An explosion has apparently struck very near the finish line of the Boston Marathon today. Someone has found video, and while it’s not gory, it’s also not for the squeamish.
Our best wishes to the event’s participants and their families. Please do not jump to conclusions too quickly about why this has happened. Please do sound off if you are from the New England area so the rest of us in our online community can know you’re all right.
Burt Likko
Pseudonymous Portlander. Pursuer of happiness. Bon vivant. Homebrewer. Atheist. Recovering Republican. Recovering Catholic. Recovering divorcé. Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Ordinary Times. Relapsed Lawyer, admitted to practice law (under his real name) in California and Oregon. There's a Twitter account at @burtlikko, but not used for posting on the general feed anymore. House Likko's Words: Scite Verum. Colite Iusticia. Vivere Con Gaudium.
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I was scheduled to round at Children’s today, but had no patients on my service so didn’t have to drive in. Spent this morning insanely happy not to have to figure out how to get through the marathon snarl, and now wish I was at the hospital in the off chance there was something I could be doing instead of sitting in my office feeling devastated.
I tried to get a number to run Boston last year, but didn’t get picked for the fundraising team I contacted. Running the Boston marathon is one of those things I’d idly dreamed of doing.
I feel awful.Report
Holy crap. I don’t even know what to say.Report
You and me both.Report
Major unhappy. I love Boston!Report
I have a close friend in Boston, who’s a runner. It turns out he lives two blocks from the finish line. I’m ever-thankful to learn that he and his girlfriend are safe. And I’m so sorry for everyone who was not so lucky.Report
Given the apparently confirmed reports of more bombs at the race and at the JFK library we may count ourselves lucky, at some later date, there weren’t more causalities.Report
JFK Library thing was confirmed as being unrelated. The fire was a mechanical room thing.
They did evacuate the Kennedy School, though.Report
Oh wait, now the commissioner is saying it’s a related incident.Report
According to TPM Boston PD has confirmed there a bomb went off at the JFK. FWIW. We’ll know more in a few hours.Report
I read the bomb squad detonated one or two (on purpose), so apparently there were more than just the ones that went off.Report
And the latest official announcement is that there were no unexploded bombs, only the two that went off.Report
The BM is an international event; according to the Toronto Star, there are an estimated 2,000 Canadians there.Report
I just heard on the radio (A.P.) that they have the guy in custody. Twelve dead and 50 wounded.Report
I can’t confirm that on the web.Report
New York Post is the only one reporting that.
It’s the New York Post, though.
I imagine we can’t trust anything until Thursday or Friday.Report
Yeah…. because now what I’m getting from CNN is 3 dead, including an 8-year old boy, plus at least 138 more wounded. Both figures likely to rise. Boston authorities and the FBI are sorta/kinda promising more/better info in the morning.
The press conference was… remarkably uninformative. But the Q&A was interesting. Some clown from I’m-not-sure-where, Whirled Nut Daily maybe, “Isn’t it true that this is a false flag event to give the authorities cover to further restrict our civil liberties??!!” Answer: “No. Next Question.”Report
…If it was, would the government admit it?! “Yep, you caught us, we totally just wanted to an excuse to restrict your civil liberties further, but somehow we’re also incapable of lying when asked a direct question. Foiled!”Report
To clarify – I absolutely don’t think that’s what it was. I was commenting on the pointlessness of asking such a question.Report
CNN has
Saudi national with a leg wound was under guard at a Boston hospital in connection with the bombings at the Boston Marathon, but investigators cannot say he is involved at this time and he is not in custody, a law enforcement official said Monday evening.
He’s apparently the Post’s “suspect”.Report
Exactly. The first reports are always wrong. The news networks need to give the investigators time to work. As of 0149 UTC no suspects are in custody, no group has made any claims for responsibility and anyone who starts guessing at this point needs a beating.Report
And the situation is so ripe for such speculation. Today is, of course, Tax Day. But it’s also Patriot Day and Friday is the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. Theories will fly thick and fast!Report
Oh! Lest I forget… the first bomb went off next to a reviewing stand or some such that was set up for the families of the Newtown shooting victims.
