The FBI has finally gone public with pictures and video of two men that they believe are the probable perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings. They are asking the public to help identify and locate the two men. The FBI currently believes that one man, identified as “white cap,” planted the bomb, but that both “white cap” and the other man, identified as “black cap,” were working together.
Ironically, the men’s probable role in the bombing came to be known because Jeff Bauman, 27, the young man whose picture became an iconic image of the terrorist attack, actually looked his attacker in the eye minutes before the bomb went off, damaging Bauman’s legs so badly that both had to be amputated below the knee. While Bauman was keeping an eye out for his girlfriend, who was among the runners, a man wearing a cap, sunglasses, and a black jacket over a hoodie, looked at Bauman, and then dropped a bag at his feet.
Just two minutes later, the bomb exploded, ripping Bauman’s legs to pieces. A picture of his ashen, anguished face, and of good Samaritan Carlos Arredondo helping to control the bleeding, instantly become one of the most recognizable images from the carnage. Ironically, it was this image that first alerted his family to Bauman’s injuries.
The moment Bauman woke up from his surgery, he asked for a pen and paper, said his brother Chris. He then wrote, “bag, saw the guy, looked right at me.” Knowing where Bauman was relative to the hooded man, enabled law enforcement to make sense of the hundreds of images and thousands of faces they were reviewing.
Considering the severity of Bauman’s injuries, it might be some consolation if he could be central to the capture of the two men who committed this heinous act, the worst terrorism act on American soil since 9/11 itself.