Surveillance is key procedures in many cases, in this case however it was kind of a bust. The FBI were investigating every lead they had including putting potential suspects on twentyfour hour surveillance on the ground and in the air. None of their potential suspects were the actual bombers though so the surveillance turned out to be a huge waste of time, resources, and money. Surveillance can be a very boring procedure you can be setting around for hours waiting for the smallest thing to happen. The FBI launched its largest ever aerial fleet to circle over Boston in the hunt for the bomber.
The advantages of having a bird in the sky are endless especially with the use of thermal imaging you can see people walking around in the shade or even in the pitch black of night. During the moments before the last suspects arrest the police had a police helicopter in the sky that was equipped with thermal imaging. Without having to send in enforcements and risking their lives they could monitor the suspect while he was barricaded in a boat that had a thin cover over the top. Even though the surveillance wasn’t deemed successful I still believe it was necessary to eliminate suspects.
Touching back on what I said earlier you have to take all information seriously, if you are given information to lead you to a possible suspect you must take action to either eliminate them as a suspect or identify them as the suspect. (Ross, 2016) One of the less known police procedures that is used during every single case is the communication between police agencies and the media. This relationship is very love hate, in some ways the media can be very helpful when it comes to releasing pictures or information of possible suspects on their platforms and getting it to millions of citizens.
The media can greatly stress out police department in many ways especially when they release false information to the public. In today’s society people want information as quickly as possible, media outlets fight to get the information out first and gaining an audience no matter if the information they have is accurate or not. It is important for police departments to be transparent with the media no matter how it affects the department they should tell the media as soon as they have or don’t have information this way they don’t put out false information.
In the case of the Boston marathon bombing the media prematurely put out that the Boston police department had the two bombing suspects in custody. This is very dangerous because the public as well as the Boston officers begin to let their guard down knowing the danger has been stopped. Another important aspect of this case is when the FBI had photos of the men they believe to be the bombers, they thought they could silently track down the suspects and take them down before they even knew the FBI had them on their radar. The element of surprise was in the favor of the FBI.
Until, the FBI received a call from a Boston news station, the station informed the FBI they also had the pictures and was going to release them to the public. This was a huge shock to the FBI wondering how this information got out. The hand of the FBI was forced and they scheduled a press conference asking for the help of the public. In my opinion this was a huge mistake the FBI pretty much told the bombers we know who you are and we are coming for you. This resulted in the suspects getting flustered and deciding to move on.
They started their fleeing process by killing a campus officer at the University of Cambridge. Also the suspects could have possibly decided to cause more destruction knowing they were caught and had nothing to lose. (Ross, 2016) One of the craziest moments during the five days of chaos is when the mayor of Boston enforced a city wide shut down for officers to find the last suspect. During this time all public transportation, business, and schools were closed, and all citizens were told to say in their homes. Also that week The Kansas City Royals were in town to play the Red Sox that was also postponed.
I thought about this kind of as a community policing attempt. All officers went door to door in a twenty block radius talking to residents gathering information about any suspicious activity that could possibly lead to the apprehension of the last suspect. Ultimately the city wide shut down is hard to determine if it was successful or not, during the shutdown the suspect was not found but at the same time the suspect was not able to move and try to escape because the only people in the entire city out in the public was the police.
In my opinion the city wide shut down was not the best idea because to the public may look like the police and the government has too much power and looks like a police state. I believe the city could have been equally as successful with just recommending residents saying in their homes, while still continuing their community policing efforts by going around to business and homes talking to residents. (Ross, 2016) A police procedure that most officers hope they never have to implement but can be major factor when they have to use it.
The procedure is using your work issued handgun, in the Boston marathon bombing case this had to be done when officers encountered the suspects on a car stop. When the officer attempted to pull the suspect over he exited his vehicle and immediately opened fire on the police officer, thankfully the officer reacted quickly enough to duck under his dash, throw his car into reverse, get out of the situation and wait for backup which was right around the corner. Once backup arrived the two officers started to return fire.
During the fire fight the suspects started to throw pipe bombs and another pressure cooker bomb at the officers. When more backup started to arrive the police officers began to take control, the police were able shoot one of the suspects and get him to the ground as they were about to put him in the handcuffs the second suspect in an attempt to escape to ran over the first suspect that was in the process of being handcuffed. The second suspect was taken to the hospital and later died.
Once they had the second suspect they were able to use a mobile fingerprinting analysis and finally get a conformation on who the suspect actually was. They began to do some research on their dead suspect and found he had a younger brother who was most likely their other suspect. (Ross, 2016) In conclusion there are so many police procedures used every day some more than others. In the case of the Boston Marathon there were a several different procedures used to identify, locate, and apprehend the suspects.
Without all the procedures used it could have been much harder and taken a lot longer to capture the suspects, and put the minds of the city and nation at ease. This attack affected so many people and it was the job of the local, state, and federal agents to work together and to use all of their available resources to quickly and safely arrest the suspects. During the paper I critically analyzed how the police used different procedures and if they were successful or not and how I would have changed how they responded to certain situations.