Terroristic Evidence

For all the nastiness that emanates from social media and the ubiquity of cellphones being implicated in the dissemination of rude, abusive and obsessively sex-related photographs, occasionally even those that directly implicate those who have them in their possession guilty of the rape of under-age girls who are then hounded by their peers, shamed and pressured into depression and suicide, there is the opposite.

There are those amateur photographs taken on the spur of the moment when natural disasters strike, or something awesome and mysterious appears in the sky, or when an accident occurs and some person at the right place at the right time can give evidence. And aside from the fond family mementos taken of loved ones at special times and then routed in pride to distant family members and friends there are other photos that take on significance of high-value.

These were the spontaneous and often deliberate photographs taken by cellphones from among the tens of thousands of people assembled in Boston this past Monday, intent on enjoying a splendid spring day in the sun and mild temperatures, competing in the Boston Marathon or cheering on loved ones and friends. These were the photographs that public security agents pleaded with the public to provide to them.

Photo courtesy of FBI

And the photographs and the potential clues that they represented to the origins and perpetrators of a dreadful atrocity that killed three innocent people, and injured and maimed almost two hundred others were pored over and parsed and investigated by scores of security professionals to soon surface with a number of pictures that would prove, finally, to result in the identification that they required to solve a horrendous mystery.

Who was it who planned and executed that atrocity? Designing and building two explosive devices stuffed with shrapnel, nails, ball bearings, geared specifically to tear into soft human flesh and extract the most damage possible by sundering and severing limbs, killing, tearing people into fragments of what they originally represented before the attack, when everyone was excited, smiling and glad to be alive on that glorious day.

The resulting photos and video that were released meant that two men who went about their usual routine after inflicting terror on Boston, would eventually be detected, recognized, named, identified and pursued. Before they were able to complete their self-assigned task of further terrorist attacks, utilizing the explosives and arms that they had stored in their residence. Their residence; residents of the United States.

Young men who had the privilege of living in the United States and personally benefiting from all the opportunities open and available to them, from a superior education to a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle, and, in fact, anything else they might aspire to become part of, to augment the quality of their lives.

They chose to aspire instead to jihad. Their choice resulted in the second terrorist attack on American civilians, on U.S. soil after the grotesquely vicious tragedy of 9/11.

One dead, one to interrogate. The angelic looking one, the sweet-natured, pleasant teen, unlike his morose and disagreeable brother.