BOMBSHELL: Video Of Boston Bomber Shooting Himself
UPDATE - VIDEO DOES NOT SHOW SUICIDE ATTEMPT
I wanted to be the first to admit we got it wrong. As stated in the original piece, we were skeptical of the official story that the suspect had attempted suicide in the boat, but it was this video that changed our minds. Then last night a military IR video analyst with 3 years of experience (thanks Rick), analyzed the video and explained the images and sequence in question. Look in comments on page 2 for his detailed analysis. It is a fascinating read.
Update: Boston bombing suspect was unarmed in boat according to unconfirmed sources
This story hit the wires a few hour ago. It hasn't been confirmed at this point and is directly contradicted by statements from the Boston Police Chief. I'm sure we will hear more on this tomorrow. Police are going to have a hard time explaining why they riddled the boat with bullets if the suspect was in fact unarmed.
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So that readers can see our original analysis, we are leaving it posted below.
We spent several hours today examining the police footage including showing it to a trained video analyst and professor at Indiana University.
PUT CLIP ON FULL SCREEN
Video Of Boston Bomber Suicide Attempt
Start watching at 2:40. Look for the thermal blood spot to appear behind his head at 2:55 after he puts the gun up to his head and pulls the trigger.
After hours of careful observation of the police infrared video, we believe the Boston suspect shoots himself at exactly 2:53 into this clip. He lifts his right hand and shoots himself in the right side of the neck or mouth. His body goes limp and his head falls back and to the left, with the thermal image of blood appearing behind him. Watch on full screen at 2:49 and you will see the gun is on the left side of his chest in his left hand. You will then see the the gun as he slides it over his chest to his right hand.
Watch the last 5 seconds again. At 2:54 there is no thermal spot. At 2:55 the thermal spot behind his head begins to appear. At 2:56 the thermal spot is quite visible. And at 2:57 it starts to grow as the blood spreads. You can stop the youtube video and go frame by frame within each second for more detail.
To the left of his head just above where his left ear would be, you will see a small circular thermal spot appear after the shot. This image only appears after he is seen raising his right hand to the right side of his neck to pull the trigger. As his head starts to fall towards the left and back, you will see the small round thermal spot appear. You will not see it any other time before that.
Spreading Blood
If you watch the last 5 seconds of the clip closely you see that the thermal blood spot actually spreads or grows in size. It decreases in intensity very slightly as the blood cools, but it also increases in size pretty noticeably as the blood spreads out.
Also, after the shot when his body goes limp, he leans back and the blood-thermal spot is still below and separate from his head, and growing. Watch it a few times. You will see the thermal image morph. That was one of our biggest clues it had to be a warm liquid of some sort. So the only possibilities were blood and vomit.
Scroll down for important photos.
Photo of suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev walking away from the blast.
PHOTO - Suspect climbs out of the boat
PHOTO - Suspect in ambulance after capture
You can see the bullet exit wound above his left ear.
PHOTO - Boat where suspect hid from police
Photo showing massive blood spills and bullet holes in the side of the boat. For those who say he wasn't shot and bleeding when he got out of the boat, here's your proof that he was. Look closely at the step up on the trailer below.
EDITOR'S NOTE
All criticism should be confined to our analysis of the video.
Do not question our intent or motives. We seek the truth, and nothing else.
We are examining all facts objectively in this case. We generally criticize the government all day every day on this site. But we also seek the truth in every situation above all else. And that includes allegiance to any preconceived narratives about the bombing. We were one of the first to report on the presence of the Navy SEAL para-military security group 'The Craft' at the Boston Marathon. We profiled the college track coach who was alarmed by the police-training exercises and bomb-sniffing dogs. And we hammered the Boston Police Chief over the possibility of an advance bomb threat. Our coverage has been critical, but objective and fair in all cases.
And we correct our stories when we are wrong.
Apr 23, 2013 at 1:20 PM
Reader Comments (103)
http://i.imgur.com/jqmoVsa.png
The photo is not fake. He had lost blood all day long. The shot exited his upper neck and left most of the blood behind him as you see in the video. The blood from the wound does not get on his shirt. Also, that photo is not very clear. The photo at the the bottom of the story shows blood on the railings.
None of the photos are clear.
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That I don't know to be honest. The guys I worked with experts at video, not gunshots, so that question never came up. I will look for an answer.
