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More than a decade ago, a frenzied 5-day search for the Boston Marathon bombers left some lessons in its aftermath.<\/p>\n
One was that increasingly pervasive surveillance technology could help catch the culprits. Another was that amateur online sleuths on Reddit could not.<\/p>\n
But the\u00a0intense search this week\u00a0for a suspect in a Brown University shooting that killed two students and wounded nine other people turned the tables on those expectations.<\/p>\n
Sweeping surveillance, now found in doorbells, cars and a vast network of\u00a0vehicle-tracking cameras, did eventually help track down the whereabouts of Claudio Neves Valente, the 48-year-old former Brown graduate student investigators believe was responsible for the Dec. 13 shooting and another killing two days later of an MIT professor in Brookline, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
But the latest artificial intelligence-powered surveillance was of little use in the early search for a gunman who walked away from the Brown campus after the shooting and slipped unnoticed\u00a0into the surrounding neighborhoods\u00a0of Providence, Rhode Island. He evaded detection for days, using a hard-to-trace phone, avoiding facial recognition software by obscuring his face with a medical-type mask and switching the license plates on his rental cars.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until a local Reddit user \u201cblew this case right open\u201d with an old-fashioned tip first posted on the social media platform that police were able to connect a car to Neves Valente, said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha. They finally found the suspect dead Thursday in Salem, New Hampshire, days after he likely killed himself.<\/p>\n
The Reddit tipster\u00a0known only as John\u00a0is \u201cno less than a hero,\u201d Providence Mayor Brett Smiley wrote Friday to FBI Director Kash Patel, asking for John to get the entirety of the FBI\u2019s $50,000 reward for information leading investigators to the suspect.<\/p>\n
Strangers have invited him to Christmas dinner and suggested he get a \u201ckey to the city and free coffee and doughnuts for life,\u201d according to fellow contributors to Reddit\u2019s Providence forum.<\/p>\n
It was a stark turn from 2013 when commentators on Reddit and other online discussion boards falsely smeared a Brown University student as a potential suspect in the deadly attack at Boston\u2019s famed marathon, just an hour north of Providence, because of a supposed resemblance to a grainy suspect image.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey Reddit, enough Boston bombing vigilantism,\u201d declared a headline in The Atlantic at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely went sideways in the Boston Marathon situation,\u201d said Liza Potts, a professor at Michigan State University and director of a digital humanities lab that studied the online response. \u201cThat\u2019s why folks will jokingly refer to the \u2018Reddit Detective Agency\u2019 or the \u2018Reddit Bureau of Investigations.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The mistaken connection between the 2013 bombers and a missing Brown student \u2014 who was later found dead of an apparent suicide \u2014 is still remembered by many at the Ivy League school and its surrounding community.<\/p>\n
Brown officials this week sought to swiftly tamp down another smear campaign circulating on X and other social media platforms falsely tying a current Brown student to the campus shooting because of his ethnicity, perceived political views and supposed resemblance to a police video of a person of interest. The \u201cunimaginable nightmare\u201d of false accusations led to \u201cnon-stop death threats and hate speech,\u201d the student said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Frustrated that tip lines could be jammed with nonsense, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat and former state attorney general, urged social media speculators to \u201cjust shut up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is simply no need from an investigative point of view for people who have no idea what they\u2019re talking about to offer their stupid and ill-informed views about what happened all over the internet,\u201d Whitehouse said from Congress on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
But Potts said some social media has been working better than others, and \u201cof all the spaces that I study, Reddit seems to be getting it right more than not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harmful accusations were largely absent from Reddit\u2019s Providence forum, in part because volunteer moderators who manage Reddit\u2019s subject matter forums \u2014 known as subreddits \u2014 are largely responsible for keeping the peace.<\/p>\n
Reddit\u2019s chief moderator for the Providence subreddit said in an interview that he\u2019s been on the platform for about 15 years and remembers the trauma that false Boston Marathon report caused.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Providence subreddit is very sensitive about (not) trying to go on a witch hunt or the mob mentality,\u201d he said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid doxing and because of the platform\u2019s culture of anonymity.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press also reached out to the tipster on Tuesday, a day after he wrote on Reddit urging police to look into a Nissan sedan with Florida license plates. Fellow Redditors urged him to contact the FBI, and he said he did.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment and later posted that he doesn\u2019t plan to talk with media. When he finally met with police on Wednesday \u2014 after approaching them on the street and identifying himself as the Reddit tipster \u2014 his information gave new life to a stalled investigation.<\/p>\n
With a known vehicle, Providence police started looking through the footage from dozens of AI-powered cameras positioned around the city that can read license plates as well as other identifying details about a car, such as make, color, side damage or even bird droppings on the window.<\/p>\n
The cameras, run by surveillance company Flock Safety, spotted his vehicle at least 14 times starting nearly two weeks before the shooting, according to a police affidavit. Providence police could then ask Flock-using police agencies in nearby cities and states to look for the same car, although New Hampshire \u2014 because of privacy restrictions on how long they can hold images \u2014 doesn\u2019t have any.<\/p>\n
It was a breakthrough Flock was happy to boast about, especially as wariness remains in Providence\u2019s immigrant communities about more aggressive federal immigration enforcement. Flock says each of its customers decides when to share camera data, and the city doesn\u2019t share it with federal immigration agents. Some still want more safeguards.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you know what they are, you see them everywhere,\u201d said Madalyn McGunagle, a policy associate at the ACLU of Rhode Island. \u201cPeople notice because they\u2019re distinct-looking \u2014 a solar panel on top with a little oval camera underneath.\u201d<\/p>\n
But unlike the residential doorbell cameras that spotted him walking around Providence, had Neves Valente walked by a Flock camera, it wouldn\u2019t have detected him, said Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a technical impossibility. The camera does not have an ability for a user to search for people,\u201d Langley said in an interview Friday. \u201cOur cameras are focused on vehicles because if you look at America, people drive. It is very hard to get anywhere on foot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the majority of our cities, they want to just know who is coming in and who is leaving,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Still, without John the tipster \u2014 whom local Redditors dubbed \u201cReddit Guy\u201d \u2014 no one would have known how he left.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone who is in the area and sees stuff all the time, they\u2019re going to be better in a lot of ways than a random camera,\u201d said the Providence subreddit\u2019s moderator. \u201cJohn saw this guy going back and forth, unlocking his car and all that, and he just thought it was kind of weird.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Reddit #Detective #Agency #surveillance #tech #helped #find #suspect #Brown #shooting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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