Explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon

[Bzalthek]

I wanted to make some snarky comment alluding to Tea Partiers following through on their second amendment threats, but that doesn't seem right.  This is just fucked up.  I'm avoiding the cable news because it's just repeating wild gossip with nothing backed up.  Maybe I'm biased but the media almost seems gleeful something this juicy happened.

[Tale]

Maybe I'm biased but the media almost seems gleeful something this juicy happened.

We can be a bit like soldiers being stupidly gleeful about going to war. It's what we trained for. Then the reality sets in.

Aside from the Russian meteor and the Pope shenanigans, nothing much had happened this year.

[Morat20]

The Boston Marathon doesn't feel right for homegrown nutcases (at least the right-wing type), although Boston and April 15th do. The total lack of anyone taking credit doesn't sound like foreign terrorists, as taking credit is part of the whole 'terrorist' thing. Can't really see tax-protester nutcase hitting a marathon, and the only other big thing the right-wing nuts are all up in arms about is gun-control which doesn't really scream 'bombing'

Can't see any reason a left-wing nutcase would pick Boston or a marathon, and frankly they're more likely to be off killing people to rescue lab animals or chaining themselves to things or whatnot.

Two devices only maybe could be done by one guy. So lone nutcase with a grudge? Crazy man? Seriously PTSD guy? Lone terrorist who got caught or is lying low?

It seemed a pretty well thought-out device, it seems like a homemade claymore. I bet it'll be one fucked-up dude with a crazy agenda, unabomber-style. There's probably a badly typed letter already in the mail.

[Tale]

Runner's head-camera view of first blast (warning - it's very loud).

[MahrinSkel]

Can't really see tax-protester nutcase hitting a marathon, and the only other big thing the right-wing nuts are all up in arms about is gun-control which doesn't really scream 'bombing'

Tell that to McVeigh (to the extent he had a particular motivating incident, it was the ATF assault on Waco).  As for why they'd hit a marathon:

The Boston Marathon honored the victims of the Newtown, Conn., shooting with a special mile marker in Monday's race.

Boston Athletic Association president Joanne Flaminio previously said there was "special significance" to the fact that the race is 26.2 miles long and 26 people died at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The race also observed a moment of silence that lasted 26 seconds before the blasts struck hours later.

The special mile marker was 26 stars at the 26 mile mark.  That should put it pretty close to the second explosion.  I might add that random public events is *not* outside the profile of right-wing attacks (Atlanta Olympics).

--Dave

EDIT: Nor is it outside the profile of Islamic terrorism, although they've had little success at hitting such events in the US, there have been several serious attempts.  We don't have enough information to draw any conclusions, but purely on the target profile and bomb design I'd lean towards home-grown right-wing crazies.  The weapon was designed to cause maximum injuries, especially amputations, and few deaths (only 3 reported, while at least a couple of dozen lost legs).  That's pretty sophisticated and way outside of the norm for Islamic terrorism or Iraq/Afghan IED's.

[Nerf]

McVeigh hit a federal building, quite a bit different from a marathon.
There were a lot of reports earlier about an undetonated bomb roughly the same distance in the opposite direction from the second, if true, it's apparently a fairly common AQ style kill box setup.  One bomb in the middle scatters everyone, bombs along the egress path detonates on survivors.  Whatever it is, we may never know.

[MahrinSkel]

McVeigh hit a federal building, quite a bit different from a marathon.
There were a lot of reports earlier about an undetonated bomb roughly the same distance in the opposite direction from the second, if true, it's apparently a fairly common AQ style kill box setup.  One bomb in the middle scatters everyone, bombs along the egress path detonates on survivors.  Whatever it is, we may never know.

In a word, crap.  The timing was wrong, the placement was wrong, and the bomb type was wrong, for somebody trying for maximum deaths.  IED-style placement would have had the second bomb just far enough to not get blown by the first, then exploded to take out the people rushing in to help.  The same bombs a couple of feet higher would have killed dozens, this was a surprisingly sophisticated design, a Bouncing Betty without the bounce (the shrapnel went out in a tight plane, at knee height).

Hell, it might have been the real thing, an M16A2 or equivalent (the radius is about right), but that should have jumped to chest height before blowing.

--Dave

EDIT: Reading up to refresh my vague memories, the M16A2 (and most of the foreign equivalents) can be adjusted for detonation height between 1 foot and 5 feet.  So this could have been the real deal.

[Nyght]

Hell, it might have been the real thing, an M16A2 or equivalent (the radius is about right), but that should have jumped to chest height before blowing.

--Dave

Don't think so. The flame was orange and there was a lot of smoke and little shock wave. This was most likely Low Explosive from either black powder or flash powder. Both of these are easily home made and don't require a true detonator, only heat.

IED's and other high explosive devices typically have a more yellow flame color and an obvious shock wave and require a detonation device the average joe doesn't have access to. (the camera shooting the video would have moved more).

My bet is on a home grown nutcase or cases. We will know in time, but I don't expect to learn much detail until after the guy(s) are dead or going to trial.

