Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

[stickdog99]

Danny Boy's Script Writer's Theory on the Boston Bombing: Brotherly Love is to Blame

It is very easy to describe the alleged Marathon bombers as monsters. But understanding their motivation requires us to examine human needs for belonging and respect.

How could these young men have ruthlessly murdered and maimed spectators at the Boston Marathon?

The key to motivation may lie not just in some anti-American sentiment but in the brotherly bond itself.

Time and time again, we have seen horrible crime sprees perpetrated by partnerships.

By all accounts, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger of two brothers suspected of having perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombings, was a good kid, a bright young man and hardly the type of angry malcontent you'd expect of a terrorist. He graduated from the prestigious Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, where he starred on the varsity wrestling team; was named student-athlete of the month in his senior year; and earned a $2,500 scholarship from the city of Cambridge toward his tuition at University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. One friend even characterized the 19-year-old as a guy who gave off "a good vibe."

Dzhokhar's older brother, Tamerlan, seems to have had a far less glowing past. The 26-year-old community college dropout had been arrested on charges of domestic violence. In recent years, according to relatives, he had grown increasingly religious, drawn to a more observant Islam and possibly anti-American ideology. By his own account, Tamerlan had felt friendless here in America.

Few early clues

Despite all this, Tamerlan showed little indication of having the potential or the desire to commit an extreme act of mass violence, and was cleared in an FBI investigation two years ago. Friends and neighbors were unconcerned. Tamerlan's boxing coach, for example, described him as a nice guy and a piano player who often brought his younger brother to boxing practice.

Given their fairly unremarkable lifestyles and reputations, why would the Tsarnaev brothers have allegedly engaged in such diabolical crimes? How could these young men have heartlessly murdered and maimed spectators at the Boston Marathon and days later fatally shot an officer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?

The key to motivation could lie not just in some anti-American sentiment but also in the brotherly bond itself. Individually, neither might have been prone to murder, but in partnership they brought out the very worst in each other, both in ideology and behavior. Living together for years, they would have reinforced whatever negative beliefs they had about the American way of life. Tamerlan might have felt friendless in America, but he surely had an eager and devoted disciple in brother Dzhokhar to share ideas and plans.

Arguably, these crimes would not have taken place were it not for the close brotherly connection. Indeed, it is far easier to do despicable things when others join in. No matter how deeply committed each is to the cause, participation in itself helps support and justify the mission.

Time and time again, we have witnessed horrible crime sprees born out of partnerships — joint ventures involving brothers, cousins, spouses and other family relations. ...

James Alan Fox is the Lipman Professor of Criminology, Law and Public Policy at Northeastern University in Boston and author of The Will to Kill: Making Sense of Senseless Murder.

[stickdog99]

Charles P. Pierce Calls BS on the "Manhattan Plot"

[stickdog99]

Everything We Told You Was Wrong, But Believe Us Now

The New York Times has a fascinating, richly detailed article today full of new information about the nearly 24-hour manhunt that captured Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the brothers wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings. And guess what? Much of what had been previously reported is wrong! But before John King pulls down the shades in his office and dances a secret little jig, it should be noted that most if not all these errors are on official police sources rather than journalists.

Speaking of whom, we'd like to take this opportunity to salute the old-school reporters at the Times, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere who have been doing an excellent job this week backfilling and providing context.

What we now know:

* The Tsarnaev brothers did not rob a 7-Eleven or other convenience store.

* They did not free their carjacking victim. He escaped when they stopped at a gas station, fleeing to another gas station across the street.

* The brothers had only one gun, not three. It was apparently Tamerlan's.

* Dzhokhar did not have a gun when he was captured.

* Police officers did not "exchange gunfire" with Dzhokhar when they finally captured him. They were the only ones firing.

* The boat in which Dzhokhar was discovered was not outside the perimeter the police had established during the manhunt.

Note: As of this writing, the Tsarnaev brothers are still of Chechen descent.

[stickdog99]

NY Times

The killing of Officer Collier, who was mourned Wednesday at a campus memorial at which Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. spoke, was the first bloody altercation in a nearly 24-hour chain of violent events that left one of the brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings dead and ended with the capture of the other. Interviews with law enforcement officials and witnesses painted a clearer picture of what happened during that chaotic period, and correct some of the information that officials gave out as they hunted the most wanted men in America.

