Two explosions at Boston marathon finish line

[Novem5er]

Yep, CNN reporters on the scene are reporting gunshots heard and they are showing visuals of a lot of cop movement. Something's going down. Any word over the scanners?

[General Patton]

They're setting up logistics and perimeter, firing dummy rounds.

[Simulist]

An ambulance is heading in the direction of the gunshots.

[elfismiles]

What Is the Threshold for Martial Law?
By Anthony Gregory | Friday April 19, 2013 at 12:39 PM PDT

It seems simple enough. Publicly available evidence shows two young men implicated in the horrific massacre in Boston this Monday, the shooting of the officer at MIT, crimes against others, and violent resistance against the police. One brother is dead and the other on the lam. And so the police have locked down Boston, Cambridge, Belmont, and Watertown. There are tanks and heavily armed officers all over the streets. They go door to door, without warrants, searching for the suspect.

The crime of April 15 was unspeakable. The bombers murdered three people, including an eight-year-old boy, and injured two hundred more, many of them maimed and missing limbs. An atrocity like this, of course, represents everything civilization must oppose.

I cannot help but wonder what the standard is that triggers the martial-law response we’re seeing in New England. If these bombers had murdered three but not caused as many injuries—if the sheer terror of their crime had not reached this magnitude—would Boston look like a totalitarian state right now? What if the police needed to find a serial killer? Or what if a city was home to lots of violent crime in general?

If the suspect escapes into another city tomorrow, can the police lock down one city after another until they find him? And how long will this go on? They might catch him and it might all end and Boston could be back to normal, if we can call it that, by the end of the weekend. What if he isn’t caught for a while? What if a future suspect implicated in a gruesome and dramatic criminal act next year manages to escape justice for months? Can the police now just shut down cities, transportation, and—as they did on Monday—cell service for as long as they deem necessary? Should normal denizens really have no say of their own on whether they will risk the violent threats that might await them outside? If they have no right to walk about freely today without expecting, at a minimum, serious harassment from authorities, can the same be true on any other day?

People tolerate extreme police powers when they seem temporary. The martial law after Katrina gave way to more civilized policing, such as it is in New Orleans. But what if the emergency persists? What if the U.S. becomes home to a crime plausibly labeled terrorism every couple months—can we expect a state of constant siege? Even then, the threat to any given American would be very statistically low. Yet the gruesomeness and horror could legitimize all sorts of overreaction.

Not long ago, American law enforcement embraced the pretense that it sought to arrest suspects and bring them to trial. The advertised standard seems to have shifted. In February, the LAPD appeared to target ex-cop Chris Dorner, who allegedly murdered police and families of police, for summary liquidation. They drove around shooting at trucks they thought might contain the suspect. They surrounded him in a cabin, deployed CS gas, and the building went up in flames. Almost no one make a big deal of the fact of what had happened—everyone just assumed he was guilty and that there was no reasonable way to apprehend him alive. Or people didn’t care.

The same is true of Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the nineteen-year-old suspect who managed to escape an army of law enforcement. Everyone assumes he’s guilty, and I would surely bet that he is, but that is not supposed to be America’s standard of legal justice. We also have every reason to want him alive, to know about his motives, to learn as much as we can to guard against future threats. Yet the standards of guilt have seemed to decline in recent memory, along with the standards for the state abolishing civil liberty. And in this case, even if he’s certainly guilty, the standards for how the state tries to bring someone into custody seem to have eroded as well.

We see the danger inherent in state power. The police are conducting the most pedestrian, universally assumed valid function of government. They are going after a murderer who appears to be armed and dangerous and a continuing threat. And in this pursuit, they have turned several cities into what look like police states by any reasonable measure. This demonstrates that the core nature of the state, its monopoly on crime control, always holds the potential for a full-blown security state and a total abolition of public liberty. What matters most is a culture wary of state power in any and all manifestations.

Yes, the lockdown will eventually ratchet back, but I fear this is only a hint of what is to come. On the one hand, we can say the suspect allegedly committed a particularly insidious crime and poses an especially frightening threat, and so the police reaction is either no cause for alarm, or at least something that will pass. On the other hand, all it took was a couple people with a couple bombs made from pressure cookers, and they managed to provoke the kind of full-scale lockdown you’d expect in response to a genuine invasion by a fully armed and manned military force. Monday showed us how fragile life and social tranquility are. Today shows us how fragile liberty is.

There is nothing we can do to fully overcome the vulnerability of life, unfortunately. There is something we can do, however, to shield against the vulnerability of liberty. We can start by at least asking questions about whether what is happening in Boston is the best response even to the bloody terror of this week.

http://blog.independent.org/2013/04/19/ ... rtial-law/

[Novem5er]

They're setting up logistics and perimeter, firing dummy rounds.

Logistics and perimeter because they've found something? Or just another base of operations in the field? CNN is showing a hell-of-a lot of cops driving fast in all the same direction; including an ambulance.

[FourthBase]

"Suspect down." 20 shots or so.

[General Patton]

They're setting up logistics and perimeter, firing dummy rounds.

Logistics and perimeter because they've found something? Or just another base of operations in the field? CNN is showing a hell-of-a lot of cops driving fast in all the same direction; including an ambulance.

