No, There Was No Arrest In Boston

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[Updated: 2:54 p.m.] And AP backtracks. We’ll go ahead and say there was no arrest in Boston, and that AP—our beloved AP!—jumped the gun:

[Updated 2:40 p.m.] Well, these guys would seem to be in a position to know:

[Updated: 2:30 p.m.] Well, jeepers, people. We’re inclined to believe AP, which is traditionally super-cautious about these types of things. This is AP’s latest word:

A suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings was taken into custody Wednesday in a breakthrough that came less than 48 hours after the deadly attack, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation said Wednesday.

The suspect was expected at a Boston courthouse under heavy security, the official said.

A news briefing was scheduled later Wednesday.

CNN is less renowned for its accuracy. It earlier reported an arrest, but is now walking back that news. A reporter on-air just now said that no arrest has been made. It’s all very exhausting.

[Updated 2:20 p.m.] Former Philadelphian Chris Krewson sums up the news at this hour:

[Updated: 1:56 p.m.] Breaking news:

A quick caveat here: Events are moving quickly enough that different outlets are reporting differently with regard to these matters. Until there’s a press conference announcing the suspect and giving his name, take everything with a grain of salt. We’re trying to do the same here, in what we pass on, but an additional layer of skepticism isn’t going to hurt anybody.

That said:

[Update 1:25 p.m.] CNN elaborates:

Investigators believe they have identified a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, a source who has been briefed on the investigation told CNN’s John King exclusively. The breakthrough came from analysis of video from a department store near the site of the second explosion. Video from a Boston television station also contributed to the progress, said the source, who declined to be more specific but called it a significant development.
 

CBS Boston adds:

Correspondent John King, a Boston native, said authorities have a clear video image of a “dark-skinned male” placing a package at one of the bomb sites and then leaving the area before the explosion.
 

[Update 1:15 p.m.] The story is moving so quickly right now that it’s only on Twitter:

[Update 12:31 p.m.] Here is Philly’s love letter to Boston, in the aftermath of Monday’s bombing:

Also today, Mashable reports that the investigation into the bombing is being informally crowdsourced—with members of Reddit examining every publicly available photo of the scene to scan for evidence:

Reddit users have created a subreddit to examine photographic and video evidence from Monday’s explosions at the Boston Marathon to identify the bomber or bombers responsible. In their very public attempts to isolate the still-unknown assailant or assailants in the crowd, they are posting photos of enlarged and circled faces of individuals who may actually be witnesses or even victims of the attack, prompting some to call their process a violation of privacy.

Will it turn into anything? Doubtful. But if it did, future mass-casualty crimes might be investigated in a completely different way.

[Update 7:51 a.m.] The New York Times reports that a Chinese student studying in America is the third, and so far final, confirmed fatality from Monday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon. “Boston University and the Chinese Consulate General in New York have said the victim was a graduate student at the school, but the consulate said her family asked that no personal details be disclosed. But a classmate, a Chinese university official and a state-run newspaper in her home city have said she was Lu Lingzi, who accompanied a friend to watch the Boston Marathon from near where the blasts shook the streets.””

Other top headlines this morning from the Boston bombings:

The New York Times reports on trauma surgeons who had to make split-second decisions on whether to save the limbs of bomb victims, or amputate immediately:  “As an orthopedic surgeon, we see patients like this, with mangled extremities, but we don’t see 16 of them at the same time, and we don’t see patients from blast injuries,” Dr. Peter Burke, the trauma surgery chief at Boston Medical Center, said.

The Boston Globe on the investigation: “The bomb-making technique used in the attack was detailed in a 2010 article in the online magazine, Inspire, published by the terrorist group Al Qaeda. The technique was used in the attempted bombing of Times Square in 2010, as well as in an attack in Pakistan earlier that year. However, security experts said the technique is akin to a scaled-up pipe bomb, and has been used in attacks by organizations not related to Al Qaeda.”

CNN warns against bogus charity sites: “One fraudster already tried to dupe the public by setting up a Twitter account minutes after the bombing that claimed to be associated with the Boston Marathon organization. The @_BostonMarathon account promised to donate $1 for every retweet. After users called it out as a fake, Twitter quickly shut the account down — but not before it received more than 50,000 retweets.”

The Philly Post will be monitoring the headlines for developments in the case as the day proceeds.

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