The FBI identified them early Wednesday morning and were going to hold the photos because they didn't want to enable blood thirsty vigilantes and risk having th

The FBI identified them early Wednesday morning and were going to hold the photos because they didn't want to enable blood thirsty vigilantes and risk having their suspects killed or detained by non-law-enforcement types for numerous reasons (if you can't imagine/understand these reasons on your own then I don't know what to say to you). It was sites like Reddit and publications like NY Post that forced their hand to release the photos because, again, rampant amateur detectives/vigilantism is dangerous and there had already been wrongly-identified suspects whose lives' were truly in immediate danger. The FBI doesn't owe you an apology. They are trained professionals who were able to get a positive ID on the suspects ONLY THROUGH tedious, labor intensive poring over photography and video frames (the digital technology needed to accomplish this task of a reasonable positive ID is just not there today, there was another post on this on HN a day or so ago) and then ultimately through an eye-witness testimony from the guy recovering from getting his legs blown off in the hospital. All sites like Reddit did was hinder or at the very least alter (perhaps the effect was adiaphorous or benign, perhaps not) the investigation. If it weren't for fear of a public witch hunt/lynch mob situation, it is possible that a much slimmer/streamlined law enforcement operation could have been set in motion to capture both brothers alive without locking down the entire city. But we'll never know will we because the public is full of blood lust and everybody was suddenly an amateur internet detective. Good intentions be damned, that type of reaction is poisonous.