First of all, your question assumes he shoots himself. And then you are asking if it could be vomit instead of blood, after the shot.
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He had been wounded the night before and was losing blood all day, for nearly 24 hours. He had likely already vomited everything that was in his stomach long ago, multiple times probably in the those 24 hours. He does not turn his head after the shot, which would be required in order for the vomit to show up behind him on the thermal image. Instead, his body goes limp and his head leans back and to the left, with the thermal image appearing behind him.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/19/7-eleven-robbery-boston/2097915/
Bad reporting by CNN got that story out there for a few hours.
My second question was whether you had considered that the 'thermal spot' could be vomit instead of blood - since a gunshot would surely show some type of heat register on the FLIR.
To me, it looks like he's laying on his left side and not flat on his back, but I haven't watched the clip 500 times and am not claiming an exclusive discovery. I guess I'm playing devil's advocate in search of the truth, as well.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10008638/Boston-bomber-FBI-dropped-the-ball-over-Tamerlan-Tsarnaev.html
http://intellihub.com/2013/04/22/hackers-hijack-cbs-to-claim-obama-involvement-in-boston-bombings/
When will these lugnuts realize that these types of security teams are on site for EVERY large event that takes place in this country? They are completely missing the real story on Craft Para-Military Teams? -- How they were there on site, and yet failed miserably.
We reported the story, but didn't fall for the bullshit. The real question we should be asking about Craft, and bomb-sniffing dogs, and police training exercises -- IS -- was there a bomb threat in advance that you did not tell the public about?
Read it here:
http://dailybail.com/home/navy-seal-with-radiation-detector-after-explosion.html
http://dailybail.com/home/why-were-bomb-sniffing-dogs-at-start-finish-lines.html
A Must Read
http://dailybail.com/home/boston-police-chief-there-was-no-specific-threat.html
More questions about a bomb threat in advance.
http://dailybail.com/home/boston-police-chief-there-was-no-specific-threat.html
My initial question was whether you believe that the suspect could climb out of the boat under his own will AFTER shooting himself. It seems highly suspect to me.
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Yes. And as you would expect it happened very slowly and he had difficulty climbing over. He is 19, plays on the UMASS soccer team and works out every day. He was strong enough to climb over.
Think of it another way. We know he was shot in the neck. That is indisputable. You are saying he climbed out of the boat without having been shot, and then the police shot him in the neck? They wanted him alive so they could talk to him. A head shot after he was captured doesn't fit logically.
In the photo of his capture you can see his neck wound. In the ambulance photo you can see his neck wound, and a bullet exit wound right above his left ear. Look at it closely. It is not visible as he's getting out of the boat because he's still wearing the sweatshirt, his head is looking down and the left side of his face is covered by shadow. The police forced him to take the sweatshirt off and pull up his shirt before they secured him.
Also, I don't see any blood inside the boat - only on the rail and wheel well. I would expect to see some visible blood on either path around the raised box (which I'm calling the engine compartment).
I doubt that even a 19 yr old soccer player in good health would be able to walk and function after shooting themselves in the throat. You even state that he had been bleeding all day and was weakened by the blood loss.
I'm also curious why the only photographs are him exiting the boat and then being given medical assistance while cuffed and on his back. Are these photos from a police or FBI agent? Or are they from a news source? What happened between the time he exited, was physically taken into custody and then removed from the scene? Why does the video not show any of this?
While it is highly possible that he did in fact shoot himself, your claim to know 100% for sure from the limited evidence exactly what happened is as silly as me claiming to know 100% the opposite.
I was going to stir the pot a bit and point out that the blood spot behind his head is actually the round neck of the life jacket coming into view. He was using it as a pillow and the round hold (for head/neck) would have been warm and glowing on the IR. That's what you see immediately after his hand goes back down. There's not splatter and splattered blood would cool fairly quickly. This spot just keeps glowing. He may have shot himself -- the doctors would know better than anyone, but I don't think this clip shows it.
I might be convinced otherwise if I saw more detail from a blown up version (is that what you saw at IU?).
I appreciate the discourse. And thanks for the kind words.
"There is a small bit of splatter and then the blood oozes out."
I can't see splatter on my screen, even blown up, but that would be telling.
