I’m not sure where the story came that he had his face “blown off”. I can’t find that in the official press conference information. So maybe it was an exaggeration.
People were looking for a reason they didn’t identify the suspect, and it could be they didn’t WANT to leak his identity because they wanted to question other people he might have worked with.
They may have only released his identity today because the gun shop owner leaked it last night to the internet and it was gaining wide circulation.
The gun shop guy just wrote about a "Mr. Cho." I don't think his actual identity was online anywhere before they released it.
You're darn tootin'
Having a bunch of media types start running down friends, witnesses, and gun shops wouldn't have been particularly helpful to the investigation.
Many of our fellow posters seem to have come to the conclusion that, because they hadn't heard a piece of information, the cops also didn't know it. On a closed crime scene, the media finds out what the cops want them to know WHEN the cops want them to know it.