Police officials initially announced that officers had “exchanged gunfire” Friday evening with the surviving suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, as he hid in a boat in the backyard of a house in Watertown, Mass. Now several law enforcement officials say no gun was found in the boat, and officials say they are exploring what prompted officers to fire at Mr. Tsarnaev, who some feared was armed with explosives.

Law enforcement officials now say they have recovered only one gun elsewhere, which they believe was used by Mr. Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan — not the three previously reported. And initial reports that the brothers first came to the attention of the police after robbing a 7-Eleven were wrong. The police were called to a gas station convenience store early Friday after a man who said he had been carjacked by the marathon bombers escaped and sought help.

...

Officer Collier was killed around 10:30 p.m., police officials said — just half an hour before his 3-to-11 shift was to end.

While there is video of two men approaching Officer Collier’s car, three law enforcement officials said, it does not clearly show their faces. But investigators now believe the brothers killed the officer to get another gun.

“He had a triple-lock holster, and they could not figure it out,” a law enforcement official said. “There is evidence at the scene to suggest that they were going for his gun.”

...

It is still not clear what prompted officers to fire into the boat. “Shots fired, multiple shots!” someone was heard saying on the radio, before another call went out: “All units hold your fire! Hold your fire.”

Commissioner Davis said that “we will have to see what prompted the volley of shots before the cease-fire was ordered by a superintendent of the Boston police.”

[stickdog99]

LA Times: Constitutional Rights Suck

Federal agents had to end what they termed "an urgent public safety interview" with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev when a judge came to his hospital room, officials said Thursday, a disclosure that has renewed the debate over how the government should handle terrorism suspects.

Tsarnaev has not answered any questions since he was given a lawyer and told he has the right to remain silent by Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler on Monday, officials said.

Until that point, Tsarnaev had been responding to the interagency High Value Detainee Interrogation Group, including admitting his role in the bombing, authorities said. A senior congressional aide said Tsarnaev had asked several times for a lawyer, but that request was ignored since he was being questioned under the public safety exemption to the Miranda rule. The exemption allows defendants to be questioned about imminent threats, such as whether other plots are in the works or other plotters are on the loose. ...

"For those of us who think the public safety exemption properly applies here, there are legitimate questions about why he was [brought before a judge] when he was," said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), a former federal prosecutor who serves on the House Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the committee, wrote Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. asking for a full investigation of the matter, complaining that the court session "cut off a lawful, ongoing FBI interview to collect public safety information."

Justice Department officials Thursday did not address the question of why they signed documents charging Tsarnaev on Sunday night, knowing that could start the clock ticking toward an appearance by a magistrate. Once that was done, they said, they had no legal way to stop the hearing from going forward.

A congressional official said interrogators left the hospital room about an hour before the judge arrived, after they were told she was coming.

Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman, said, "The prosecutors and FBI agents in Boston were advised of the scheduled initial appearance in advance." One Justice Department official put it another way: "You don't tell a federal judge to put off a hearing."

Eugene Fidell, a professor at Yale School of Law, said it was past time for Tsarnaev to have been read his rights, because the Constitution requires it.

"The notion that the public safety exemption was going to allow them all the time in the world is preposterous," he said.

In other developments in the case Thursday:

A source familiar with the inquiry said that the FBI two years ago linked the phone number of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the second bombing suspect and Dzhokhar's older brother, to two people who were investigated for possible terrorist ties. But the matter was not pursued because the cases were closed for lack of evidence.

The source, speaking confidentially because the case is still underway, added that the brothers' mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, told an associate at the time that Tamerlan was "going over to the dark side" — another sign that he was becoming radicalized.

Meanwhile, New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told federal interrogators while he was still talking that he and his brother Tamerlan had planned to drive to New York to set off another series of explosions in Manhattan's Times Square. They had another pressure-cooker bomb like the ones used in Boston and five smaller pipe bombs in the car when they were stopped by police in Watertown, Mass., Kelly said.

Law enforcement officials also revealed that the FBI in Boston was looking into whether two Kazakh men tried to remove items from Dzhokhar's dorm room at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth after his name surfaced as a bombing suspect.

Dias Kadyrbayev, 19, and Azamat Tazhayakov, 20, were arrested in New Bedford, Mass., on Saturday on administrative immigration violations, and investigators believe they were social friends with Dzhokhar.

The two men had entered the U.S. from Kazakhstan on academic visas to attend the school, but the visas had since terminated, an official said. They are being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Suffolk County House of Correction at South Bay in Boston but have not been charged with a crime.

