[eerie music playing]
[Evans] I was in the Boston Police for 38 years.
I learned a lot of lessons.
But the most important thing was
if people want to hurt people, they'll find ways to do it.
[indistinct chatter]
[explosion]
[panicked chatter]
[woman screams]
[children shouting]
[explosion]
[intense music playing]
[Evans] We do our best to prevent tragedies like this, but...
there's another side to people that no one ever sees.
[dramatic music playing]
[Evans] I've done 59 marathons.
And Boston is the best marathon in the world.
It's like the Rite of Spring. It's right around Easter.
The city's coming alive. The flowers are blooming.
Everybody looks forward to Patriots' Day.
It's a local holiday in Boston.
Everybody comes out and watches the marathon.
It's a big day in the city. It's a special day.
[Karen] Massachusetts is one of the only places
that celebrates Patriots' Day.
It is amazing because there is a lot of history here.
It is a great pleasure to come back to a city
where my accent is considered normal.
[laughter]
People who live in Boston and are from Boston,
there is a lot of Boston pride.
There's no finer people to me in the world than residents of the city of Boston.
[cheering, excited screaming]
- [woman] We did it! - Fuck you!
They can be really obnoxious when it comes to their sports.
[all] Let's go, Bruins!
[rhythmic clapping]
Let's go, Bruins!
[Karen] But the marathon is a big deal in Boston.
It's the oldest marathon in America,
and the most premier.
[spectators cheering]
[Karen] It's a very festive day. People make a really big deal about it.
They do shut the trains down, the buses. The streets are packed with people.
I would go to the marathon every year,
and the same group of friends, we would all go
to watch my boyfriend Kevin run.
[Kevin] Honestly, I never thought I'd ever run a marathon.
I mean, I didn't run till I was, like, 42.
But it's great. It's like a party.
Everyone's pulling and cheering for everyone.
We're all equal that day.
Starting line is in Hopkinton and it's 26.2 miles away.
Then you finish in the city.
You get there,
and everyone's friendly and wishing you luck.
People are just so nice like that.
The town of Hopkinton is absolutely ready.
Their motto is, "It all starts here," and you can feel it in the air.
[Evans] To get into Boston, that's quite an accomplishment.
You don't just sign up. You have to qualify.
And you've hit the pinnacle of your life if you run Boston.
[reporter] The center of Boston, the Charles River.
It's all part of a huge Patriots' Day celebration.
[Evans] That particular day,
I was able to go off in the very first wave.
- [starting pistol fires] - [spectators cheer]
[announcer] And the Boston Marathon, already underway for some.
The full spectacle of this Boston Marathon is now underway, but sometimes...
[Evans] It was like any other marathon you ever had.
Everyone was happy. It couldn't have been a more perfect day.
Just training with my dad! He's running with me for a little.
- Say hi, Dad. - Hi.
[cheering]
[Karen] My friend Krystle and I had a late start
because we had partied a little too much the night before and we got up late.
[announcer] And look at that,
the Boston Marathon running right past Fenway Park,
which will soon empty out when the Red Sox and Rays are done
and thousands more people will hit the streets.
They say a half a million people watch the Boston Marathon
on the streets here in New England.
Krystle never had gone to the Boston Marathon
because she always went to the Red Sox.
[baseball announcer] To left field. That ball is off the wall.
Pedroia racing around the bases, is headed home.
The throw will be late, and the Red Sox win!
A walk-off on Patriots' Day!
[Karen] That day, Krystle and I walked on the side street,
and here we were at the most perfect spot, the finish line.
[announcer] You look down Boylston Street filled with people.
Flags from all nations.
[Karen] I had taken a picture of the flags at the finish line
and I had posted it on Facebook.
We were texting with all our friends, and they kept saying, "Come and meet us!"
But we just said we're gonna stay here
because I think we can get a really great picture
of Kevin crossing the finish line.
So we ended up staying there.
And I always remember taking that left onto Boylston Street
and seeing that finish line five blocks away.
And as much as you're hurting, that crowd is rooting you on.
[indistinct voice over loudspeaker]
To have my family there, have my police there.
Uh, you know, it gives you goose bumps.
I did it in three hours and 35 minutes, which, as far as I'm concerned,
I was thrilled.
At that point, I hopped in my vehicle and drove home to South Boston.
[helicopter whirring]
[Jimenez] This particular day, it was starting to pick up a little bit.
More runners were starting to come through.
We were starting to cheer people on, like, "Great. Good for you. You did it!"
I just love the atmosphere. I love the cheering that goes on.
[crowd cheering]
It's like a big block party.
[Karen] We were standing there waiting for Kevin,
and friends that were tracking him were texting me to say
that Kevin had got a cramp somewhere up in Cambridge,
and he was gonna be a little bit later coming across the finish line.
And we said, "We've got this great spot. We should stay right here."