Cripes. Like those folks need more trauma in their lives. Thankfully none of them appear to have been among the injured.Report
I think it’s pretty obvious to everybody that Iran is behind the attack because only the Persians would still be pissed off about the outcome of the Battle of Marathon and the foot race that commemorates it.Report
suspects are somethings everybody should go very slowly on. its takes time to check a valid suspect out to find he is just a victim or in the wrong spot. some things, like the number of bombs, can be verified soon afterwards. real suspects take time.Report
Boston.com has set up a Google Person Finder to locate missing people and a Google Doc for anyone offering or in need of accommodations. More info on their front page.Report
https://safeandwell.communityos.org/cms/index.php
That’s the Red Cross site. I recommend everybody bookmark it.Report
We snark a lot about issues with technology, often times legitimately, but times like this… wow… what a difference some of it makes.Report
Just when things were finally showing shoots of winding down from 9/11… God(ess?) help us. I hope they catch the perp quickly and that not too many people were hurt.Report
Seems like this kind of stuff is happening more and more. I truly am losing faith in humanity.Report
I’m not so sure that’s true.Report
I was born in Boston and have lots of family still there as far as we know right now everyone is OK. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I was raised in Oklahoma and had friends in the Murrah Building and was in New York City for my first semester of graduate school during 9/11. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone in Boston.Report
Horrible news. My heart goes out to the people caught up in it. We have a friend who was running the marathon, but thankfully she was already at her hotel at the time the bomb went off.
I’ll be avoiding cable news for the next few days to avoid all the speculation. Too much misinformation.Report
My cousin was running the marathon, and my aunt and uncle were waiting for him at the finish line. They wound up being somewhere between the two bombs that went off and were okay. My cousin was also still running at the time of the bombs, and he was also fine. I just found this out a few hours ago.
I left the hospital where I work at 3:30 today, and there were police cars and ambulances all over the place. I figured it was just the usual marathon-related hoopla even after walking right past the E.D. I got a whole bunch of phone calls right after that during my fifteen-minute walk to the subway, and it was through these that I gradually came to realize what had been happening.
I teach a class on Monday evenings cross-town and wound up taking the Red Line through the center of the city at about 4:00. The train bypassed Downtown Crossing and Park Street. During that time I was one of exactly two people in my car. By the time I got to Cambridge I learned that my class was cancelled, headed back across the city, and home. By this time Downtown Crossing and Park Street stations had been reopened and the platforms were more packed with people than I had ever seen before. The train was jam-packed on the way home.
I work in stroke and head trauma research, so after going through sign-outs to screen for potential study subjects, I spent the whole day today reading about cerebral amyloid angiopathy and fMRI studies.
I’m not looking forward at all to reading through tomorrow’s sign-outs.Report
Glad your family is OK.Report
Me too! I didn’t even know my cousin was running.
I hope the good doctors of Boston can do their best to bring all the injured people back to health.Report
Perversely, these bombings happened with EMT within seconds of the bombings. Doubtless saved many lives.Report
Seriously. They had a tent set up for exhausted runners and such right there.Report
And Massachusetts General’s emergency teams were recently trained by the Israelis in dealing with terrorist bomb attacks.Report
I’m glad your family is safe and sound.Report
Thank you. I wish I could do something for the victims.Report
I’ll be thinking of you and yours over the next while, Christopher. Thank you for taking the time to tell us about your experience of the day.Report
‘There Are So Many People Without Legs’
Was a quote from a NY Times article. Damn, damn, damn. Damn how we hate each other.Report
My husband had friends there. He’s not sure if they’ll ever walk again.Report
Very interesting that no one has claimed responsibility for this attack. I wonder if this is a lone kook event like Mcveigh of the Unabomber?Report
I’ve been trying to figure this out. I mean, I don’t expect to actually figure it out, but where to place the markers. The big two, rightwing militia type or Islamic terrorist, don’t seem particularly right. The target doesn’t fit. This is a more creative attack than Islamic terrorists have shown to date, and there’s nothing about a marathon that it seems to me would make a rightwinger want t0o go after it (I understood the Olympics).
So maybe you’re right, a lone kook. That seems like it would be the most preferable culprit. It gets ugly with rightwing terrorist, and much uglier with an Islamic one.Report
From the target you’d have to go with the Iranians, looking to avenge their loss at Marathon. ^_^
Actually this would be a pretty typical Islamist style terrorist attack, as at least seventeen other people were killed that same day in five separate bombings. Crowded street attacks are the most common. The pressure cooker bombs are common in Afghanistan and Iraq, loaded with nails, bearings, and other shrapnel along with five or six pounds of smokeless powder and set off by Christmas type lights and a remote trigger. Domestic terrorists are far more likely to go with a pipe bomb.
