Boston Marathon bombing

== Conflicting reports ==
On the afternoon of the bombing, the ''[[New York Post]]'' reported that a suspect, a Saudi Arabian male, was under guard and being questioned at a Boston hospital.<ref name="AutoLC-160" /> That evening, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said that there had not been an arrest.<ref name="AutoLC-163" /> The ''Post'' did not retract its story about the suspect, leading to widespread reports by CBS News, CNN, and other media that a Middle Eastern suspect was in custody.<ref name="AutoLC-164" /> The day after the bombing, a majority of outlets were reporting that the Saudi was a witness, not a suspect.<ref name="AutoLC-165" />

The ''New York Post'' on its April 18 front page showed two men, and said they were being sought by the authorities. The two men in question, a 17-year-old boy and his track coach, were not the ones being sought as suspects. The boy, from [[Revere, Massachusetts]], turned himself over to the police immediately and was cleared after a 20-minute interview in which they advised him to deactivate his Facebook account.<ref name="AutoLC-169" /><ref name="autogenerated3" /> ''New York Post'' editor [[Col Allan]] stated, "We stand by our story. The image was emailed to law enforcement agencies yesterday afternoon seeking information about these men, as our story reported. We did not identify them as suspects." The two were implied to be possible suspects via [[crowdsourcing]] on the websites [[Reddit]]<ref name="autogenerated3" /> and [[4chan]].<ref name="Reconsidering the Internet detectives in Boston manhunt on Reddit and 4Chan: the benefits and pitfalls" />

Several other people were mistakenly identified as suspects.<ref name="AutoLC-170" /> Two of those wrongly identified as suspects on Reddit were the 17-year-old track star noted above and [[Sunil Tripathi]], a [[Brown University]] student missing since March.<ref name="AutoLC-171" /><ref name="Missing Brown University student's family dragged into virally fueled false accusation in Boston" /> Tripathi was found dead on April 23 in the [[Providence River]].<ref name="AutoLC-172" />

On April 17, the FBI released the following statement:
{{Blockquote|Contrary to widespread reporting, no arrest has been made in connection with the Boston Marathon attack. Over the past day and a half, there have been a number of press reports based on information from unofficial sources that has been inaccurate. Since these stories often have unintended consequences, we ask the media, particularly at this early stage of the investigation, to exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting.<ref name="AutoLC-173" /><ref name="AutoLC-174" />}}

The decision to release the photos of the Tsarnaev brothers was made in part to limit damage done to those misidentified on the Internet and by the media, and to address concerns over maintaining control of the manhunt.<ref name="AutoLC-175" />