[indistinct voice over loudspeaker]
[explosion]
[panicked screaming]
[explosion]
[panicked screaming continues]
[woman] Oh my God.
[man] It's fucked up over here.
[indistinct shouting]
[siren blaring]
[officer 1] 8:30. Something just exploded at the finish line.
[officer 2] UCC, did I hear that correctly?
[officer 3] Yeah, I see it. I confirm it.
Two devices just went off at Boylston and Exeter.
[distant police siren]
- [man 1] Vanessa! Vanessa! - [woman 1] Vanessa! What the hell?
- [man yelling indistinctly] - [woman shrieks]
[man 2] What the fuck?
[woman 2] Stop.
[panicked screaming]
[audio muted]
[wind gusting]
[Karen] I remember waking up on the sidewalk.
There was a horrendous smell.
My ears were ringing so bad, in that I couldn't really hear.
At that point, it was just chaos.
[police whistles blowing]
- [alarms blaring distantly] - [indistinct shouting]
[ominous music playing]
[Jimenez] I looked around me, and...
the screams were that of horror.
[indistinct screaming]
[man 1] Okay?
[man 2] Just move that way.
There was a woman at one point, and I took a look at her leg and I'm like,
"Wow, that looks really bad."
[man] Get that. Cut it.
[Jimenez] And I needed to stop the bleeding somehow,
and all I had was my belt.
So I took my belt off, and I just remember putting it around her legs
to try to stop the bleeding.
There was chatter on the radio
that there could potentially be a third bomb.
Road is blocked for secondary devices!
I called my boyfriend at the time. I told him I loved him.
[sobs softly]
Sorry.
And I told him to tell my mom I loved her.
And then...
the line just went dead.
[sighs]
[ominous music playing]
[Karen] I could see blood everywhere.
And my foot was turned sideways, and it was broken.
But I was next to Krystle, and I held her hand.
She looked like a rag doll.
That's when the whole reality of what happened really sunk in.
It was terrible.
[woman] ...shoes and her socks!
[officer speaking indistinctly]
[officer] You good? Okay.
[paramedic] Okay, as for the explosions, don't worry about that, okay?
That was really loud.
I remember a whole team of people coming to get me
and asking me my name, and I couldn't tell them.
[ominous music playing]
[overlapping chatter]
[police sirens blipping]
[Karen] When they put me into the ambulance,
a lady ran up to me and she said, "Miss, here's your phone."
And I took the phone and I put it in my pocket.
But it was not my phone. It was Krystle's phone.
And then I don't remember anything else.
[distant police sirens]
[indistinct police radio chatter]
[newscast music playing on TV]
We want to bring you some breaking news that is happening right now out of Boston.
We understand there have been at least two explosions near the finish line
of the Boston Marathon.
We are showing you some live pictures from a helicopter right now.
[reporter] It appears that we have quite a tragedy
on our hands in Boston, Massachusetts this afternoon.
We don't know what exploded. We don't know if there was an accident.
We don't know if somebody set off something.
[discordant music playing]
[distant police sirens wailing]
[man] Get down!
[distant police sirens wailing]
[Jimenez] When I looked around me, it was chaos.
And somebody mentioned that
there was somebody there that had...
uh, passed away.
[dramatic music playing]
At this point, we were trying to get the most acute patients to a hospital.
[Kevin] I was stopped near the finish line.
And there were police officers saying the race is canceled.
The race is done. It's done. It's over. The marathon's over.
[siren wailing]
They said there was a bomb or something.
That's what I, you know...
But no one knew nothing.
[officer] Run!
[Kevin] Everyone's scrambling to get out of the city.
I did keep calling Karen's phone, but all the phones were screwed up.
So I knew right there that there was a problem. A big problem.
Let's go! Everybody down this way. Folks, time to call it a night. Let's go!
[man] Where are we supposed to go?
[Evans] After the marathon, I was back in South Boston.
One of my sergeants come running in and he says,
"They're telling me two bombs just went off at the finish line."
And I'm saying, "What? That can't... That... That couldn't have happened."
"I was just there."
[sirens wailing]
I jumped in my vehicle and put my sirens on.
And when I went over the 4th Street Bridge,
I could see people crying.
I could tell this is going to be terrible.
[muted audio]
[Evans] When I got to the scene,
I met up with Commissioner Davis, who was just coming back to the scene too.
[Davis] I stepped out of the car,
and as soon as my foot hit the ground,
I could feel shrapnel under my feet.
[helicopter whirring]
And then I saw the damage across the street.
The volume of blood and body parts on the ground
was just something I had never seen before.
[officer] Go, go! Let's go! All the way up.
[Evans] To see the destruction.
[officer] All the way up.
[Evans] To see the young bodies lying on the street.
It's something I'll never get out of my head to this day.
[indistinct chatter]
[Davis] It sort of hit me right there
that this might be a terrorist attack.
Quite frankly, it's overwhelming.
[Evans] No one knew what to think.
There's so many things going through your mind, and...