There are also very few right-wing terrorists. Pretty much McVey and former world hide-and-go-seek champion Eric Rudolph. There are tons on the left though. The M.O. isn’t a bad fit to Obama’s close friends in the Weather Underground, but the target doesn’t match unless they were trying to take out first responders and security people at the finish line.Report
Except with Islamic terrorists you usually have the problem of too many groups claiming responsability, not nobody.
As to your left vs right wing terrorists angle, I think your point would have more strength if the left wing examples were not all from like, fourty years ago and the right wing ones weren’t enormously more recent. The Weather Underground was in the mid 70’s; Mcveigh meanwhile was in 1995 and the Tiller murder was in 2009.Report
here’s a pie chart from the FBI
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terror/image/page11.jpg/image_previewReport
How are they defining terrorist?Report
Obama’s close friends in the Weather Underground,
Are we calling out lies on this site? Because this kind of casual smear is getting damn tedious. Ditto the tons on the left part: there are so many terrorists on the left that George can’t name any of them.
I would have thought the topic under discussion was serious enough for people to be, you know, serious.Report
You’d do better to call them mistakes or errors than lies. It’s entirely possible George can’t distinguish between forty year old left wing terrorists and what’s going on now. It’s also possible he honestly believes the farcical charges that Obama and Ayers were deep personal friends and that Obama is somehow actually associated with the Weather Underground or, even , that the Weather Underground still exists in any functioning form.
If so that is sad and reflects very badly on him without the need for anyone to put up a red faced post yelling “liar, Liar, LIAR!!” In fact I’d assert that such a response would only serve to spread the foolishness to other people by suggesting they take such assertions seriously enough to bother getting exercised about them.Report
So George isn’t a liar – really – he’s an idiot. Not sure that’s entirely an improvement, but if that’s the consensus, I’ll go along with it.
In fact I’d assert that such a response would only serve to spread the foolishness to other people by suggesting they take such assertions seriously enough to bother getting exercised about them.
Um, no. No, I don’t think so. If people did more calling out of lies and stupidities on this site, the people posting them might make more of an effort to keep their l’s and s’s to themselves. I know you can get away with a lot on this site as long as you’re officially a “character” but there are limits and I’m fast reaching mine.Report
*bleep* it. Could someone please fix the italicization? Thanks in advance.Report
Or, more likely as happens endlessly on the internets, the entire conversation devolves into endless duelling liar liar flamefests. I’ll pass, thanks and let George’s assertions speak for themselves.Report
Call out an idea or assertion you think is wrong, absolutely. Call it out harshly, or ridicule it, absolutely. If someone writes something you view as offensive, make clear that you are offended, absolutely. Just don’t turn it into a personal attack on your interlocutor or automatically assign intent, no matter how absurd the idea or assertion appears, or even how absurd it actually may be.
There is a world of difference between “this is a ridiculous assertion,” and “you’re a liar,” between seeking to discredit an idea and seeking to wholly discredit another interlocutor on the site or discourage them from contributing on other topics.
The latter type of thing absolutely has its place, and if you want to accuse someone off-site of bad faith, no one will stop you, and neither Tod, Dave, nor I will view it as anything other than within bounds. But if you want to accuse other people on this site of bad faith, then we’ve got problems, and not because such accusations are immoral or make you a bad person or anything of that sort. Instead, we’ve got problems because this particular site doesn’t work unless everyone is entitled to a heavy presumption of good faith.Report
this particular site doesn’t work unless everyone is entitled to a heavy presumption of good faith.
Like we don’t know why Mark would say that.Report
Two things…
In a nutshell, respond to the act, not the actor.
However, some folks do seem to cross the line often enough that they ought lose the presumption of good faith. Eventually, repeated acts begin to define the actor.Report
Sure, but whether someone has lost that presumption is a conclusion that one should arrive at on one’s own, in private, and should result in ignoring the person who has lost that presumption as far as one is concerned.
When one concludes that someone is arguing in bad faith, one concludes that someone is a troll. The first rule of dealing with trolls is to ignore them. If enough people reach the same conclusion as you – on their own – then the troll will be sufficiently ignored as to go away. If you absolutely must say something, then just say that one has concluded the person is a troll and that one will ignore them in the future. Then actually ignore them. Running around and repeating the accusation of bad faith everywhere one can does nothing other than ruin threads and undermine the site’s purpose.
