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Comment by thegyppo | Hacker News Reader

Whilst it's truly amazing that they've found 3 separate photos of the same person in the same spot at the blast there's a few questions that come to mind:

- If he was planning to commit the atrocity he did, why would you stand & talk to someone? (unless they were perhaps working together)

- There's a water bottle in the backpack which leads me to believe that person is a runner?

- The bag seems a bit small to hold a 6L pressure cooker. Plus he doesn't seem to be straining/leaning forward.

- If you're standing in the crowd most people will take a backpack off & put it at their feet?

- The crowd in the second & third photos is much busier which means it's not the same spot. If you planted a bomb why would you stand in the crowd?

Been trying to line up the flags in the last 2 photos to get an idea of where he's standing but can't manage it.

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> If you're standing in the crowd most people will take a backpack off & put it at their feet?

I do. Both to alleviate the weight, minimize the space I take up as well as reduce the chance of someone slipping a hand inside my bag. Likewise when I'm carrying a messenger.

I'm a little weary of this set of pictures. It seems like he's edging to the front of the crowd, whereas I thought the explosions occurred a little further back. Moving to the front would be a great way to get stuck, much like ending up against the rails at a concert.

Anyhow, I think crowd sourcing this kind of investigation can potentially be of great help to law enforcement, but I really hope the internet community keeps itself in check when it comes to determining guilt & doling out punishment.

>it's truly amazing that they've found 3 separate photos of the same person in the same spot at the blast //

I looked at a few flickr images and identified about 6 people who were in 2 or 3 images at the location of the Marathon Place bomb¹ without too much effort. So I don't find that particularly amazing.

>If you're standing in the crowd most people will take a backpack off & put it at their feet? //

Based on this limit section of the marathon watchers that "most" appears to be patently false. I only saw one guy standing in that area with a bag between his legs but at least 20 other backpacks (or similar). This surprised me, I hold my backpack on my front in any crowd to try to avoid being robbed.

¹ - you can use the video footage to "triangulate" the location, the video line-of-sight passes through a tree from the centre of the finish line, you can see these details on Google Maps. Around the area between the South African and Norwegian flags.

> If he was planning to commit the atrocity he did, why would you stand & talk to someone? (unless they were perhaps working together)

They are photographed together in both photos, both carrying bags.

But I believe it's jumping to conclusions way way too quickly.

Two bombs exploded, and some reports of other devices being found.

In the crowdsource images, there are so far three possible 'guy nearby with backpack, then spotted walking away apparently without backpack'.

Keep in mind that there may be multiple people involved.

Dammit I hate 'slideshow' pages like http://www.reuters.com/article/slideshow/idUSBRE93F06T201304... Such a pain saving the images. Reuters, please just post a zipfile somewhere of the original full resolution images, please, please.

Some more good images at http://cryptome.org/2013-info/04/boston-bombs/boston-bombs.h... http://cryptome.org/2013-info/04/boston-bombs-02/boston-bomb...

> There's a water bottle in the backpack which leads me to believe that person is a runner?

Doesn't every stereotypical American have a giant bottle of water in hand / on his/her lips every two minutes?

> If you planted a bomb why would you stand in the crowd?

Makes sense for suicide bombers.

> Doesn't every stereotypical American have a giant bottle of water in hand / on his/her lips every two minutes?

s/water/soda if you enjoy stereotyping so much.

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