Where do you even start?
[Martin] Oh, I've been a reporter for more than three decades.
When you get a situation like this, unprecedented in Boston's history,
you're trying to come up with answers as a journalist,
as an investigative journalist, for your audience.
[indistinct shouting]
I had rushed to the scene as they were still putting up yellow tape.
And there was an assumption that this might be something much bigger
than what had just occurred.
[reporter] This was a situation that struck terror into everybody.
We, of course, don't know the cause of the explosion right now.
[Evans] Everyone is now scrambling to understand what exactly happened.
We were in the restaurant, then there was a huge boom twice.
One softer, and one really hard, and it's really terrible.
At first it sounded like a cannon blast,
but it felt so strong it literally almost blew my hat off.
Not sure exactly what they're saying, whether it's an accident or not.
[Martin] No one knows what happened,
and the police were dealing with a lot of confusion.
- [man] He's a runner? - [woman] He doesn't-- Yeah.
He doesn't speak English, and we can't find him anywhere.
[reporter] The police officer came up to me and said,
"Get out of here. We don't know what else could happen."
We start to get a crush of reports of bombs all over the city.
[helicopter whirring]
And then there was a suspicious fire that occurred at the JFK Library.
[reporter] This happened so soon after these two explosions.
Could this possibly be connected?
[Evans] We already had two go off.
Everyone thought these things come in three.
Our worst fear is the second attack.
We're in new territory here, and I knew I needed all the help I could get.
So, I immediately reached out to Rick DesLauriers.
[DesLauriers] I've been described by some of my associates
as someone who assesses things.
I assess things in great detail.
And I try to understand
what's gonna take to get the best resolution possible.
[foreboding music playing]
When I arrived in Boston,
the first priority was to make sure there are no secondary bombs down there.
But we couldn't do that until we'd secured the crime scene.
We had a third of a mile on Boylston Street we had to seal off,
and then one block either side north and south of Boylston Street.
And it was just a devastating scene. You saw carnage everywhere.
There was still blood of the victims on the sidewalk.
[Davis] Looking across the crime scene,
I realized that there were bags all over the place.
Any one of those things could have been a bomb.
[DesLauriers] Our task at that point was to send our bomb techs down there
and then search for secondary devices.
We had bomb-sniffing dogs.
We're going through backpacks, going through storefronts.
We were still sweeping the scene.
[Davis] The bomb squad starts to secure the crime scene
so that the rest of the analysts could safely come on the course.
[distant police sirens]
[DesLauriers] Once we determined there are no secondary incendiary devices
at the bomb site,
we called US Attorney Carmen Ortiz.
She would ultimately be the person responsible for prosecuting the bombers.
[siren wailing]
[Ortiz] When I looked at the destruction,
I just stood there with a cold chill.
It certainly seemed to be a terrorist act.
We could see the shrap metal, the BBs, the blood.
You know, we knew this was some type of device gone off.
[Davis] We sent state troopers to Logan Airport
to catch any of the public that may have had photos in their cameras.
That was when we set up Black Falcon Terminal
as a location to process evidence.
[DesLauriers] This location was tremendously important
as being a secure, convenient location
where we could collect that evidence, process it,
and have it flown down to Quantico, Virginia.
[Davis] There were so many pieces of evidence
We were just at a different scale than I'd ever seen before.
This was the biggest case that's ever happened in this city
and we had no idea who was responsible.
So we started to send investigators out to question the injured.
I have shrapnel in the back of my leg, my hands, obviously,
and I got flash burns, but I'm blessed.
Some of the patients have already received traumatic amputations at the scene.
Their legs have been blown off.
[Davis] Then we got a report of a suspicious person
that is being accompanied back to the emergency room.
This guy, who was a Saudi national, comes out of the smoke.
He's all cut up and in tattered clothes.
And when the police start to walk towards him,
he sees the police coming, he's got a cell phone in his hand,
and he throws the cell phone on the ground and smashes it.
Cell phones can be detonators.
There is an individual who is in custody.
He is a Saudi national who was near the scene of the blast.
I'm thinking, "Is this one of our guys?"
[Martin] Among the first things you heard was that a Saudi national
was considered a suspect.
There was an assumption that this might be related to Al-Qaeda.
For over a decade,
this country has been on edge, vigilant for the next attack.
Well, today it came.
[Martin] He had been injured, and the police were interviewing
this Saudi national at the hospital.
[Davis] We talked to him,
and we had the SWAT Team guys and detectives go to his house.
Found suspicious things at the house,
some official documents, passports, things like that that were problematic.
[Ortiz] Given the severity of the situation,
you want to do it in a way that is legal,
so that if that evidence leads
to the individual that you believe committed this crime,
you are going to be able to use that evidence in court.
[reporter] Authorities searched the apartment of a foreign student
who was injured in the blast and seen running away,
but they found nothing, and he is not considered a suspect.
Turns out he was simply a victim. He had nothing to do with it.