Of course, if the person meets this site’s definition of a troll, which obviously may well be different from how any one individual may define trolling, then Tod, Dave, or I will lay down the banhammer. If one thinks that the person meets the site’s definition of a troll and should be banned or suspended, then the proper way to go is to contact one of us or one of the other FPers and make your request, not to send the threads into endless cycles of accusations.Report
Trolling is different from arguing in bad faith, though arguing in bad faith may in fact be one aspect of trollery.Report
You know what? I don’t think I’m coming back here anymore. I’m wasting my employer’s time and the discussions aren’t interesting me much. And that bit about not accusing people of bad faith on the thread is funny, considering the Rand Paul-Victim thread of the past couple of days. I cannot figure out what the standards are in this place and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not worth the effort anymore to find them. Ciao.Report
DRS,
I hope you reconsider. This place is better with you here.Report
Me too. Please reconsider.Report
What is it with people leaving lately? And it’s never the ones you’d like to go, either. (No offense meant, George and Kimmi.)Report
are you saying you’d like to see me go? ;-PReport
If enough people who think the place isn’t nasty enough leave of their own volition, then maybe the people who left because they thought it was too nasty will think about coming back.Report
Fucking hell, that’s just ignorant.
Greenpeace has a terrorist wing, after all…
It takes me not two seconds to come up with this,a nd I’m a liberal!Report
I hadn’t actually heard of the Weather Underground before but going by the wikipedia page trying to take out first responders and not claiming responsibility doesn’t sound like their M.O, to quote.
Most were preceded by evacuation warnings, along with communiqués identifying the particular matter that the attack was intended to protest. .
They also appear to have targeted buildings associated with the government and corporations rather than public events and to do so in response to specific actions they opposed.
In short targeting a crowd of random people and not mentioning either before or after that you did it or why sounds about as far as you can get from the description of the WUO, without leaving the area of terrorism altogether – and yes from the description they sound like terrorists to me.Report
Likely, you weren’t around for the Weather Underground. You probably weren’t around for when all those charges were dismissed either. I also presume you know why the government couldn’t get a conviction: COINTELPRO was the US government doing pretty much anything it wanted and the judicial system thought that was a Romper Room No-No.
And what do you know about what constitutes a “typical Islamic-style terrorist attack”? This isn’t typical. It isn’t al-Qaeda: they always give the world a heads-up warning, that’s their MO. It isn’t the Taliban: they’ve conclusively denied it. The USA has a system for credit-taking with the Taliban, as the British did with the IRA. You know, we are talking to the Taliban though lots of the Taliban commanders don’t like it. This isn’t a state actor or they would have used a more powerful explosive than black powder and certainly would have killed more people.
No, George. Bad as these bombs were, they were both botches. From what I have been able to deduce from the slo-mo of the one explosion, this was the work of an amateur who had previously attended the Boston Marathon, very likely a long-term resident of Boston. He knew how the finish line security cordon worked and put his bombs just in front of that cordon, just beyond where a bomb sweep would have detected his work. He also knew how the crowd dynamics would work: there’s a traditional baseball game held on Patriot Day and the baseball crowd often walks down to Boylston Street to watch the runners.
These bombs went off well after the elite runners had crossed the finish line. This guy wanted to get the civilians, as many as he could. And he planned accordingly. This guy was an amateur, these were his first bombs and any two-bit jihaadi could have done a better job.Report
Yeah your specifics jive with my general feelings on the matter Blaise. Which makes me much more inclined to suspect a kook. My earnest hope is that they catch the bugger and then prosecute his ass through the normal channels.Report
88 don’t count?
… or are they somehow centrist?Report
Yeah I agree. Islamists are pretty quick to fly the flag when they land an attack. Right wingers terrorists not so much but I think the kook one is most plausible.
And definitly agree that of the three a lone kook is the least bad alternative.Report
Must we always assume these categories are so neat and clean? Couldn’t it be a Muslim lone wolf? Someone who is perhaps inspired by a broader Islamic terrorist movement but is unaffiliated in any real capacity? Or is “lone wolf” exclusively reserved for white folks with whom we don’t want to sully the reputation of white people in general?Report
I don’t recall suggesting the loan wolf was a white person or any other ethnicity Kazzy. The categories listed were:
Islamists: organized islamic motivated terrorist groups.
Right Winger: Organized or unorganized people who’s motivations are primarily based on certain right wing ideals writ extreme.
Kooks- A catch all for some person who’s acting because their wiring is faulty.
