ANALYSIS of Central World Photo - Must Read

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Photos from Bangkok, May 19: An update		+ enlarge
Dec. 09 2010 - 03:48 pm View comments (1)

		13	Photos, from, May, update

The other day BP blogged about some photos that have been released online purportedly from the day of the May 19 crackdown. There were many questions about the photos. The Bangkok Post has a story here after red shirt leader Jatuporn has been referring to the photos and passing them onto the press. It appears the photos may have been leaked from a DSI file about them per the Bangkok Post:

The Department of Special Investigation has conceded that some documents released to the public by the Puea Thai Party concerning the deaths of red shirt protesters are in its files.

But it declined to verify whether all the information released by Puea Thai Party list MP Jatuporn Prompan was accurate.

Mr Jatuporn, a co-leader of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, distributed to the media on Tuesday reports and photographs of protesters and other individuals killed during the political violence in April and May. He claimed the photographs were new and showed military officers had a hand in the killing of protesters at Wat Pathum Wanaram near Ratchaprasong intersection.

Mr Jatuporn claimed he had received copies of 10 DSI investigation reports from police officers who are red shirt supporters. He distributed four reports among the media.

BP: Are the photos included in what DSI is saying? It is unclear. Someone who wishes to remain anonymous and has spent a lot of time looking at the photos has passed on the following:

If you have a problem viewing the below, go here.

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This past Saturday, December 4, a set of 73 photographs (now 74) surfaced on Facebook purportedly portraying events at CentralWorld (CTW) mall on and after May 19, 2010. These photos constitute useful new evidence as to the goings-on at CTW during those confusing days.

Contradicting claims are already being made about what these photos portray, including in the captions to the photos themselves on Facebook and the comments from other Facebook users. The photos have now been copied to other web boards, further splintering the discussion. With so many questions surrounding those days, it's easy to leap to conclusions.

This article is an attempt to establish what facts we can and cannot glean from the photographs. It is based on many hours of examining the photographs, area maps and CTW floor plans (all publicly available), in addition to several hours of scouting done at and around CTW to identify and verify the locations seen in these photos.

I decided to write this detailed analysis because I believe that if I don't do it, with the current political climate and constraints on the press it's unlikely anyone will.

The key questions surrounding these photos are:

1. Were the photos taken at CentralWorld?
   
   
2. Were the photos all taken by the same person?
   
   
3. Who was the photographer?
   
   
4. Were the photos all taken the same day?
   
   
5. Were the photos taken before or after the fire at CentralWorld?
   
   
6. Who was in control of CentralWorld before the fire?

After careful examination, I believe we can confidently answer all of these questions except the last one.

Were the photos taken at CentralWorld? We can say with certainty that most of the pictures were taken at and outside of CTW. Mall signs are clearly visible in certain photos, and anyone interested in doing so can verify the locations just as I have. The exceptions are photos 36-49, and 52-60, which are more difficult to pinpoint, but were taken in the general vicinity. At least some were taken outside Siam Paragon, and some outside of Siam Center, on the Siam Tower side.

Were the photos all taken by the same person? The photos all appear to come from the same camera, and appear to be in largely chronological order (possible mis-ordering of photos is discussed below). The images are 3 megapixels (in this case, 2048x1365 pixels), and were uploaded at apparently full resolution to Facebook. It seems Facebook scrubs EXIF data from photo uploads, otherwise we would know the exact camera model used to shoot them as well as the timestamp on each image.

Who was the photographer? The photographer is almost certainly security personnel at CTW. If it is true, as I believe, that the photos all came from the same camera, then our photographer is present both among a group of plain-clothes mall security guards who are shot at by unseen gunmen, and also during a post-fire inspection of CTW. The most logical link between these two scenarios is that he is a mall security guard.

Were the photos all taken the same day? The images were not all taken the same day. They can be divided into two main sets: Photos 1-60, which were taken on the afternoon of May 19th, and photos 61-73, which were taken on May 21st. [Update: An additional photo, which I will call Photo 74, was added yesterday to the Facebook album containing the first 73. It is a low resolution photo that appears to have come from a different camera, but it serves to clarify an important point, as discussed below.]