He happened to be a Saudi near the finish line
who was living in an age of Islamophobia.
And there was no doubt that there's a degree of prejudice
about who might be responsible.
[DesLauriers] After day one, we did not have any suspects.
We had a few leads, but nothing tangible.
And we were going to be holding a press conference
to tell the American public what we knew about the bombings.
I told the governor this has the potential to be a terrorist attack,
so the FBI will be happy to take the lead in this investigation.
Frankly, I was sort of like, "Yeah, it's all yours."
But the governor asked me to run the press conference.
And I was like, "Me?"
And, you know, I should have realized it, right?
Politicians don't like to tell people bad news, and I'm the bad news guy.
So let me turn it over now to Ed Davis, Commissioner of Police here in Boston.
Thank you, Governor. Um...
At 2:50 p.m., there were simultaneous explosions
that occurred along the route of the Boston Marathon near the finish.
People should be calm, but they should understand
that this is an ongoing event, and they should understand
that we need all the information that we can get available to us.
I told the public, "If you have any photos, get them to us."
If anyone saw anything at this incident,
they should call us at 1-800-494-TIPS.
A lot of times in cases like this, somebody sees what happens and realizes,
"Oh my God, he told me
he was gonna do something like this. I've got to call the police."
[reporter 1] Are you describing this as a terrorist attack right now?
Governor Patrick said it was an attack. Would you say this is a terrorist attack?
We're not being definitive on this right now,
but you can reach your own conclusions based upon what happened.
As a citizen and as a reporter, this seemed to be an act of terror.
Some in the public realm criticize the FBI
for not calling it a terrorist attack right away,
but we had to collect the evidence.
[distant traffic ambience]
[Kevin] That night, I'm out looking for Karen.
I didn't know what was going on.
And my daughter is saying,
"Karen put you on Facebook with the flags."
[ominous music playing]
And I get a call from Krystle's boyfriend, Joe.
Joe comes, picks me up.
He shows me a picture of Karen and Krystle lying on the ground.
Somehow it was already online.
I could see their faces.
Like, it looked like the life had drained out of 'em.
Immediately, we headed to Mass General.
[foreboding music playing]
We get there, and they tell me that Krystle is there.
They were operating on her leg. Her leg's pretty bad.
They're going to try to save it.
But they tell me Karen ain't there.
And they can't come up with any answers. They don't know nothing. Anything.
They said,
"We don't know what to tell you."
You know, and they keep going, going, going.
It didn't make sense.
And they said,
"Just... You guys got to go... Just go to the hospitals."
So we start walking.
There's not a soul in sight. I've never seen anything like this.
Not a soul in sight in Boston.
[ominous music playing]
We looked everywhere. We called all the hospitals.
No one had any answers for us.
We just couldn't find Karen anywhere.
My mind, I thought Karen was dead. No doubt in my mind.
[no audible speech]
And then all of a sudden, my phone rings.
They told me Karen is in the operating room.
You know, I couldn't believe it. I had to see it for my own two eyes.
And I went back to the hospital.
And I saw Karen.
When I first woke up, the first face I saw was Kevin.
I was just happy. I just had her hand.
You know, holding her hand and squeezing it.
She didn't know what was going on.
And I just said, "Everything will be all right."
"Don't worry. I love you."
"I love you, and everything will be all right."
It was just... It was a miracle.
The first night, we knew that our best lead
was going to be video evidence collected at the scene of the crime.
We had a major sporting event going on. We had national media coverage there.
We had people with cell phones and video cameras everywhere.
That's where Kevin Swindon came in.
[dramatic music playing]
Kevin Swindon was the supervisor of the Cyber Squad
at the Boston FBI office.
My role was computer forensics and digital forensics.
We knew right away that digital media was going to be
a significant factor in this investigation.
The phones weren't ringing, but the email was very, very busy.
To the point where it was at risk of becoming full.
Tens of thousands of emails.
[Davis] What I didn't take into consideration
was the sheer volume of digital evidence that was coming in the door.
They're getting thousands of photographs, videotapes from iPhones.
It looks like it was about 3:38 and change.
There were over 125 phones recovered from Boylston Street.
All right, we made it to one mile at the Boston Marathon!
[explosion]
[man] Oh my gosh!
[crowd screaming]
What the fuck?
[Swindon] There were no leads at that point.
So we were looking for the video to try and give us some clues.
We had footage from The Forum. We had footage from Walgreens.
We had footage from banks.
Any business that was along that route,
we were collecting and capturing any video that we could.
[DesLauriers] We had hundreds of thousands of videos,
but the challenge with processing as much video evidence as we had
is there was so much that could be processed timely.
[Swindon] If you have eight hours of video and you need to review it,
it's gonna take you eight hours to review it.
[explosion]
We had significant teams of people,
numbers of teams of people reviewing the video.
But the problem is that there were thousands of hours of video.