"No offense intended, but the theory on the life vest doesn't hold for several reasons - it wouldn't glow with that intensity from residual heat..."
If you rested your head on the "neck" part of the life vest, you would heat up the air in that "cup" to close to your body temp. If that pocket of air wouldn't glow intensely, then neither would splattered blood. The splatter would fade pretty quickly compared to the pocket of head-heated air.
"and more importantly, it would have been in view during the entire sequence."
There's no other angle in that short excerpt like the one at the end. The air pocket wouldn't have been visible earlier in the tape. I wonder if you would see it in the full video.
"There is nothing that comes into view so to speak. The thermal camera picks up everything the whole time."
Actually, after the tarp is torn, you get a much sharper image of the kid's body. You can see a bit of tarp blowing in the wind in the very sequence in question. It blocks his shoulder/chest for a few seconds and then swings to reveal the bright glow from his shoulder/chest.
How did you guys blow up the video without it becoming too grainy to see? If you had a screen shot of the gun, that would be pretty convincing.
No worries. After spending all day working with this video, I welcome the chance to talk about it. You make some great points and we could be wrong.
How can you say it's safe to say he wasn't shot? Plus, you can't say anything about blood on his face from the pic in question. Maybe he's drinking water. Or maybe he's checking on the gunshot to his neck. He still might have shot himself, I just don't think it's in this sequence.
Again, why is there no recoil in the hand (forget the head), and why does he calmly rest his head like he just took an aspirin. If he just shot himself (but not fatally in the brain), why isn't there any sign of pain and distress?
I am stopping by to thank you for the credit. I see that there are some who don't believe it. But hey that is what makes the world go round. Opinions are like a*#holes, we all have one. I also wanted to ask you if you know whether or not they are suppose to be filming the entire time from the helicopter? If that is the case there is about 10 minutes missing from the video. Seems they may have cut out a few things. Just out of curiosity do you know anything about this carjacking victim? I haven't been able to find anything on him. I find it strange that the bombing suspects would confess to him, take his money and for a 30 minute joy ride, then release him. The guy had a Mercedes SUV per reports. Don't those things have GPS? Dumb move on the alleged bombers to let this guy go so he can go straight to the police. And really, here it is just days after a terrorist attack with suspects on the loose, this guys according to reports was somewhere parked by a sidewalk and the bomber walks up to the window, taps on it and then the carjack victim rolls it down. Man it just keeps getting better. The carjack victim doesn't want to be identified?? Shocking isn't it! What I would like to see is the Lord and Taylor video, the photos of suspect 1 with the bomb vest on, the photos of the bombs they throw out of the car while being chased and a few other things I cant think of just yet. Why were no bombing materials found in the apartment the brothers shared together, but were found in the dorm where many of other students could have come across them? If you ask me I don't think they kept the city inside for safety, they kept them in so no one would be out to film, take pictures or witness all the staging they were going to do. Before I continue on I would like your opinion on things DB.
Forced to admit they were wrong on the Para-Military Teams
http://www.infowars.com/military-men-witnessed-at-boston-bombing-identified-as-national-guard-cst-teams/
As I've said from the beginning. These teams are a normal part of big sporting events. They did not plant the bombs.
http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/news/documents/2013/04/22/137389471-Criminal-Complaint-Dzhokhar-Tsarnaev.pdf
I just found this update on the carjack victim. It's a very interesting read.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/boston-suspects-carjacking-victim_n_3133036.html
Boston Suspects' Carjacking Victim: Tsarnaev Brothers Spared Me Because I Was 'Not American'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-criminal-complaint_n_3133865.html
The carjacking victim told police that the man who stole his car took credit for the bombings.
"Did you hear about the Boston explosion?" a man said to the driver after reaching in his window and opening the car door. "I did that," he said while pointing a loaded firearm at the driver.
According to the complaint, the driver told police the carjacker forced him to pick up a second man. The two men, speaking in a foreign language, put something in the trunk of the stolen vehicle.
The victim moved to the passenger seat and gave the two men $45 from his wallet. The armed man drove the car to an ATM, where they tried to empty the victim's account. The victim escaped at their next stop, a gas station and convenience store on Memorial Drive in Cambridge.
The stolen car, reportedly a Mercedes SUV, was spotted by police soon after the carjacking in nearby Watertown.
