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RED DECEPTION BY GARY GROSSMAN AND ED FULLER EXCERPT
(FOR READERS: LINKING A HERO OF THE FIRST ATTACK TO THE STATE DEPARTMENT REPORT)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
“Who the hell is that?” The New York Times investigative reporter froze the image on her computer. “That guy.” Savannah Flanders pointed to the video from the 14th Street Bridge.
“Him.”
“Don’t know,” replied co-byline reporter Mike Blowen. “But he’s been popping up on a bunch of the videos.”
Flanders rolled through the Facebook and Instagram cell phone uploads until she found an even better frame than the previous one. She grabbed a snippet and printed it out. It was a little soft, out of focus. She tried other frames until she had something sharper.
“Some kind of good Samaritan?” Blowen suggested.
“More than that. A man with the instinct and experience to act. He wasn’t just trying to help. Watch him.” She hit play again. “He was on autopilot,” the 34-year-old, red-headed reporter surmised.
Flanders went to a saved link containing another survivor’s footage.
“Again. Moving toward the action. Who does that?”
“Military? Someone in law enforcement?” Blowen proposed. “ATF? Capitol Police? Hell, it’s D.C., take your pick. But plainclothes or off-duty.”
“Whatever, the guy has seen action. He knows what to do. He’s not afraid.”
Flanders watched another posted clip. Her subject was further in the background.
“You think he’s a story?” Blowen asked.
“I do. And a good one for us. What’s your guess on his age, Mike?”
He rolled his chair closer to her computer.
“Late thirties. Or a really fit early forties. Hard to tell.”
Flanders grabbed more screenshots. She uploaded them into a FaceRec tool installed on the Times computers. The system mapped coordinates of a subject’s face, but in this case, because all the footage was shaky and most of the actual images were soft, the still frames didn’t deliver. So Flanders tried uploaded running video to the system. The program would select the best image and then search for a match in an open source Vis.js library, a powerful web-based network library of images. Though not as reliable as the FBI’s technology, it allowed newsroom editors and reporters a shot at narrowing down a person’s identity. And a shot was all she needed.
Flanders waited while the program ran through millions of images culled from news stories and photo archives. Nothing. Even the best of the video wasn’t good enough for the newspaper’s version of facial recognition to produce a match.
After more than an hour trying to enhance the images herself, she sent the footage to the New York Times graphics department.
“Need better,” she was told.
Flanders took that as a challenge. She’d find better by tracking down Mr. Late 30s to Early 40s herself. She on her way to identifying a man named Dan Reilly and discovering more than she could have imagined.
Copyright © 2021 by Gary Grossman and Ed Fuller
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