Investigators at this point do not believe the men were accomplices, an official said. An evidence team Thursday searched several city dumps hunting for sales receipts, discarded bomb parts or other clues.

[stickdog99]

NY Times

At a news conference in Dagestan, the parents, Anzor Tsarnaev and Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, also made accusations of a conspiracy in which they say their older son, Tamerlan, 26, was killed by authorities after he was captured in Watertown, Mass., in the early morning hours of April 19.

As evidence, Ms. Tsarnaeva described grainy video footage on the Internet showing a man being put into a police car, naked, having apparently been stripped to check for explosives. At the time, some news organizations mistakenly identified him as a suspect. The next day, Ms. Tsarnaeva said, she saw gruesome images of Tamerlan’s dead body that were circulated on the Internet.

“They put him into the police car where he walked naked, naked, and they are saying that it is not my son,” she said. “But I know my son. I know my son. I know the body of my son who I raised from this size.”

“He was alive,” she said. “Why did they need to kill him?” ...

Like so many other images of the Boston Marathon bombing, the video of the naked man has been widely shared, and his identity and why he was ushered into a police car have become much-discussed mysteries. Left unexplained, these questions have become part of a collection of conspiracy theories and loose ends that have cropped up in the aftermath of the bombings and the shootout.

Lt. Michael Lawn of the Watertown Police Department said in an e-mailed statement that the naked man seen in the video was not Tamerlan Tsarnaev. He did not provide any other details.

Amanda Cox, a spokeswoman for the F.B.I., said that the agency had only two suspects, the Tsarnaev brothers, and had no information about any other possible suspects. Asked about the man in the video, she said, “We are not aware of any arrests.” There is a possibility, though, that someone could have been taken into custody at the local level.

[stickdog99]

More NY Times

The parents of the two brothers accused in the bomb attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others near the finish line of the Boston Marathon insisted on Thursday that their sons were innocent and had no connections to radical Islamists. ...

In one dramatic moment, Ms. Tsarnaeva said the F.B.I. agents who went to the family’s home in Massachusetts to question Tamerlan about his religious views had asked her if she worried that he might commit an act of terrorism.

“Actually they told me, ‘Don’t you think that Tamerlan is being a little bit, you know, like, extreme about religion?’ ” she said. “ ‘Do you think that he would think about organizing some kind of, you know — ’ ”

She broke off and then stumbled over her words. “Probably that was their meaning,” she continued. “Terroristic, terrorism or whatever, aggression.”

“ ‘Do you see any aggression in Tamerlan?’ ” she quoted the agents as saying. “No, I did not.”

She said that in the days after the bombing she saw what she described as video footage on the Internet that showed a man that she said was Tamerlan being put into a police car naked, apparently stripped of his clothes to check for explosives. The next day, she said, she saw gruesome images of his corpse.

“Killed, truly killed,” she said, describing the images. “I wanted to scream, to scream to the whole world: ‘What did you do? What have you done with my son?’ He was alive. Why did they need to kill him? Why not send him to Guantánamo or whatever? Why did they kill him? Why did they have to kill him? They got him alive. He was in their hands.”

...

Ms. Tsarnaeva expressed some of her greatest anger when one questioner said Dzhokhar had told officials that the brothers were motivated by an extreme interpretation of Islam. She said Dzhokhar’s lawyers had assured her that he could not yet speak or write.

“Where does this information come from?” she shouted.

[stickdog99]

Parents' Press Conference Transcript Excerpts

Q: Investigators haven’t told you what he has said to them?

Ms. Tsarnaeva: His advokats, his lawyers, are talking to us, right? Even yesterday we asked them, ‘Has Dzhokhar done any, like, answering? Did they question him?’ They told us: ‘No. Dzhokhar has not been questioned yet. By no one.’ ”

Q: Investigators told you that?

Mr. Tsarnaev: No, not investigators.

Ms. Tsarnaeva: His lawyers that are every day with him there. Because we have the right to talk to them so they talk to us now. You know, every day they talk to us. They give us the information, how is Dzhokhar doing. What is he — ‘cause I want to know what my son, my child, is eating or is there any change in his condition. So of course I ask, and they are telling us the details. So no one — I don’t know who and where that is coming from. From who? Dzhokhar gave the written notice that me and Tamerlan, my oldest brother, motivated, and there is no one else — him and me. Dzhokhar did not even write. He is not even writing. He does not; he is not even speaking. And they did not even question him. That’s what we got yesterday. Every day I ask did they start questioning him. They’re like, ‘No, he’s not in that condition yet, that would be cruel to be questioning.'