Genck said that two improvised explosive devices were thrown from the stolen car and successfully exploded on Dexter Street and "the remnants of numerous exploded IEDs" were strewn on Laurel Street. Law enforcement later found three other bombs that didn't go off: one inside the abandoned stolen car and two on Laurel Street.
The complaint gives a fuller picture of the weapons allegedly carried by the suspects, as well as of the composition of the two bombs that rocked the marathon. The devices found in Watertown included an exploded IED from the scene of the shootout, which was held in the same type of name-brand pressure cooker as the one that injured many at the marathon.
According to the complaint, the driver told police the Bomber forced him to pick up a second man. The two men, speaking in a foreign language, put something in the trunk of the stolen vehicle.
The victim moved to the passenger seat and gave the two men $45 from his wallet. The armed man drove the car to an ATM, where they tried to empty the victim's account. The victim escaped at their next stop, a gas station and convenience store on Memorial Drive in Cambridge.
The stolen car, reportedly a Mercedes SUV, was spotted by police soon after the carjacking in nearby Watertown.
The 3 links:
http://fox40.com/2013/04/19/terror-in-boston-continues-one-man-and-police-office-dead/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/boston-suspects-carjacking-victim_n_3133036.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-criminal-complaint_n_3133865.html
Read the criminal complaint - it's pretty short. It answers some of your questions.
http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/news/documents/2013/04/22/137389471-Criminal-Complaint-Dzhokhar-Tsarnaev.pdf
We thought it would be less noticeable since the gun is inside the mouth or pressed against the flesh when the gun is fired. The muzzle flash is absorbed visually into the thermal image. Most muzzle flashes you've seen are when weapons are fired and the bullet flies. That doesn't happen here.
But I appreciate the discourse. Keep 'em coming. We could be wrong.
Read these 2 links.
Carjack victim tells his story.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/boston-suspects-carjacking-victim_n_3133036.html
All the details - The official criminal complaint.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-criminal-complaint_n_3133865.html
I think you will find these new details interesting.
I wanted to respond in more detail about your life preserver idea.
If you watch the last 5 seconds of the clip closely you see that the thermal blood spot actually spreads. It decreases in intensity very slightly as the blood cools, but it also increases in size pretty noticeably as the blood spreads out. That wouldn't happen if it were just picking up the residual heat from his head having been there. If that were the case, the thermal image would shrink in size over the 5 seconds as the heat dissipated. But this thermal spot grows in size over the 5 seconds.
Why? Because it is spreading blood.
Also, after the shot when his body goes limp, he leans back and the blood-thermal spot is still below and separate from his head, and growing.
Watch it a few times. You will see the thermal image morph. That was one of our biggest clues it had to be a warm liquid of some sort. So the only possibilities are blood and vomit.
It looks more like the cops had him in the crosshairs, and SHOT HIM MULTIPLE TIMES!
Here's is just another element I find odd that I don't think has been mentioned in the discussion:
If this guy was able to climb out of the boat after shooting himself in the head/neck, resulting in a non-fatal injury...why didn't he shoot himself again before climbing out?
The IR equipment the police are using is a lot more sophisticated than what I personally own Mine will pick up 1 degree temperature changes and will show a lot hotter color going to white for a large temperature change.
I can put my hand on the wall for one minute and then see the handprint for several minutes after my hand is removed.
All IR can be used to see cooler objects in hotter environments such as a body in a burning building when naked eye visibility is zero.
Understanding the accuracy of the equipment, here is the problem I see with the suicide theory. Assuming he had the super human strength to withstand a point blank shot in the head/ neck region with no perceived impact of the fps of the projectile.
And assuming he had a perfect seal between mouth and barrel that would possibly conceal a 1 degree or greater temperature increase from muzzle blast.
And assuming you had the super human fortitude to not writhe around in agony from the third degree burn you just received from the muzzle blast, it still leaves you with one problem...
If he shot himself with a revolver, you would see the image of white hot blow by from the area between the cylinder and the barrel. Which is never a perfect seal if you look at one.
If he shot himself with an automatic, you would see the higher heat signature of the round as it ejected from the pistol and the hot gasses escaping from the pistol at that moment since he had such a perfect seal with his mouth around the pistol. You would also see the shell casing land and begin the cooling process. The casing would be a hotter color than his body.