Were the photos taken before or after the fire at CentralWorld? The first set of photos were taken before the fire broke out in CTW (though towards the end of this set, in Photos 50-51, the smoke can be seen beginning to rise), and the second set of set were taken after the fire was extinguished.

Who was in control of CentralWorld before the fire? We simply cannot say. The photos do not really answer this question at all, though they do indicate there were armed persons inside the mall. We see photographic evidence that security guards were shot on Level 3, and that the shooters aimed primarily for the legs. Based on those photographs we can speculate that shooters were firing from the direction of Zone A, which is now closed down due to fire damage, and which suffered a partial collapse. We also see less clear evidence that a man, possible a protester or a looter, was shot in the leg on Level 1.

We can conclude that there was at least one shooter or group of shooters inside CTW, but to conclude anything more would be to go beyond what the current evidence shows. The people with guns inside CTW could have been one of a number of groups, with the two most obvious possibilities being the Thai military and the so-called Men In Black, an armed militia group believed to be associated with the Red Shirts.

We can also conclude that there were likely armed men in the area behind Siam Paragon, but again there is no clear evidence who these shooters were, and certainly no evidence that they are connected with whoever was shooting inside CTW. It's possible they are military, but the only armed soldiers pictured in this photo set are relaxed and resting against a wall.

Before getting into the detailed analysis, here is a reference map of CentralWorld and vicinity:

This map is rotated 180 degrees so that it lines up visually with the CTW floor plans included at the end of this article. (The floor plans pinpoint which photos were taken at which locations within CTW, insofar as I have been able to ascertain.)

The main mall portion of CentralWorld is divided into Zones A-F. This is important for getting a sense of where events within the mall took place. Not every level has every zone, however, depending on the particular layout of that level.

Photos from May 19

Photos 1-60, which all evidence indicates were taken on May 19th, can be further divided into three groups: Photos 1-11, depicting men, apparently protesters, inside the mall; Photos 12-28, depicting mall security guards under fire inside the mall; and Photos 29-60, depicting a large group of people evacuating from the CTW area to Siam Paragon, and eventually to Siam Center/Siam Tower. Let's look at each of these subsets one by one.

The protesters

Photos 1-11 portray a group of men dressed in street clothes entering CTW from the south entrance (Level 1, Zone E). The captions on Facebook state the date and time as 2:26 PM on May 19th, which would be before the fire broke out in Zen department store.

Photo 1. Taken from beside Cafe de Bliss on Level 3, facing south, looking down on Level 1, Zone E:



Recreation of Photo 1:

After some scouting, I was able to determine that the photographer was located beside Cafe de Bliss in Zone E of Level 3, looking down two stories onto the men, who were entering CTW from the south entrance which faces Rama I Road. The black iron railing seen here is unique to Cafe de Bliss, so the position of this photo is certain. The red upholstered furniture visible in the photo has since been replaced with wicker (perhaps because the upholstered furniture would have reeked of smoke after the fire).

Zooming in closely on both Photo 1 and its recreation, we can make out the front of Kwanpen designer handbag store. In Photo 1 the glass doors are shattered and the store looks entirely devoid of products. We cannot say whether this is the result of looting, or whether the owners were able to remove their stock and the glass is broken for another reason. However, since we know looting went on, this is further evidence for it.

The men entering the mall in Photo 1 are carrying what look like empty plastic sacks, and one has a backpack over his shoulder. This might be taken is evidence that they plan to fill these sacks with loot, but we simply don't know. They do not, however, appear to be armed:

Note: Zone E, where Photos 1-3 were taken, is immediately adjacent to Zone A, the zone immediately adjacent to Zen Department Store. Both Zen and and Zone A were severely damaged in the fire and are now closed off for repairs. As such, we can be certain that the area of the mall shown here would have filled with smoke during the fire. Obviously there is no fire, smoke, or smoke residue in Photo 1, so based on this photo alone we can confidently place the  time as before the fire started. It isn't until Photos 50-51 that we can see smoke rising from CTW, so it appears the fire was started sometime between when Photo 1 and Photo 50 were taken.