[dramatic music playing]
Beyond that, the challenge was
we didn't know what or who we were looking for.
Every minute that passes
is a possibility of whoever might be responsible for this getting away.
What I was facing was the most intensive investigation
that the Boston Police Department had ever conducted.
[slide projector clicking]
[Foley] When the actual bombings happened,
my family and I were on vacation in Arizona.
I had just notified the FBI I was going to retire.
[ominous music playing]
It wasn't until we dropped into Sedona where my cell phone just blew up.
And that was when I saw the images of the bombing.
It was devastating.
I've worked on violent crimes, drugs, gangs.
Many people would say I'm a bit of a shit magnet.
And when I saw the images of the bombing...
my wife said, "Go get those motherfuckers."
[intense music playing]
[reporter 1] This is the closest you can get
to yesterday's explosions at the Boston Marathon.
Security is very tight, as you'd expect.
We still don't know who did what happened yesterday
and we still don't know why.
[reporter 2] No arrests have been made. There are no suspects that we know of.
Two and only two explosive devices were found,
and those are the two that both went off.
They did not find any unexploded devices.
[Foley] On Tuesday morning, the evidence response teams
went in and started going through the crime scene.
We had evidence on top of buildings, on windowsills, on top of cars.
It was a huge crime scene, and it was trampled and kicked everywhere.
We're finding BBs, shrapnel.
The type of shrapnel they saw could not have just been debris lying around,
but rather they were, in fact, carpenter nails and BB-like objects.
What they are looking at is how this bomb was put together.
What are the materials used? What was the fuse? What was the detonator?
[Swindon] There were shredded backpacks,
as opposed to a backpack that was hit.
These were backpacks that we believed held the bombs.
The bomb experts are immediately going, "This is a remote-controlled device."
[DesLauriers] As we collected the evidence,
we began to put together the puzzle of these bombs.
[explosion]
The first bomb went off near the finish line.
The second bomb went off about 12 seconds later
in front of a restaurant called The Forum restaurant.
[explosion]
Our theory was
that the bombs were transported to the bombing sites in backpacks,
and these were likely pressure cooker bombs
with metal fragments inside of them.
Pressure cooker bombs are popular terrorist weapons
because the parts can be bought at different stores.
The lid to the pressure cooker used in Monday's bombing
has been found on a nearby rooftop.
[Guthrie] Does this strike you
as bearing the hallmarks of some kind of domestic terrorism?
This is a terrorism investigation. It's a terrorism case.
And whether the politicians are worried about,
"It sounds bad. We don't want to say that."
That's fine, but make no mistake about it, this is a terrorism investigation.
That's why the FBI is running it.
Terrorism is an attack that's motivated by an ideology.
In the Boston Marathon bombings, we didn't know what it was.
[helicopter whirring]
But at that time, no matter who was responsible,
we had found the backpacks, we found the pressure cooker bombs.
We found pieces of metal that were inside the pressure cooker bombs.
These were clearly designed to maim and kill people.
So we were comfortable telling the American public
that we suspected this was a terrorist attack.
[ominous music playing]
Good morning, everybody.
I've just been briefed by my National Security team,
including FBI Director Mueller, on the attacks in Boston.
And given what we now know about what took place,
the FBI is investigating it as an act of terrorism.
Anytime bombs are used to target innocent civilians,
it is an act of terror.
We still do not know who did this or why,
and people shouldn't jump to conclusions before we have all the facts.
But make no mistake, we will get to the bottom of this,
and we will find out who did this.
We'll find out why they did this.
[menacing music playing]
[audio rewinding]
[announcer] The World Series!
[audio rewinding]
[foreboding music playing]
9/11 was a turning point, I think, for all of us.
But particularly for Muslims.
We were shocked to see what had happened.
But there was definitely a change.
Certainly to feel as if, all of a sudden, we were the perpetrators.
It was a difficult time for us.
[crowd shouting]
The essence of Islam is about being a good human being.
We are here as Americans. We are here as part of society.
But when you don't know about something,
your very first reaction is to fear it.
And that's exactly what had happened with Muslims.
[chanting] Go home! Go home! Go home!
Go home! Go home!
[woman 1] Go home!
- [woman 2] Get out here! - [woman 1] Go back home!
[woman 3] Never forget 9/11!
In a post 9/11 era, the bullying was vicious.
It was consistent. It was every day.
Um...
And I was constantly hiding certain aspects of myself,
like, whenever I... navigated life, really.
I moved to Boston when I was seven years old.
Two weeks before 9/11.
The kids used to come up to me with fake bombs
and then run away and then make, like, ticking noises.
So, I had a lot of shame being a Muslim.
When the bombing happened, I was in college.
[explosion over TV]
I remember thinking, "Please don't let it have anything to do with Islam."
You couldn't help that sinking feeling inside you
uh, to think that maybe this is committed by somebody
who is a Muslim.
[Youssef] Islamophobia was just starting to go away.