I am missing it
If he was shot before he would still be bleeding, that would continue until the achievement of equilibrium. When the heart stops you quit bleeding. The possibility exists that he could have shot himself earlier, I just am not seeing it here.
If you can slow it down enough to see the clues I just told you to look for, please post again.
Thanks
With all due respect, have you ever shot something or seen something shot in the real world? A subtle slump is not the body's reaction to getting shot in the throat.
But whether or not he shot himself, it doesn't answer numerous questions about the police story.
Don't you think it's a little odd that the police called this a shoot out? They unloaded what sounds like hundreds of rounds into the boat. That doesn't sound like a shoot out to me.
Isn't it also a little odd that they claimed all night "we must capture him alive." What were those 100++ rounds then, warning shots?
Also, how does a guy who is shot in multiple places (we'll include a self-inflicted wound in that), climb out of a boat and down a ladder unassisted, while stopping to bleed all over the railings, and then end up on the ground in "serious" condition?
Now here's the really important stuff and I'd love to hear comments from anyone who can explain these things.
Where are the pictures of the firearms these guys were supposed to be carrying? And to keep in on point, where is the handgun police say the younger brother used in the shoot out with them and his suicide attempt? Isn't proudly displaying captured weapons Police PR 101?
It's DAYS later and no one has yet shown even one picture of: a) their guns, 2) their arsenal of bombs, 3) their bomb-making workshop with materials, 4) the IEDs they left "strewn" all over.
Note that NONE of this material which according to the media/police/government version of events should have been EASY to tag and bag was presented in the charges against the surviving brother yesterday.
These are all FACTS folks and they need to be explained away. Otherwise, my vote is for a frame up. Why? I have no idea. But the barrage of Hollywood stories and blatant lying in this case is over the top. Ex. "They shot at police while throwing bombs at them - and the older brother took a minute in the middle of all of that to dial up Mom in Russia and say goodbye."
They told the still unidentified hijacked car owner 'We are bombers, but don't worry we will not kill you because you are not American (How did they know? Did they check his passport?) Oh, and by the way, let me disarm myself by removing the magazine from my pistol so you can see that there are real bullets in it. Now you wait here in the car that we just carjacked while BOTH of us go into this 7-11 to get potato chips. Don't go anywhere, OK? Because we are coming back to commit an insane crime spree"
Real the detailed accounts of the carjacking. That's what we are to believe happened.
This isn't just sloppy reporting. This is something else.
Still, DB, you said you could clearly see the gun in his hand in this sequence -- perhaps he just thought about pulling the trigger and then didn't.
Besides, the instant he would have pulled the trigger the gun would have come out of his mouth and you would see that heat. You can't control your muscles that well to keep it pressed to the back of the mouth and maintain a perfect seal with that kind of instantaneous trauma.
Again, we are talking superhuman possibilities.
Good stuff. I learned a lot from your post.
Johnny Marco
I agree with several of your points. A few of your questions have have been answered already but you make some good points. The carjack victim turned out to be Chinese for example. So that's how they knew he was foreign. But for these brothers to have been set up that means you are saying our government did the bombings. I don't buy that story. Not even close. WE might learn the FBI had more involvement with the older brother than they are admitting to, but so far this does not seem to be an FBI patsy terror plot like so many in the past.
Rick
You make some great points. Wish we had you there.
Good question.
I'll play the counter-intuitive.
If you think the police wanted him dead to shut him up, then why did they let him live? They would have had multiple opportunities to kill him before he got in the ambulance.
DB, you said you could clearly see the gun in his hand in this sequence -- perhaps he just thought about pulling the trigger and then didn't.
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We thought about your question a lot. And it is possible. I also mentioned earlier that it's possible that at the EXACT moment he was bringing the gun to his head he was shot by the police, and so he never pulled the trigger.
I will check out the video timestamps you mention.
I haven't read all the comments yet, but did you already explain why you think the thermal spot at 2:55 grows in size if it's residual heat, rather than shrinking in size?
You can see it (albeit less clearly) at about 0:30, 1:58, 2:29 and 2:38.
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I just watched again about 5 times. I didn't see it at any of the points you mention.
But this video quality is so poor I'm going to call my friend at IU and ask him to look at those video timestamps on his machine. Maybe he can find something there. I will post an update if I hear anything.