Photos 4-11 are taken in Zone C, the circular central area of CTW. In Photo 9 we can clearly see the two men carrying slingshots:

Slingshots were a popular weapon of the segment of protesters who engaged with the military, and so it is reasonable to conclude that the men in these early photographs are protesters. There is nothing that might lead us to believe these two are looters, however.

Photo 4. Taken from Level 3, looking down at the central area of CTW, Level 1, Zone C:

The man in Photo 4 is carrying a green fire extinguisher.

Let's clarify a few other potentially confusing elements of this picture: There is a power generator that can be seen on Level 2, at the top center of the picture, with a yellow tripod to its right, probably with a light mounted on it. A gray cable hangs down from Level 2 to Level 1, providing power to the standing light next to the bottom of the escalator.

Gray metal gates and advertisements have been used to block the escalator (this is also seen with the escalators in Photo 1). We know that power was cut to the area of Rajaprasong and CTW, so the generator and lights were likely put there by mall security. Likewise, it seems most plausible that mall security would be the ones to block off the escalators, in order to prevent anyone who might get into the mall from gaining access to the other levels.

Fire extinguishers have sometimes been used as containers for improvised explosives, including in Bangkok, and without understanding the rest of the items seen in this picture some might leap to the conclusion this could be a fire extinguisher bomb. And while that is perhaps possible, there's no evidence that it's not simple a normal fire extinguisher. If this man is a looter, a fire extinguisher makes for a nice heavy object to lob through a store window. In short though, we don't know, and there's no clear evidence of anything untoward, except a strange man in the mall.

Recreation of Photo 4:

The giant Christmas tree is blocking most of this view, and the recreation was taken from Level 2, while the original was shot from Level 3, but the Marie France Bodyline advertisement on the escalator is the same as from May, as well as the partially visible Samsung advertising on the elevator.

The man in Photo 4 is in the central open area, perhaps 5 meters from the Tissot watch store that can be seen post-fire in Photo 61, with smoke residue on the floor. The fact that there is no residue here is another confirmation that these photos are from before the fire.

The hallway that the man is facing is the southeast hallway that leads diagonally to Zone A of the mall.

Photos 5-11 are also taken in the round open area at the heart of CTW. They show one of the men, slingshot in hand, grasping his right calf and then falling down. Some blood is clearly visible on his leg in multiple  Photo 9. A friend comes in and helps him move away.

The clearest shot of his injury is in Photo 7:

Someone with medical expertise could comment more authoritatively, but it looks rather like he has been grazed by a bullet. Given that he's in the middle of an open space, this injury must have been caused by a projectile of some kind. It's unclear what kind of object fired from a slingshot could cause a wound like this. Also, this looks decidedly different from wounds caused by lead shot seen in later photos. If it is a bullet wound, you can actually see the path the bullet took as it grazed him. This must have been immediately after he was hit, before the wound had a chance to start bleeding much, because the next photos appear to show his leg with more blood on it:

Note: The photographer was crouching when he took Photos 1-11. At the top of Photos 1-3 we can see the blurred brown handrailing that stands at waist height, indicating clearly that he was in a crouching position. Also, in Photo 4, on the right side of the photo we can see the blurred metal bar that holds the glass panels of the railing in place. The photographer took the photograph looking through the glass panel that reaches from the floor to waist level, beneath the handrail. This indicates that our photographer is not part of the group of men depicted in Photos 1-11. They don't seem to know he is there, and he seems not to want them to know.

The Security Guards

Photos 12-28 depict a different group of men from earlier photos. These men are all on Level 3 of CTW, the same level as the photographer. They are in Zone E, to the south of the central open area of the mall. The Skechers store can be seen in Photo 12, for instance, which is located around the corner from Cafe de Bliss, the place where Photos 1-3 were taken.