I immediately knew that they were going to pin it on Islam.
[ominous music playing]
[distant police siren]
[DesLauriers] Once we determined that it was a terrorist event,
the full weight and force of the federal government
was looking for these bombers.
We knew where the bombings took place.
We knew there were businesses located along Boylston Street
that had CCTV cameras located on the front of them.
So we knew that if we looked at it,
we would likely find visual images of the bombers.
The first significant piece of evidence was the video coverage from The Forum.
They had an outdoor camera that was positioned above a door,
which actually had a vantage point out to where the second explosion went off.
[woman] What the hell was that?
And we started processing that very quickly
because we knew that that could contain some significant evidence for us.
[no audible speech]
We had analysts watching this video repeatedly over and over and over again.
Rewinding, playing it again, rewinding.
Enhancing.
[suspenseful music playing]
All night long, frame by frame.
There was nothing remarkable about the video at all.
But we got a phone call from a member of the public who said,
"I was across the street,
and I have a couple of still shots that you may want."
"These still shots were taken right before the explosion went off."
[woman] Something blew up. Oh my God.
We had our evidence collection team seize those photos,
and the still shot showed a bag on the ground.
We time synced that still shot up with the moving video from The Forum,
and that showed this person who was a little taller than everybody else
and had a white hat on.
I immediately called Rick and I said,
"Rick, you really have to come up to the lab to see this."
Kevin Swindon gave me a call, he said, "Boss, I want to show you a video."
You see this individual with a white hat walking forward toward the bomb site,
and he stops right by a tree in front of The Forum restaurant.
And he stands there looking around like anybody else.
Then you see him drop the backpack to the ground and he stands there.
[Swindon] Looks like he's taking pictures of people running. He's texting.
And then you see the concussive effects of the first bomb going off.
Everybody on the camera looks to the left,
and then he just quickly walks to the right.
[woman] Oh my God! Something blew up.
Something blew up. Oh my God, something happened.
And as soon as he leaves the field of view of the camera,
the second bomb goes off right in front of The Forum restaurant.
At that point, we knew we had the video of one of the bombers.
We called him White Hat.
[helicopter whirring]
[Martin] Wednesday is almost like this blackout day
because you're not hearing anything,
and then suddenly a press conference that was supposed to begin is canceled.
We are having a press conference.
But now we need more time to prepare. Thank you very much.
- [reporter] What time is it? - I don't know what time.
We made a decision to not have a press conference
because we had discovered the video evidence at that time,
and we had to focus on that first.
But I think that that led to some media speculation
as to what might be going on.
The police were trying to keep a tight lid on information.
You saw the void being filled on social media.
[typing]
Folks were looking at photos saying, "What do you know about this person?"
The problem with asking that question, though, of course, it is accusatory.
Folks were being pointed at,
and the Boston police were getting a lot of false leads.
Somebody posted a picture of a shadowy figure
walking on the rooftop.
It looked like one of these Sasquatch pictures.
And then we receive a picture of a little bag on the racecourse
where the explosion happened.
And then the bureau did an analysis on it and they said, "No, this was Photoshop."
That takes investigative resources away from chasing the bad guys.
But that stuff was appearing online.
[Martin] People were sitting in their living rooms,
playing detective on social media.
It also became an opportunity for bigots
to bask in their assumptions and to propagate those further.
People would say this is clearly the work of Islamic terrorists.
And it didn't help that right-wing figures were echoing this.
Most terrorists, lately at least, have been Muslim.
They were resparking the flames of Islamophobia throughout the nation.
The news media outlets were not helping.
Our sources on this story have encouraged us to look deeply
into who this Saudi national is.
[Martin] Even after he was cleared, the media was hounding
the Saudi Arabian national and even his roommate.
[reporter] Do you know anything about these bombings?
Do you have anything to do with them? The police came to your apartment.
And then they said someone had been brought down to the federal courthouse.
There are various media reports that an arrest has been made.
And now there are hundreds of people outside the federal courthouse.
Reporters are everywhere. It's like chaos.
I remember saying, "Ed, is this guy in custody?"
He said, "No, no, I didn't hear."
There was a lot of misinformation. A lot of clamoring to be breaking news.
[Ortiz] The next thing I know,
there's potentially a bomb or some explosive in the area.
[reporter] After all that commotion, we were given the all clear,
and employees were allowed to go inside, get their belongings,
and then court was closed down for the day.
Authorities stress there is no suspect in custody.
[Evans] There was a lot of misinformation out there being generated.
We had to stay focused on what was real and what wasn't real.
[distant siren wailing]
[DesLauriers] At that point, we knew we had visually identified
one of the bombers.
[eerie music playing]
The next priority was gathering more video evidence
from along Boylston Street.
Because we wanted to determine if there were any other leads
that could help us identify this individual.
The next critical piece of evidence we gained access to
was a video from a business
that was on the corner of Boylston Street, named Whiskey's.
