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at what these men were doing. it's motion video so they can watch their movements. >> all right. pete williams in our washington newsroom. no doubt a big step forward in this investigation. lester holt was on the street in boston when the photos went public at that very moment. he witnessed the start of what someone today called the first nationwide electronic crowd-sourced manhunt of the digital era. lester, good evening. >> reporter: brian, good evening. when the crowd watching us glommed onto the fact we were talking about pictures of suspects, the smartphones immediately came out. people started watching that video. one man said to me, i wish i knew them. the president was here just a few hours before we learned of the suspect. whether he knew about them or not is unclear. he had a message for whoever did this. we will find you. bostonians stood for hours in a line ten blocks long for a chance to publically share their sorrow and even their fears. >> i'm sickened by this. we live in such a free country and to have a sense of insecurity. ♪ >> reporter: inside the cathedral, tears
action on their own, which seems like wise advice. joining me is pete williams. this is a big development. what's the latest? >> reporter: it is a big development. the pictures don't show crystal clear view of the faces, of course. there's pictures that the fbi has not released. as you noted, they do believe they have images showing the man in the white hat, planting the second bomb, in the one in front of the restaurant. by the way, we have seen that picture from our affiliate whdh in boston that shows the garbage bag next to the mailbox. they say that this is now that that is not the bomb. that the bomb was planted on the other side of that barrier. it's right near there, but just on the other side. in the release of these pictures, then, they have chosen which they think will be most helpful to people in being able to recognize themment granted, the faces are never crystal clear but they hope the totality of the clothes and what they were doing and where they were will cause people to call in. they are getting the response they asked for or getting a response, any way. a lot of names.
williams has been on it from the start. pete, good evening. >>> brian, after sifting through that huge amount of photos and video from people and businesses, the fbi wants to now know about two people who stand out in all that material because of what they were doing before the bombs went off. investigators tonight are calling them suspects in the bombings investigators decided today to take advantage of one of their strongest leads, asking for public help in identifying two men agents are now the most interested in running down. >> we consider them to be armed and extremely dangerous. no one should approach them. no one should attempt to apprehend them except law enforcement. >> reporter: one man is wearing a white baseball cap worn backwards, dark t-shirt, gray hoodie, dark jacket, dark pants
moving through the crowd at the marathon on monday. nbc's pete williams reports these two individuals will also now appear on official fbi wanted posters. the fbi had a choice about how they were going to talk about these individuals today. it is a choice that has to be inflected by our recent history of misidentify iing suspects in high profile domestic attacks, attacks like the anthrax attacks in 9/11 and olympic park bombing in 1996. the names and faces that appeared in the press early on in those investigations did not end up being the individuals held responsible for those crimes. given that history, given the fact that news organizations like the "new york post" are already showing an eagerness and shamelessness about publishing jump to conclusion statements about suspects in the boston bombing, information that is wro wrong, we'll have more on that in a minute, given that history given what's going on with this intense interest and the media being rather irresponsible about some of these matters, the fbi could have played it safer than they did today, they could have labelled t
, pete williams has reported on. and we looked at that carefully, and that's the scene of the blast of the second bomb. so this guy has planted the second bomb. we looked at the dark hat guy as they walk. it's just interesting that the dark hat guy looks a little older, walks in the front. and his bomb detonates first. they don't have a video of him planting the bomb. but the -- special agent in charge said they pieced it together. and what they pieced together was the backpack. i'm sure they pieced together the backpack. it's possible he could have laid his hat on the backpack. so they could have found the hat and the backpack. but they were able from the video to say a backpack looking just like that was there. they probably have video of these guys communicating and talking. that's an interesting report about his reaction. these cowards are probably exhibiting some glee and joy at this, you know, vulgar thing they did. but that's going to be they're undoing as well. >> yeah -- >> they underestimated -- they underestimated law enforcement. and they underestimated the resilience of

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