Despite their plain clothes, we can be certain that these men are security employees of CTW. How we know this:

Walkie talkies and ID badges: Of the five men seen in Photos 12 and 13, three of them have walkie talkies. (The red walkie talkie of the man in the green shirt is visible on his waist in Photo 14.) A fourth man in Photos 13, wearing a blue and white striped shirt, is clearly wearing an identification badge on a red lanyard around his neck.

Photo 12: Men with walkie talkies and red lanyards.

Photo 14: Men with walkie talkies and red lanyards.

In Photo 15, the man on the far left can also be seen to have a red walkie talkie on his back belt. The man in the black undershirt has an ID badge on a red lanyard tucked into his front right pocket. The man in the white undershirt has a red walkie talkie on his back belt and a red lanyard around his neck.

The men in these photos are standing on level 3, but they are looking directly down onto the area where the men from Photos 1-3 are walking.

(Also note that the men in Photos 12-14 can be seen dragging a red hose. It is unclear what they plan to do with it, but it seems like something you do if you are trying to solve a problem, not create one. Perhaps they spotted someone trying to start a fire. Perhaps they were going to spray looters to chase them out. But in any case, they are shot at and flee before they are able to do anything with the hose.)

Photo 15: Men with walkie talkies and red lanyards.

I confirmed this week by going to CTW that all of the security personnel inside carry red walkie talkies, and many wear red lanyards.

Photo taken this week: CTW security with red walkie talkie.

Security uniforms: Photo 17 shows a man wearing dark pants with a gold double stripe. This is specific to the uniform of the CTW parking lot security guards. At CTW the parking area is full of attendants in these same pants, with white shirt and gold epaulets. The gold epaulets can be seen, barely, in Photo 15, perhaps the same man as in Photo 17. (Note: Many men in similar guard uniforms can be also be seen in photos 29-60.)

Detail from Photo 15: CTW parking security guard.

In Photo 24 the man in blue, helping another injured man, has a red walkie talkie in the pocket of his shirt, with a clear G4S logo. G4S is a large global security firm, and if you go to CTW you will see this logo all over, emblazoned on the shirts and jackets of mall security. In addition, the injured man in Photo 24 has a key ring holding numerous keys attached with a carabiner to his belt, much in the style of an on-duty security guard.

Photo 24: Man in G4S uniform with red walkie talkie, injured man with key ring.

Photos 25-28 depict the same injured man as in Photo 24, and as it happens, in Photo 28 we can see a clear view of the G4S logo on his shirt, verifying that this man is also a security guard.

Detail from Photo 28: Injured G4S security guard.

For all of these reasons, we must conclude that the men on Level 3, unlike the men on Level 1, are employees of the mall. And the photographer, being with them, is also probably mall security.

Based on location scouting, and the visible entrance to the Skechers store, we know these men were standing on the west side of Zone E, next to the railing that faces the open space in the center of this zone, and that they were likely shot at from the direction of Zone A. This is the direction they are all looking towards as they rush to avoid being shot, and as they attempt to help those who were hit.

The Facebook captions claim the men were shot with shotguns. The photos appear to corroborate this. Multiple small wounds can be seen on the legs of the security guard in Photos 26 and 27, similar to the type of wound we would expect lead shot from a shotgun to make.

Outside CentralWorld

Beginning with Photo 29, the setting switches to outside of CTW. Photos 29-36 were all taken on the northwest side of CTW, on the road that leads from the front of the Centara Grand, past Wat Pathumwanaram School, which lies just north of the Wat Pathumwanaram temple, and towards the northeast corner of Siam Paragon mall. (The malls are approximately 250 meters apart.)

Photo 32: People seeking cover from apparent gunfire in front of Wat Pathumwanaram School.

Recreation of Photo 32:

The people in the photo are facing CentralWorld, hiding behind a van, but looking back in the direction of the Siam Paragon parking structure.

Photo 35: Facing east towards the entrance to Centara Grand, on the northwest corner of the CTW complex.

Recreation of Photo 35:

The old trees visible in Photo 35 along this sidewalk have since been cut down and replaced with new palm trees, but otherwise the view is the same. This photo was taken immediately across the road from Wat Pathumwanaram School.