I’m sure that there could be some single lone wolf muslim loons. I believe that rampage shooter at the military base a while back could be considered such.Report
Given the cell structure of a lot of terrorist organisations and the fact people can be inspired by a groups propaganda without ever connecting with it is the line between group and lone wolf actually that clear?Report
Oddly, Matty, it is. Attack Planning, Bomb making and Bomb planting is not a paint by numbers thing. A single person needs to have a very significant set of skills and available resources to pull off a devastating attack. Terrorist organizations can be dispersed and cell like but it’s their ability to transmit expertise, resources and planning that makes them dangers and that also makes them distinct from lone wolves.Report
North,
I didn’t mean to imply that you were making such designations. My apologies for appearing to do just that. Rather, I was speaking to a broader phenomenon, wherein certain folks are always assumed to be parts of a larger movement because, well, you know how THOSE people are while other folks get treated as lone kooks because lord knows the groups from which they hail don’t have any deeper problems going on. Any Muslim who does anything illegal nowadays is going to get affiliated somewhere, somehow with Al Quaeda, even if the connection eventually falls flat. Meanwhile, the Richard Stacks of the world are never seen as representing anything other than themselves.Report
No worries Kazzy,
I think part of the phenomena you’re noting is attributable to the dearth of white organized habitually violent groups to attribute white attackers to. We’re short on a white America Al-Queda equivalent. I’d attribute that mainly to the fact that if you’ve got a large group of Americans who’re pissed with US policy there are more productive/effective ways they can address their complaints than blowing up a public event. Usually they just blow up the career of one of their political representatives or threaten to.Report
That’s part of it. But if we called every angry white guy a “militiaman” in the same way that we call every angry Muslim a terrorist, it might be slightly different. The problem is being fed from both ends.Report
I can think of quite a few organized habitually violent groups of white guys.
I’m certain SPLC could think of quite a few more.Report
Such thinking is invariably fatal to an investigation. Contrary to Teevee Cop Shows, such hunches are never tolerated in the real world.
A bombing such as this one gives the detectives everything they need: the evidence is all there. True, it’s a bit grisly pulling that evidence out of the victims but it’s rather like Shakespeare’s line, ” Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change, into something rich and strange.” And often surprisingly large. Black powder is not a particularly good explosive. It leaves all sorts of residue. Physics: if the conflagration isn’t precisely ordered, as in a Claymore mine, with the explosive on one side and the shrap on the other, the shrapnel payload will fuse into lumps, surrounded by the burning powder. That’s why a Claymore mine is so deadly and these piece o’ shit bombs weren’t.
Evidence, evidence. Nobody should care if this guy was a Muslim. We fell into that trap with the OK City Bombing and it wasted time. Tim McVeigh almost got away while the investigators were chasing down such leads.Report
Folks, I kinda wish we wouldn’t speculate as to motive on this incident — or bring in the dossiers of the Usual Suspects. Every bombing has its own signature. Hundreds of competent investigators are working this case, poring over the crime scene, every square millimetre of it. Tens of thousands of images are being examined. If there’s one thing we’ve evolved as a nation since the OK City Bombing, it’s the ability to effectively investigate such crimes and we’ve given such authorities the power to act on what they find.
Probably too much power, truth to tell.
Lone kook, amorphous terror blob, state actors, we don’t know yet. It’s far too early to speculate. And I kinda wish we’d stop.Report
Ditto. Since nobody’s claimed it, it’s not terrorism in the strict sense.
There is no political motivation.
No different from the whacko with guns, who shoots up a movie theater.
…I could be wrong, but I’m gonna run with it, until proven otherwise.Report
You won’t look foolish later
When the truth is known.Report
I think that Burt’s boss
said “No more haiku in briefs”
So now we get them.Report
It’s National Haiku Day!
Celebrate haiku!Report
Today for Haiku?
July 5th or May 7th
Would make far more sense.Report
Counting on fingers
Would-be wits look at their hands
Like second gradersReport
For Sochi SPAM luge
Rub naked body with SPAM
Live fast, die greasyReport
Unclear at this point, but you don’t want to definitively rule out terrorism any more than you want to definitively rule it in. Somebody in an organized terror cell can still go crazy. Still, I agree with Blaise’s summation above, and most likely this is another mass killing event that is motivated mostly by somebody’s interior crazy.
In this day and age, given the ubiquity of smart phones, I’d bet a quarter that somebody has this guy in a picture. He’s in a background of a shot.Report
” Somebody in an organized terror cell can still go crazy. ”
… true, but that’s not “terrorism” any more than the next guy in Blue who goes crazy means that the entire blue line has turned from heroes to villains.Report