[MahrinSkel]

Hell, it might have been the real thing, an M16A2 or equivalent (the radius is about right), but that should have jumped to chest height before blowing.

--Dave

Don't think so. The flame was orange and there was a lot of smoke and little shock wave. This was most likely Low Explosive from either black powder or flash powder. Both of these are easily home made and don't require a true detonator, only heat.

Actually...the M16A2 uses Tetryl for the primary detonation, which has a yellow-orange explosion and produces a lot of white smoke (and leaves behind a lot of nitric acid, should smell a lot like standard black powder).  Black powder would not have produce a plane of shrapnel so intense it sheered a man's legs off right below the knee and so precise it didn't even tear his shirt.

And there was a quite intense shockwave, at the height of the barricades, but not at the height of the flags on the poles.  We'll know more soon, but I'm leaning towards Bouncing Betties that disappeared out of Army or National Guard armories.

--Dave

[Ghambit]

How exactly does the bouncing betty function inside of a package?  Arent they supposed to eject before exploding?  If a bouncing betty, it was simply ignited w/o "bouncing."

[MahrinSkel]

How exactly does the bouncing betty function inside of a package?  Arent they supposed to eject before exploding?  If a bouncing betty, it was simply ignited w/o "bouncing."

They're designed to be buried under a few inches of dirt and use a launching charge to get into the air, punching their way out of a cardboard box or light backpack wouldn't be a problem.

--Dave

EDIT: It's the picture of that guy without his legs that makes me zero in on the Bouncing Betty.  It takes very sophisticated design and manufacture to make a bomb act like that, I find a stolen military weapon a lot more probable than a wizard Mad Bomber that could whip that up in his garage.

[Samprimary]

What a weird, scary, and cruel day.

[Tale]

Update on the old guy whose legs buckled under him (seen in the videos and pics near the first blast). He is 78. He was okay, got up and finished the marathon, second in his division.

Edit: also, could be anything, but he says this...

Iffrig briefly saw a remnant of what he believes was the bomb, a casing that looked like a coffee can, he said.

[Ashamanchill]

Really wished I hadn't watched some of that footage. I never thought I would see this bullshit outside of a market in Kandahar, but there it is. There very first thing I thought when I heard about this was, 'please don't let any kids be hurt by this', but of course, one of the dead is an 8 year old kid. Fuck's sakes.

[angry.bob]

My bet is it's a RWE, probably a tea party nut. They don't really need much of a reason, it's a marathon and ligerals like to run in marathons.

The same batch of people who claimed Sandy Hook was fake/false flag are already claiming this was more of the same. Complete with photos of people missing legs and people who sort of look like them who had amputations before the marathon. Too much blood, the blood looks fake, why didn't people with two blown off legs bleed to death in minutes, etc. It's super classy.

[Tale]

Cops have searched an apartment in Revere.

[Cyrrex]

What a thing to wake up to this morning.  So weird.

It could be a lone nutjob, but I wouldn't do too much knee-jerking on any Tea Party affiliation.  A lone psycho can be moved by any cause.  For all that I loathe the Tea Party, this seems like exactly the sort of thing they would not be doing, certainly not in any sort of organized fashion.  They would go after something governmental, that is for certain, or potentially something clearly racially motivated.  My gut says that this is done be some foreign entity, simply due to the symbolic nature of the target selected.  The goddamn Boston Marathon.  Even a lone psycho on tax day would be more likely to target a government institution, would he not?

Fuck, who knows.  Can't bring myself to watch any of the graphic stuff.  8 year-old boy.  I have a boy that age.

F13, here's hoping none of you ever get blown up.

[Tale]

Bunch of photos from boston.com's Big Picture.

[Abagadro]

I wouldn't be so sure about the "government target" business. Eric Rudolph (anti-abortion lone-wolf nutbag) targeted the Olympics Plaza with a similar device with eerily similar results (in number of fatalities/injured).   AQ type groups also tend to claim responsibility because they want the pub, while domestic assholes don't.

The Marathon is actually pretty international in aspect which makes me think a foreign group wouldn't target it although I don't really have anything specific to base that on.

[Cyrrex]

Not sure at all, I just think that it is more likely.  It really could be just about anyone at this point.  Also, the Marathon may be technically an international event, but it is still one of those apple pie-like events in America.  Pretty fucking symbolic.

[Hoax]

I keep thinking back to the NY Marathon and how certain groups of people were realllllllllllly fucking pissed it was going off because Staten Island and wherever needed all the everything post Sandy. I doubt that has any connection but I think subconsciously it was one of the reasons I've been thinking home grown white guy this whole time.

[Ashamanchill]

I can't help but think that it is going to be some sick asshole like the shooter in Aurora Colorado; a psychopath that is in it more for their own twisted glorification than for a political agenda. Then again, I've been way off as of late.

[Sir T]

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/boston-police-say-no-suspect-in-custody

At a press conference Monday night, Boston police commissioner Edward Davis refuted reports that a suspect in Monday's Boston Marathon bombing was at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

"I want to stress one thing," Davis said. "There is no suspect at Brigham and Women's Hospital. There are people that we are talking to but there is no suspect at Brigham and Women's Hospital as has been widely reported in the press. I would like to fix that right now."