The people in Photos 29-35 are all hiding behind nearby vehicles. They are hiding on the CTW side, supporting the idea that the shooters are firing from the direction of Siam Paragon. And in Photos 31-32, the group of people is clearly walking towards the CTW complex, while looking nervously back towards the direction of Siam Paragon. Many of the people hiding in these photos are wearing security guard uniforms, and in Photo 30 a woman and child can be seen among the people hiding.

Even though the photos appear to show that there were shooters firing from the direction of Siam Paragon, we lack clear evidence as to who the shooters are and why they are shooting. Did Siam Paragon have armed guards? Circumstantially the military is one obvious candidate, because they are seen in these photos holding guns, and of course were heavily armed throughout the protests. In Photo 36 the solder in the middle is holding a shotgun and two others are holding automatic rifles. However, they are relaxing against the fence, not on alert and definitely not firing their weapons. The soldiers with riot shields in Photo 37 do not even appear to be armed.

I was not able to find the precise locations of Photos 36-37, but I was able to rule out the area where the shooters from Photos 29-35 were likely standing. Nowhere in that vicinity matches the locations where these soldiers are seen. So if it was soldiers firing weapons outside of Siam Paragon, it was not these ones. And regardless of who the Siam Paragon shooters were, these photos provide no evidence that they are connected in any way with the shooters inside the mall.

Photo 38 shows a stream of people walking in an orderly fashion along the west side of Siam Paragon (see area map below). I have not confirmed exactly where these photos were taken, but we can see a beige wall with green shrubbery and Citi M Visa advertising banners on the right sight of Photo 38. In Photo 39 we can see the far end of the same beige wall, complete with shrub and Citi M Visa banner, only now people are prostrate on the ground, apparently hiding from gunfire. For example, the man seen standing in an orange jumpsuit in the distance of Photo 38 is lying flat in Photo 39.

In Photo 40 we can also see the beige wall and shrubbery, as well as a sign advertising "FREE SHUTTLE SERVICE / SIAM PARAGON TO SIAM TOWER / SIAM PARAGON TO PETBURI SOI [unclear, but looks like 18]". And in Photo 53, which depicts the same location and appears to be out of order, we can see a sign with the Siam Paragon logo. So we can tell that our photographer moved from the CTW area to the west side of Siam Paragon.

Photo 41 is especially interesting, because it shows a man in camouflage and black ski mask on a BTS platform. This must be the Siam BTS:

When we zoom in and lighten the photograph, we can see he is standing next to a Green Music store

It almost looks like he's snoozing! But he could also just be looking down at something he's holding. It's certainly a possibility that the BTS Siam was the source of the gunfire that people are seen hiding from in photos 39-40. Does the fact that the photographer snapped this photo indicate this is the shooter? Or did he simply see the man there and decide to snap this shot? While this evidence is tantalizing, it's far from conclusive.

Photos 42-49 show people hiding out in a parking lot. I did not pinpoint exactly which parking lot these people are in, but it appears to me to be the Siam Center parking structure. It is worth noting that the injured man who was shot in the foot on Level 3 of CTW (seen being carried in Photos 15-16) is the same man being treated for injures by security guards in the parking structure location in Photos 42-44:

Photos 54-60 show that after hiding out in a parking lot, a large number of people are evacuated towards Phayathai Road. We know the direction of their movement from details in these photos. In Photo 54 the stream of people and security guards are walking past the Siam Center parking structure, on their left, and the back entrance to Siam Center, on their right. In Photo 55 they are walking between Siam Center and Siam Tower. Comparing the angle of the buildings against an aerial map, it's clear they are walking towards Phayathai Road, which can be seen in Photo 60.

This area map of shows where several photos from this sequence from were taken:

Note: Photos 50-51 show that the CTW fire has started. However, they might be out of sequence. They are taken in front of Wat Pathumwanaram, northwest of CTW, and show smoke rising from CTW.