From the video, we were able to time sync it
to identify White Hat walking around the corner.
But we realized there was more to the video.
He was accompanied by another gentleman with a black hat and a backpack,
and they were together.
[Foley] That became its own investigation.
We've got them here.
How can we follow them backwards in time through video footage?
[Swindon] We were able to build a timeline in between those two locations
from the different digital video recorders.
And then sort of trace their steps,
turning the corner at Whiskey's and walking towards The Forum.
It became evident to us that these two were hiding in plain sight.
[menacing music playing]
[DesLauriers] These individuals did not have hoods.
They weren't obscuring their faces. They could be visually recognized.
These were two young, Caucasian males.
They had hats on, sunglasses.
Problem is, is that we didn't know who they were.
At the time, facial recognition software was good
if you had a three-inch-by-three-inch clear face shot.
We just didn't have that type of clarity. They were grainy.
They were sometimes taken at a distance.
We didn't know who they were,
we didn't know what their motivations for doing the bombings were,
but we had the bombers in sight.
[Davis] I get a phone call from Rick DesLauriers,
and I get over there as quickly as possible.
Carmen Ortiz was there, and they cued up the video.
And I got my eyes on these guys for the first time.
They kept playing it over and over again.
[tape player whirring]
When I saw that video, I said, "We have them."
"These are the guys."
[dramatic music playing]
[Davis] It was striking to me how innocent they looked.
Backpack over his shoulder, he was walking down the street,
looking like any other college kid.
[Ortiz] But we didn't know
who they were,
where they were,
and if they were with anyone else.
[DesLauriers] At that point we had to make a decision
as to what do we do with this video evidence.
Do we release it to the American public or do we hold it and continue
to work behind the scenes to try to identify these individuals?
Well, I thought it was absolutely critical
that we release the pictures to the public.
But that was not the feeling at the table.
There were differing views
on when to publicize those photos and seek the public's help.
My impulse is not to keep the information secret.
It's to publish it. And I was convinced that if we did that,
these guys would be in our pocket within a couple of hours.
I was met with complete silence.
In the FBI, we want to try to control situations.
If we can control it, it's safer.
If you release the photos of the bombers, you let them know
that you know who they are, and you might cause them to flee.
It is possible that if somebody saw
that the pictures were being published, that they would run.
But who cares?
People know who committed these crimes and will help us.
We've got a picture of two people.
Is it just them, or is it bigger than them?
We didn't think necessarily there were any other bombers.
But we had to find
whether there were any collaborators who had supported the bombers.
We don't know what it is, so we go live with photos.
We're controlling nothing.
The risk and the potential harm could be huge.
Any investigative decision we make,
particularly in terms of releasing evidence to the American public,
had to be approved by Carmen
and the Department of Justice down in Washington, DC.
Carmen said, "I've talked to people at Justice,
and we are not releasing these photographs."
And I was pretty upset about it.
[Ortiz] I thought we should hold off.
If we had any kind of hot leads that could lead to these individuals,
that it would be better to do it that way to try to catch them unawares.
And I said, "Because I want you to know that if somebody gets hurt,
I'm going to go public with that information."
There was a hush.
The meeting ended, and I walked out by myself.
[distant sirens wailing]
[Kevin] Karen was in and out of consciousness,
but she asked what happened to Krystle.
The first time I could say, "Did she die? I know she did. You have to tell me."
Um, that's when they told me she had passed.
[reporter] Today, another of the dead was identified.
29-year-old Krystle Campbell of Medford, Massachusetts.
We found out the mix-up was with Krystle's phone
being put in Karen's pocket.
That cell phone that I had in my pocket, that was Krystle's.
Her family was calling it.
They were asking for Krystle and they said, "Krystle's right here,"
but that was actually Karen in the operating room, not Krystle.
The boyfriend that Krystle had been dating at the time was the one
that went into the operating room and identified that it was me.
Krystle's family, you know, I mean, I can't imagine how they felt.
You know, sitting there all night. Krystle's all right, and then to just all
turn the other way, is just unbelievable.
We are heartbroken at the death of our daughter Krystle.
She was a wonderful person.
[cries]
And everybody that knew her loved her.
It just really was a lot to take in. It was a lot. It still is to this day.
I still don't understand it.
It breaks my heart to think of the poor victims who lost their lives.
I took a real person, and I wanted to find out who's responsible for this.
But on Thursday morning,
President Obama and his wife were coming to town.
On top of having our offices dig for who did this,
I had to put on a presidential visit.
Anytime a president comes to your town on a good day is quite an undertaking.
We have 11 police districts. We're about 1,800 uniformed officers.
And it's my job to put those officers where they're needed most.
[Davis] The drain on resources was certainly something
that we were concerned about.
It was the most intense preparation for a presidential visit that we ever did
because there was an increased threat against the President.
[Karen] They said President Obama was gonna come to see me.
I remember thinking,
"I just lost my friend. I'm not here to share my grief right now."
