't want the guy to be captured alive just put out a "reward for the arrest and conviction". The States are so broke

they can't afford to pay the reward so.....

 

I'm glad they got the guy alive. Now if we can send him Guantanamo and keep him out of the hands of the lawyers and politicians we might actually 

find out why.

 

oh yeah, I walked a mile...

[East_TN_Patriot]

 

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

 

Many times local law enforcement is not made aware of intelligence acquired by the feds or the state.  Many other times, the intelligence is so weak that it simply doesn't justify putting people on a watch list.  Also, just a quick look at the Internet reveals how many people think all Muslims are terrorists, so I'd think it's a safe bet that law enforcement agencies are so buried in crappy intelligence that it's tough to weed through it all.  To illustrate this, back in the late 1990s there was a Mexican serial killer named Angel Resendiz (The Railroad Killer) who had some relatives (including his mother) in the town I was working in as a police officer.  When the public became aware of this fact and were asked by the State Police to keep an eye out for him, we were inundated with calls about possible sightings of him for over a week.  If you were a Hispanic/Latino male in that city, you were almost certain to have the police show up to ID you. 

 

 

 

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

 

The bombs were made of gunpowder and a pressure cooker.  Is that really all that suspicious?

 

 

Did not catch before blast with bomb sniffing dogs.

 

You are assuming that they were constantly walking around with bomb sniffing dogs, and even if they were, there's no way the police could have a dog at every single place at every single moment.

 

 

Did not catch after blast.

 

I assume you are talking about the bombers.  Consider the thousands of people in the area when these bombs went off.  It was total chaos.  Thousands of people were running everywhere, nobody was aware of what was going on, nor did they have a suspect description at that point.  Tack on the fact that dozens of people were seriously injured.  What's the priority for law enforcement at the scene?  To render aid and control the crowd so other first responders can get in to help the victims, not search for suspects.  From what I understand, the bombs had crude timers on them, so between the time the bombs were placed at the scene and detonated, the bad guys were likely far enough away from the scene for them to not even be noticed by anyone.

 

 

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

 

OK, and?  If that was the only eyewitness who could provide any sort of detailed description, there's no way for the police to get a description of the suspects.  The victim who gave the description was in shock and in very critical condition.  Again, priority is getting this victim medical aid.  The police are not, and should not, interfere with this to get a statement.  Even if they tried, a guy in shock likely isn't in a condition to give a description anyhow.

 

 

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

 

 

OK, and?  A physical description does not a positive ID make.  They were looking for two guys in a metropolitan city who did not particularly stand out.  Take a description of "two young men, white or of eastern European ethnicity, one wearing a black ball cap and one wearing a white ball cap" and go positively ID two specific individuals with no other information or evidence.  By the time the police got any description, these perpetrators could potentially have already been out of the United States had they tried to do so.  It's hard enough to find my wife in the grocery store and I know exactly who I'm looking for and what building she's in.  Now consider two unidentified men in a city of millions of people.

 

 

Trail went cold. Put pictures on TV.

 

OK, and?  This is not something unique.  Police can't crap a positive identification of two unknown people.  Cops have been doing this for decades in wanted posters.

 

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.

 

None of us know exactly what the situation was related to the pursuit, but we do know that the MIT police officer was killed in his patrol car.  I speculate that the officer had either tried to approach these suspects or the suspects thought they were about to be stopped.  After killing one LEO, they carjack someone, get in a high speed police pursuit, throw explosives at the police, at the conclusion, a large gun battle erupts, another cop is shot and seriously injured, one of the bad guys is shot and killed possibly by one of his own explosive devices, and in the chaos, the other suspect manages to slip away.  Were there "a thousand LEOs" at the scene of that pursuit?  I seriously doubt it.  

 

 

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.

 

And if it had not been for the large concentration of police covering the area, I think it's a safe bet the bad guy would not have just crawled up into a boat and hunkered down.  He had slipped away twice so certainly he'd have done it a third time if he could have.  Yes, perhaps Barney Fife could have caught the guy hiding in the boat, but it was the massive law enforcement response that led to a positive identification of the suspects and made the captures possible.  

 

 

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

 

Yes, I think you are being too hard on the police in this case.  I am actually impressed with how quickly they solved this one.  

Lucky would have been if the suspects had both dropped their wallets at the scene with receipts for the bomb-making materials and a to-do list with "bomb the Boston Marathon" in the money compartment.  What you are criticizing is actually police work.  Taking a chaotic crime scene full of unknowns and putting together the pieces to identify a suspect while gathering enough evidence to get a conviction in court.  Think about how many unsolved murders there are and many times they have a known suspect, but not enough evidence to prove it.  Now imagine doing this with two unknown suspects with no obvious motive or clear connection to the victims.

Edited April 20, 2013 by East_TN_Patriot

[diablo982]

I love the Monday morning quarterbacking from people who have never worked a criminal investigation, or hunted a dangerous fugitive hiding in an unknown location who is intent on killing you. I know nothing about the storing of fertilizer, so I will leave criticism of West, TX to people with more knowledge than me.

Regarding Boston, the JTTF spoke with the older brother after his return from Russia, but what were they supposed to do, put him under 24 hour surveillance? I keep reading on here about the police/feds abusing their power but now they didn't do enough to stop him. Its OK for LE to question someone returning from Russia, but not OK to question someone with an AR strapped to their chest walking down the street.

With hindsight, anything can be improved upon. Overall, I think they did pretty good Id'ing/capturing/killing both terrorists in less than a week.

[Chief07]

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.

After watching the operation, WOW!

They did what they needed to do under the circumstances

I wonder if the guy gets a new boat?

It doesn't look too sea worthy now.  :pleased:

[East_TN_Patriot]

 I keep reading on here about the police/feds abusing their power but now they didn't do enough to stop him. Its OK for LE to question someone returning from Russia, but not OK to question someone with an AR strapped to their chest walking down the street.
 

 

This exact thought crossed my mind when I was writing my earlier reply.

[gregintenn]

I thought they did a great job catching the two suspects. Way better than the LEOs in California trying to catch Dorner. The worst I saw was some poor muzzle control by a few on news footage.

[Guest 270win]

FBI messed up by not deporting these suckers two years ago when there was info from a foreign govt (probably Russia) that they were involved with jihad.  Of course the State Department messed up by giving these people from regions/countries that hate us green cards with open arms so they can come to the USA and bomb us.  Then last year, one of the suckers was given citizenship.  How dumb how dumb of our country.