Mr. Tsarnaev: That would be illegal to ask him in such a condition.

Q: What is the condition of your son?

Ms. Tsarnaeva: The condition of my son. There is a really bad wound on his right neck, right here. He cannot eat real food. He gets nutrition by through a tube. He is getting better, like they are signing his condition is stabilizing, but still he is weak, you know.

....

Mr. Tsarnaev: No, no, no, no. It’s not YouTube, but it is kind of the American correspondents, or what are those, the Truth, where you get the truth, something, something. I don’t know. On YouTube, she found a video somebody recorded. He was just walking by and recorded. He would not even probably record it, but something coming out of that car stopped him and made him interested in to be, like, recording it. So he stopped, and he started recording. They were screaming cruelly at him: ‘Get out! With your hands up!’ So somebody is, you know, of course it is probably ‘Who are they?’ They are the American Fourth. So they are bringing him out of a Land Cruiser. I am a mother, I would know my son, Tamerlan, even between a million, million people, I would know my son. He comes out of the car, he comes out of the car naked. My Tamerlan was a really, really beautiful boy. Handsome like Hercules. Tall and beautiful. His body was like ‘oh my God,’ like, written. You know, shedevr [masterpiece]. So it is not possible not to know the body of my child. Of course his face, his head, I don’t even need to see the face. I see the body and I know. I did not even need to see, if there would not be even a face, I would tell that this is my son, but there was a face too. When he just came like this, they put his hands in the back, so they’re putting him into the police car now because if they had brought him and they are putting him into the other car, so he’s just naked, his body is naked. Nothing is on him. They undressed him, because they’re probably, they were talking about the belt, nothing on his body. So they just put him, he just sat, he was really really quiet, no words, nothing, he just sat in the car, and they just closed that door. They left. It was a really good episode of my son being alive. When they were talking about him being killed at the moment when it started, when they that — what is it — the operation, whatever the terroristic operation. So then they called me, somebody is calling me of course from America. Of course I was like, ‘Oh my God,’ my son is alive. My son is alive. What is this? Is this some kind of dirty game my son got involved in? What do they put him in? Where is my son? You took him. So my son is alive. That’s what I was screaming at them. So this is some kind of show, spectacle.

...

[img]Q: Can I ask, in 2011, the F.B.I. reviewed Tamerlan. At any point did something enter your mind that something was wrong, maybe he had some contacts or some activities that were suspicious, did that enter your mind?

Mr. Tsarnaev: On the contrary, we thought that the F.B.I. came to us, as they said, to save them. They said it was for the prophylactic purposes: ‘We don’t only come for you, we come to all young people. We know what you read, which Web sites you visit, we know each step of yours. Such is our work. So that people would live quietly, so that nothing would explode.’ I said, ‘Great. We are glad that our children are looked after.’ And in fact we were glad to it.

Q: You asked him yourself, you were going to say you asked him yourself?

Ms. Tsarnaeva: Of course. When police come, when you realize that there is somebody from the government interested in your children, you ask. Of course I asked Tamerlan. They were there when I asked. I asked, ‘Do you know if there is something wrong?’ ‘No, no, there is nothing wrong. We just wanted to talk to share some opinions, what Tamerlan is doing, what Tamerlan is reading.’ Actually they told me: ‘Don’t you think Tamerlan is being a little bit extreme about religion? Do you think he would think about organizing some kind of terrorist attack? Aggression? Do you see any aggression in Tamerlan?’ So, no. I did not. I did not. I really did not see any reason to worry, and then when I talked to Tamerlan: ‘Maybe you did something, maybe you read or whatever.’ ‘Mama, I do read, like everybody reads. What, I can’t read?’ And I told them too, I will read this, I will read that. I will read whatever is there. That’s why the information is there and that’s why the head is here.’

[8bitagent]

"Police have arrested at least three people during a protest march in Dallas near the dedication site of the George W. Bush Presidential Center." http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/prot ... y-19040174

I don't think it's a cosmic coinky that Boston Benghazi goes down a week before the Dumya Presidential Boondoggle opens in Dallas. Brother Jeb has also been much in the fake-news of late. As usual there's a Texas connection a few slim degrees of separation away from the big show (the Waco explosion). Texans aplenty mixed up in Aurora too.