Asked later in the press conference if a "person of interest" had been identified, Richard DesLauriers, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston division, declined to answer.

"I'm going to comment on specific investigative leads," DesLauriers said.

"This is a very powerful blast with serious injuries," he later added.

Stay classy new york post.

[Ghambit]

Actually the Post's story was corroborated somewhat on CNN:

Also, a Saudi national with a leg wound was under guard at a Boston hospital in connection with the bombings, but investigators cannot say he is involved at this time and he is not in custody, a law enforcement official said Monday evening.

In essence yah, they have some brown people they're looking at but they're not calling suspects.

[Tale]

This is the most important thing I've seen today and it will break you: interview with the guy in the cowboy hat who was pictured helping the man whose legs were blown off.

There's an article about him here. And the NYT profile of him from 2007.

He lost one son in Iraq. When Marines officers arrived to inform him, he smashed up their car and tried to self-immolate inside it, and they pulled him out of the fire. Later, his other son committed suicide out of grief.

He became a travelling anti-war activist. He was handing out flags at the Boston Marathon, and he still has one in his hand, covered in the amputee's blood, as his body shakes like he's going into shock... and he's just trying to head home. Nobody is looking after him.

[Sir T]

Actually the Post's story was corroborated somewhat on CNN:

Also, a Saudi national with a leg wound was under guard at a Boston hospital in connection with the bombings, but investigators cannot say he is involved at this time and he is not in custody, a law enforcement official said Monday evening.

In essence yah, they have some brown people they're looking at but they're not calling suspects.

CNN picked it up because the New York Post kept pushing it, so CNN figured that the NYT knew something it didn't and reported it like every other daft rumour. The Chief of police just said it was 100% wrong so that's good enough for me.

[Samprimary]

I regret being able to say now that I can count myself as having experienced a terror attack. Maybe eventually I get to sleep, too.

There's a few good things to share. One's a quote by Mr. Rogers. One is a moving article by Patton Oswalt. One is the story of Carlos Arredondo. One is the extraordinary amount of help that was so immediately and unquestionably provided by scores of people on scene. There's a few bad things to share. One is Alex Jones calling this a false flag attack. One the New York Post being a pile of garbage that claimed that a Saudi national had been apprehended as a suspect — making sure that we didn't need even a nonfictional initial suspect to get right to our national pasttime of distrusting brown people as a gut response to a bombing. One is that one of the dead is an eight year old boy. One is that he wasn't the only casualty. One is that there will be very many amputees. One is that we don't want or need to be more scared or paranoid or militant or vengeful or distrustful of already maligned groups, but that things like this can successfully push us in dark directions.

[Tale]

Hope you're okay. Thinking of you and yours.

[MahrinSkel]

Sam, don't take my detached analysis for a lack of empathy.  More of a protective mechanism, really.  I was posting in this thread in between trying to locate friends I knew were in the Boston area.  Glad you're okay, hope that those dear to you are as well.

Edit: also, could be anything, but he says this...

Iffrig briefly saw a remnant of what he believes was the bomb, a casing that looked like a coffee can, he said.

This is what an M16A2 looks like before it goes off:


It pops up to the detonation height comparatively slowly, it's not unusual to catch a glimpse of it right before the bang.

--Dave

[Tale]

This is what an M16A2 looks like before it goes off:

It pops up to the detonation height comparatively slowly, it's not unusual to catch a glimpse of it right before the bang.

Dave, check out the guy's description of the explosion in the interview I posted above. English isn't his first language and he's going into shock, and he was a responder not a victim, but he describes something going upwards.

[Merusk]

I can't help but think that it is going to be some sick asshole like the shooter in Aurora Colorado; a psychopath that is in it more for their own twisted glorification than for a political agenda. Then again, I've been way off as of late.

This is my feeling as well.  No really good reason for right wing twits, no claim from international groups.  Lone wacko wanting attention or bodycount seems the most likely to me.

[Lakov_Sanite]

All the people that are claiming this and sandy hook false need to be taken out of the goddamn gene pool.

[apocrypha]

And the WBC wants to picket the funerals of victims.

They tweeted “God sent the Boston Marathon Bombs for the sin of Massachusetts passing same-sex marriage!”. Margie Phelps, the daughter of the church head tweeted “You marry f*gs, God sends mayhem,”.

If you were looking for the kind of hate-filled, sub-human detritus capable of this kind of atrocity you could do worse than start with the WBC.

[Numtini]

I wouldn't be so sure about the "government target" business. Eric Rudolph (anti-abortion lone-wolf nutbag) targeted the Olympics Plaza with a similar device with eerily similar results (in number of fatalities/injured).

Just from memory, there's been a couple of low rent skinheads who've had bombing plots in Boston in the last couple of years, one was some bridge and the other was the bronze of the Mass 54th.

[Yegolev]

Dave worries me a bit.