Photo 50:

Photo 51:

It's possible that the photographer heard a fire had started and ran back toward CTW to take photographs, but it's not clear that it fits into the sequence of events. He--and others seen in these photos--would have had to backtrack past Siam Paragon, and we have already established there was gunfire from multiple points around Siam Paragon mall. The people in Photo 51 are standing around casually, with no evident fear of the gunmen in the area.

For this reason, I believe the most likely scenario is that the photos are out of sequence, and that they were taken before gunmen started firing in Photos 29-35. Once the gunfire commence the people standing around watching the smoke scattered to either side of the road, as we can see happened in those photos. If this is true, then Photos 29-60 all took place after the fire had started.

I do not know exactly when the smoke was first seen coming from CTW. According to the Wolfram Alpha website, sunset on May 19th occurred in Bangkok at 6:39 pm. This tweet from that evening, for example, shows that by 5pm the fire was already raging. And the daylight in Photos 50-51 appears to show that the fire started in the late afternoon. The sun is already far enough west that the bystanders are in the shadow of Siam Paragon.

Further searching of Twitter and media reports could probably pinpoint when the smoke was first spotted, but assuming the time given in the caption of Photo 1 (2:26 PM), a total time of perhaps two hours has passed between when Photo 1 and Photo 50 were taken.

Photos from May 21st

Captions on the Facebook album claim that photographs 61-73 were taken on Friday, May 21st. This is consistent with media reports that a body was found on the 4th floor of the mall on Friday morning. These photos portray areas of the mall with varying levels of visible smoke residue on the floors, clearly after a fire has taken place.

After careful examination, we can conclude that these photos portray a combination of military personnel, police, and mall employees surveying aftermath of the CTW fire.

Photo 61. Level 1, Zone C. Tissot watch store, facing south towards Zone E:

Photo 61 is quite dark, so a lightened version reveals significantly more detail:

Recreation of Photo 61:

This is a view of the Tissot and ToyWatch kiosks that stand in the hallway leading south from Zone C. (The camera is facing towards Zone E. In fact, in the distance we can see the the same white and yellow Nikon advertisement stands visible in Photos 1-3.)

The caption on Facebook claims the men in Photo 61 are looking for valuables, implying that they are looting, but a close look at the photo does not support this. Two of them are in hardhats, for one thing, and are likely to be cleanup crews employed by CTW. The one without a hardhat, dressed in black, has the same attire as the casually-dressed CTW workers in Photos 62-63. He is bending down, but there is a bit of an optical illusion going on. From far away it looks like he is opening a display cabinet at the ToyWatch kiosk, but zooming in on the Photo 61 shows that the "door" of the cabinet is actually a sign on the front of a desk behind him.

In fact, by zooming in on the recreation photo we can see that the display place is glass, and has no door to be opened anyway.

In the zoomed portion of Photo 61 we can see what appears to be a black cloth partially covering the glass display case, and the man is bending down towards the black lump on the floor. This black lump might simply be the rest of the cloth that has slid off the glass display cases, and the man is bending down to pick it up. In any case, this is simply not good evidence for anything out of the ordinary.

Photo 62. Level 2, Zone B. Watsons drug store:

Recreation of Photo 62:

The McDonald's which was located to the right of this Watsons has since moved, and the windows are now papered over.

Though it's unclear why the Watsons is having its locks cut, it's being done with the apparent cooperation of CTW employees. As illustrated above, the red walkie talkie is a signature of the CTW security staff. Here in Photo 62 an apparent CTW employee in white dress shirt with red walkie talkie is watching as a man in black work clothes, also with a red walkie talkie, cuts the store lock.

We can only speculate about what they are doing. But about the most nefarious thing we can imagine them doing at Watsons would be commandeering water and snacks for soldiers and personnel on duty, and there's no direct evidence for even that.

Photo 63. Level 2, Zone B. Topman clothing store:

Recreation of Photo 63:

Here we see the military apparently opening the gate of Topman clothing store. I believe they were probably going from store to store and cutting every lock to inspect the structure for damage. Given that the building had suffered a severe fire, including a partial collapse, the building was certainly structurally questionable. So it seems there is reasonable cause to expect them to be doing routine inspection. There are hundreds of shops and stores in CTW, and they couldn't very well let the owners rush back into a partially-collapsed building right away.