"I just want to put my head down and try to get better."
He came walking in. He's, like, a striking figure.
He goes, "We're gonna get these bastards."
They sought to intimidate us,
to terrorize us,
to shake us from those values that make us who we are as Americans.
Well, it should be pretty clear by now that they picked the wrong city to do it.
[cheering, applauding]
Not here in Boston.
And this time next year, the world will return
to this great American city to run harder than ever
and to cheer even louder for the 118th Boston Marathon.
[applause]
Bet on it.
[dramatic music playing]
I thought his speech was very powerful, and I think that added to the whole week
of how we all gotta come together and figure out what happened.
This isn't a place where you can scare people off
and I believe it's a great representation of what you should do
when you're under, you know, the pressure.
[Davis] It was a... a distraction,
but I think the city needed that.
[ominous music playing]
[Ortiz] The fourth day, we had some type of a leak.
One of the outlets had the photos.
A Boston media station was going to release these photographs
to the American public, and it angered me at the time.
I mean, I...
It was just too big to control.
I mean, we just needed to make the best decisions that you could
uh, as changing circumstances took place.
Four days had gone by.
Nothing had happened.
And we have nothing viable at this point.
Just the photos.
We made the decision that the best thing to do was
to release the video evidence to the American public before the media.
Frankly, I was relieved that that was going to happen.
[interviewer] Did anybody think,
"Ed is the only one who wanted to release them?"
[chuckles]
I would never do such a thing in an investigation like that.
I have no idea how these things got leaked.
Later that day, you hear a special press conference has been called.
My sources have told me there's been a significant breakthrough in the case.
If you look behind me, you can see they've just put these easels out.
I'll step out of the way because they are preparing for this press conference now.
[Martin] The press conference was packed.
This was the most packed press conference of my entire career.
[DesLauriers] Before I walked out on stage at that press conference,
I had never felt more pressure in my life before.
[cameras clicking]
Felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders.
When I was a kid, and even when I was in law school,
I was petrified of public speaking.
I would have rather played Russian roulette with five bullets
then stand on stage and give a speech.
But I knew it was upon me to deliver that speech.
It was nobody else's speech to give but mine,
and I had to come through for the victims.
Good afternoon. My name is Richard DesLauriers,
and I am the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Boston division.
A lot of work went into preparing that speech.
It was reviewed by the Department of Justice
to make sure didn't say anything that might compromise
a criminal prosecution of the case.
After a very detailed analysis of photo, video and other evidence,
we are releasing photos of these two suspects.
They are identified as Suspect One and Suspect Two.
They appear to be associated.
If you see these men, contact law enforcement.
If you know anything about the bombings or the men pictured here,
please call the telephone listed on the photo arrays.
With the media's help, in an instant, these images will be delivered
directly into the hands of millions around the world.
We consider them to be armed and extremely dangerous.
No one should approach them.
No one should attempt to apprehend them except law enforcement.
Thank you very much.
[reporters shouting questions]
[man] Thank you. Thank you.
[Martin] Black Hat, White Hat.
These are the people we're looking for. They were definitive.
Immediately, folks are on their phones, taking photographs,
getting this information to the public ASAP.
[reporter] The FBI releasing pictures of its two suspects
in the Boston Marathon bombing case.
And again, a moment that people around the world had been waiting for.
Now we're seeing the pictures. They're asking for the public's help.
[Martin] This was clearly meant to flush out the suspects.
And it was also clear that law enforcement was under a lot of pressure.
We were confident that members of the public would identify these bombers
and let us know who they were.
They are the most wanted men in America tonight. Have a look.
The FBI today unveiled Suspect Number One and Suspect Number Two.
...two suspects, and called on the public to help identify the men
they described as armed and dangerous.
Investigators are trying to put names to the pictures.
[Youssef] I had a friend call me. It was, like, 3:00 in the morning.
He texts me this picture of White Hat, Black Hat.
He's like, "Yo, does this not look like Dzhokhar?"
And I'm like,
"First off, do you know the significance of you
pointing your finger at him?"
"Do you know what you're saying right now?"
"This is not Dzhokhar."
We were lifeguards together.
He was the captain of the wrestling team.
The chill popular kid.
It was so inconceivable, that I convinced him that it wasn't him.
And then the conversation ended like, "Yeah, no, you're right. There's no way."
[eerie music playing]
Now I have to live with the betrayal of knowing
the same friend that I cared about and trusted
did what he did.
And it destroyed me.
[interviewer] Looking back now,
how do you feel about the release of the photos?
Would you have held it longer, or do you think it was the right decision?
I mean, I...
You know, what ended up happening is exactly what we didn't want to happen.
[faint radio static hissing]
[foreboding music playing]
[radio static sputtering]
[officer 1] Oh my goodness, all units respond.
Office down. Officer down. All units.
[gunfire]
[officer 2] Loud explosions!
[tense string music playing]