Not to mention a day after Bush defends his decision on Iraq, the US announces Syria has used chemical weapons and they crossed a red line. Even tho even some top analysts question if it really happened and who did the gassing. Oh and the ricin in the mail. The Waco explosion near the 20 year of the Waco anniversary is a trip too.

Not sure if there's actual puppet masters per se, but the syncs are in overtime.

[stickdog99]

Link

“I am not saying this to condone, defend or apologize for any form of violence in the name of any religion -- simply that we need to be clear about how we incorporate religious identity into an analysis of terrorist violence. Otherwise, we would have to conclude that Christianity drove the violence of Eric Rudolph and Anders Breivic.”

[Canadian_watcher]

The entire city was shut down. But I assume that was because there was a risk to mass transit. That's what it would have been about here.

Was the entire city shut down? I have read happy little blog posts by soccer mom types saying how they were so happy that Dunkin Donuts was still serving etc etc... As to your guesses re mass transit and what 'it would have been about [in NYC] .. they are just guesses and your guesses are as good as mine, which would be different.

[Canadian_watcher]

I swear we're in retro mode.

9/11 like hysteria over terror attack(being used by politicians to say we need torture/bend civil liberties, etc), poison sent to politicians in the mail oh and talk of US invading Syria based on alleged chemical weapons.

Is this the bad b grade sequel to 2001-2003?

I think it's because they missed a vital age group in the 9.11 fear training extravaganza.
My daughter is 19 - Boston is the scariest thing she's ever seen (in her words). I had wondered up till that point if 9/11 really had registered for her. I guess it hadn't.
All of this is semi tongue in cheek but as I tried to explain in my response to Sim about the Boston Globe Tweet I can't be certain of much anymore. and, although most people would deny it vehemently, neither are they. probably never were able to be.

[Karmamatterz]

From Compared to What:

Especially considering that it didn't happen. People were not forced out of their homes block by block.

I'm pretty sure that there weren't armored personnel carriers, either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LrbsUVSVl8



Well it seems from this image and video that there were people forced from their homes and that there were heavy vehicles that had varying degrees of armor transporting paramilitary (cops outfitted with military gear) personnel around at least Watertown. I don't know the precise definition what is and isn't an armored personnel carrier, but if it's bullet proof, has extra thick plating and a open turret top it has the appearance that would lend one to easily think it was an armored personnel carrier. I think Barracuda posted several more videos but it's too time consuming to trek back and sort through all those pages.

I could easily be wrong and that video taken out of context could have other meaning. The crop of the photo is misleading and you could think the vehicle had tracks instead of bulletproof tires, not sure if that matters or not.

[lupercal]

Not to mention a day after Bush defends his decision on Iraq, the US announces Syria has used chemical weapons and they crossed a red line.

This turns out to be an Israeli claim misreported by CNN as a US claim but which Obama, Hagel and Kerry have all refused to endorse:

US Secretary of State John Kerry said there was no direct evidence that Syria had used any chemical agents, such as sarin gas, against rebel fighters in its increasingly desperate effort to retain power.

"The information that I have at this point does not confirm it to me...as a fact," Kerry said, according to the CNN.

Kerry's statement followed public charges leveled earlier Tuesday by a top Israeli military official who said Syria had used chemical weapons "on a number of occasions" in its war against insurgents, now in its third year.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-ne ... al-weapons

I agree that the Syria run-up has a déjà vu feeling, and I think it's fair to call the parallels syncs, but I don't think they're accidental. Here's a sync for example that I really don't think is an accident:

Marathon runner witnesses double disasters

People keep asking Joe Berti if he feels unlucky.

A bomb exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon moments after Berti finished the race. Two days later, he was in his home state of Texas when he saw a fertilizer plant explode near Waco.

"I was just like, 'I can't believe this!'" said Berti, who said he had never witnessed an explosion before. Then he thought: "I just want to get out of here and get away from all these explosions."

But Berti, as it turns out, is far from unlucky. Instead, he feels fortunate. He left both tragedies unscathed, while members of his running group and his wife — who was closer to the Boston explosion than he was — were also unhurt.

"It's a miracle," he said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. "People keep saying, 'Don't you feel unlucky?' and I was actually the opposite — saying not only do I not feel unlucky, but I feel blessed that my wife could be 10 yards from the explosion and not have a scratch."

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/marathon ... -disasters

Just another lucky break for team Halliburton? Maybe.

[seemslikeadream]

yeah! I wake up to a fact based thread....thanks stickdog