Photo 63 is dark, so it's not clear, but the area just past Topman in the photo is Zone A, the zone immediately adjacent to the portion of CTW that collapsed during the fire. As can be seen in the recreation, this whole Zone has been closed off. In addition, all throughout the mall the ceilings have been been redone, as seen here, as well as all the direction signs that hang down from the ceilings.

The victim of the CTW fire

Photos 66-73 are GRAPHIC. These record the discovery of the sole confirmed victim of the CTW fire.

Photo 66 is perhaps the most affecting of the lot, even if the ones after it are more gruesome. It shows the victim as the authorities found him, huddled on the ground, legs spread, face buried in his green shirt. A fire extinguisher and numerous empty bottles of water are at his feet. The cement floor is still visibly wet. It paints a saddening picture of a man trapped, struggling to fend off the scalding smoke from the CTW fire.

Who was the victim? Photo 72 shows the government ID card found on the victim, clearly identifying him as Kitiphong Somsuk (กิติพงษ์ สมสุข) of Sisaket province, a kid just a few weeks shy of his 20th birthday. (Note: This victim's first name has been widely misspelled in reports as กิตติพงษ์, with an extra ต, which is a more common spelling of the name.)

In Photo 72 we can also make out some of the hand-written notes of an officer on the scene, perhaps the woman holding papers seen in photo 73:

ได้ รับแจ้งจากเจ้าหน้าที่ทหารที่มาลาดตระเวร [obstructed by ID card] ได้เข้ามาทำการเคลียร์พื้นที่ภายในห้างอิเซตัน  ส่วนด้านขวาของ[เซ็น]ทรัลเวอร์ พบศพชายไม่ทราบชื่อ นอนเสียชีวิตอยู่ จึงได้แจ้งให้เจ้าหน้าที่ตำรวจทราบ

"Notice was received from soldiers on patrol [...] that they had come to clear the area of Isetan mall on the right side of CentralWorld. They discovered the body of an unidentified male lying on the floor, and thus notified the police."

Note that initial statements made to the media by police claimed that the victim's identity was unknown and that he was estimated to be 25-30 years old. But these media reports do confirm that it was the 21st when Kitiphong's body was discovered.

Based on his casual clothing, and the fact that he was in an electronics store that had had its window smashed, we can conclude that the victim of the CTW fire was a would-be looter. He doesn't have much to show for it, however. Photo 71 shows the effects found on his person: 3244 baht (about US$100), an ATM card, a photo of the king, and a few other odds and ends.

Where was the victim? The news reported linked just now quotes the police as saying he was discovered on Level 4 of CTW. Using these images, we are able to confirm this claim and further pinpoint the location. The photos appear to show that the victim died inside a back room of the Sony Ericsson store, apparently from asphyxiation due to smoke inhalation.

Photo 64 shows army and police personnel outside of the Samsung Mobile store, where one of the windows of the Samsung store is shattered. Note the heavy smoke residue on the floor:

Immediately to the left of the Samsung store in this photo stands the Sony Ericsson store, the apparent destination of the police officers in Photo 64.

 

Update: Another photo [the below photo] has since been added to the Facebook album, which I am calling Photo 74. This photo clearly identifies the location of Photo 65 as inside the Sony Ericsson store. We can see the same white oval shape on the back wall, and even the small white sheet of paper hanging on the wall to the left of it. Photo 74 also shows that, like the Samsung store, the Sony Ericsson store had its window shattered:

Photo 66 shows the victim's body as authorities found it. It appears to be a back room, complete with plain cement floor, shelves, boxes, file cabinets, and other odds and ends. We can also see an old Sony Ericsson advertisement from February 2010 behind the victim, another indication that this is probably the back room of the Sony Ericsson store:

Photos 67-70 show the victim's body after medics have laid him out flat on an orange stretcher emblazoned with the emblem of theRuamkatanyu Foundation, one of Thailand's two main emergency and rescue organizations.

How did the victim die? In the photographs, this area of CTW only shows signs of smoke damage. Zone C is a large, open cylinder that stretches up to the full height of the main mall. Though it is approximately 100 meters from the area of the mall that is known to have collapsed from fire, the smoke from the fire would likely have filled the hallways of the mall's upper floors and spilled out into this large open space.

In Photo 66 we can see that the victim's hands are still clutching his green shirt, holding it tightly against his face. Perhaps once smoke from the Zen fire started billowing in, he fled into the back room thinking he could escape the smoke. His attempts to fight the smoke having failed, he drops to the floor and covers his face with his shirt.

Some commenters on Facebook have claimed this photo shows the victim was shot, apparently because some blood can be seen in the water on the floor around his head. This is fanciful thinking. The skin on his face is bloated and oozing, and the skin on his chest has started to peel off, for whatever reason. This is the apparent source of the trickle of blood on the floor. Being neither a physician nor a forensic scientist I can't comment further on the precise condition of his body, but as he died in the position he did, asphyxiation seems like the most likely cause of death.

Finally, Photo 73 shows the victim's body after it has been moved to the stretcher in front of the escalators on Level 4 of Zone C at CTW. This section from the floorplan of CTW shows where things are positioned:

If you go to CTW today, you will see that the two stores are now boarded off:

The column in this photo is the same column seen in Photo 64 above, though the dropped ceilings have been redone here, and in fact all throughout CTW. I took this photo from approximately the same place where the victim's body lay on the stretcher in Photo 73.

According to a security guard I spoke at CTW, both the Samsung and Sony stores have permanently moved out of CTW. This is hardly surprising, given the importance Thais place on auspiciousness, and their propensity for superstition, especially related to death and spirits.

As it turns out, the truth about the victim of the CTW fire was floating around on Twitter on May 21st, lost in the sea of rumors and misinformation. This tweet from @js100radio describes the situation exactly correctly (except for the misspelled name). We simply lacked the evidence to confirm it until now.

Locations of photos taken inside CTW, level by level

The red numbers on the following CTW floor plans indicate where I have been able to determine certain photos were taken.

Level 1 (Photos 1-11, 61):

Level 2 (Photos 62, 63):

Level 3 (Photos 12-14):

Level 4 (Photos 64-74):

Conclusions

The photographs show that were at least three groups of people inside CTW in the hours just before the fire: (1) small numbers of protesters, who may have been looting; (2) CTW security guards, who apparently fled the mall after being fired at; and (3) unseen gunmen. Whether there was more than one group of gunmen, and whether the same gunmen shot the security guards in Photos 15-28 and the protester with the slingshot in Photo 9 (if he was indeed shot), we simply do not know based on these photographs.

The photographs also show at least three different sources of apparent gunfire: (1) unseen shooter(s) inside CTW, who fired upon security guards and possibly fired at a protester; (2) unseen shooter(s) located near the northeast corner of Siam Paragon; and (3) unseen shooter(s) on the west side of Siam Paragon, possibly connected to the camouflaged man in the ski mask photographed on the Siam BTS platform.

As discussed above, the photographer was almost certainly a security guard for CTW. This raises an important question: Have the security guards from inside the mall been questioned as to what they saw at CTW before the fire? Many faces can be clearly seen. No doubt they saw more than was photographed here. Will any journalists step up and track down these witnesses?

Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd made a response to these photographs on behalf of CRES this past Tuesday, December 7th. (See the Matichon report.) He dismissed the photographs, saying they contain nothing new.

And while these photographs do not provide us with any ground shaking new conclusions about the CentralWorld fire, their release and the ongoing public response is striking, because it demonstrates how little information the public actually has about what happened. More than six months later we're still guessing, still bickering about who did what.

The government's dismissal of this new evidence out of hand, and their refusal to acknowledge and respond to a public clearly hungry for more information, simply demonstrates their ongoing dedication to a policy of strict opacity, and a lack of responsibility towards informing the public they are supposed to serve.