Perimeter to contain the area around the boat.

[Philos]

Whole new angle on this that I haven't seen posted in this thread.

This is a bit strange.

http://www.naturalnews.com/039977_The_C ... ctors.html

(NaturalNews) Natural News has now confirmed that at least five private military contractors were operating on scene at the Boston marathon, and that they all carried black backpacks which look very similar to the backpack carrying the pressure cooker bomb (see pictures below).

Of note:

"How are photos of actual people at the event a conspiracy theory?

They aren't. In real police work, they're called "evidence," and the people in these photos should be persons of interest.

But they aren't. The entire mainstream media and law enforcement apparatus is now pretending these men don't exist. (Now that's their conspiracy theory!)

We all know, however, that The Craft operatives don't work for free. They aren't a band of volunteers. And that means somebody paid them to be at the event.

Who paid The Craft to be there? And what was their mission?

Why is their existence at the Boston marathon being memory-holed? Why are they not "persons of interest" in the investigation?

Why do they carry radiation detectors? What's in their backpacks? (A ham sandwich?)

The fact that the media refuses to even acknowledge the existence of these private military operatives is quite telling all by itself."


A friend sent me this link.

[seemslikeadream]

“Contractors” at Boston Marathon Stood Near Bomb, Left Before Detonation

(Photos) Seen across street after blasts talking with FBI bomb squad. Who were they? What were they and the FBI doing?

By Tony Cartalucci
Global Research, April 19, 2013
Land Destroyer



What appear to be private contractors, wearing unmarked, matching uniforms and operating an unmarked SUV affixed with communication equipment near the finish line of the Boston Marathon shortly after the bomb blasts – can be seen beforehand, standing and waiting just meters away from where the first bomb was detonated.

The contractor-types had moved away from the bomb’s location before it detonated, and could be seen just across the street using communication equipment and waiting for similar dressed and equipped individuals to show up after the blasts.


Image: An already widely distributed photo showing the contractor-types on the bottom left, just left of where the bomb was placed and detonated. The men are wearing matching, unmarked uniforms, large black bags, and appear to be waiting, separately, and “behind” the rest of the crowd. In the upper left corner, a wooden structure forming one half of a temporary photography “bridge” over the finish line can be seen and serves as a useful reference when establishing the contractor-types’ position in other photos.

….


Image: After the explosion, two of the contractors seen by the wall next to the bomb, appear across the street, both using communication equipment. This photo too has been distributed and enlarged many times across the Internet. (click to enlarge)

….

Image: An unmarked SUV with a considerable amount of communication gear on the roof appears, surrounded by identically dressed men. The vehicle parks near the bleachers. (click to enlarge)

….

Image: Event staff and contractors both above and below the bleachers begin tearing up the skirting and appear to be looking for something or retrieving something while casualties are still being treated and evacuated across the street. (click to enlarge)

….
The men, numbering between 6-8 then begin tearing up the skirting around temporary bleachers erected for the event, opposite the explosion, before taping it off. Then, what appears to be an FBI bomb squad truck pulls up directly behind the contractor-types’ SUV, with a woman clearly wearing the letters F.B.I. on her tactical vest emerging and speaking with the contractor-types. Together they disappear from the scene, leaving their vehicles behind.


Image: What appears to be an FBI bomb squad truck pulls in, with a woman wearing what is clearly the letters F.B.I. on her vest. She talks with two contractors while it appears a third is partially in the truck’s right-hand side. Also note that the area contractors and event staff tore up, is now taped off. (click to enlarge)

….

Image: The FBI truck and contractor SUV sit seemingly abandoned – neither the FBI agent, nor the contractors can be seen. What they did, or where they went remains so far, unknown. (click to enlarge)

….

It should be noted, that with the exception of the contractor-types, all other responders at the scene, including the FBI agent, can be clearly identified, from police to the fire department, to medics and even individuals wearing vests with “B.A.A. Physician” written on them. It should also be noted that no other uniformed individuals can be seen standing near the bomb site aside from the contractor-types.

These men were unidentified, professional contractors apparently augmenting public servants at the Boston Marathon, present before and after the bomb blasts in the direct vicinity of the incident. After the blasts, whether it was their intended function or not, they appeared to be searching for something under the bleachers before being joined by what appears to be the FBI bomb squad. The FBI and the city of Boston has so far categorically failed to provide any information on these highly suspicious individuals.

Questions That Must be Answered

Several questions must be answered by the FBI, leading the investigation on behalf of we, the American people. The first question is who these men were, with large, black bags in the direct vicinity of where a bomb would detonate, moving away before the blast, and appearing directly across the road afterward. Who hired them and what was their function? Why were they moving amongst the crowd in a semi-covert fashion when all other public servants present were wearing proper uniforms and clearly identified? Did police, firefighters, event organizers, and medics know these men were present and what they were doing?

Why did it appear that the FBI was fully aware of their presence, and in fact working with them, specifically with what looks like a bomb squad unit? Were these contractors specialists in explosives, and if so, what is the significance that at least two of them were spotted just meters from where the blast occurred?

Why These Questions Demand Answers

The checkered, frightening history (see: FBI’s History of Handing “Terror Suspects” Live Explosives) of the FBI’s involvement in fomenting false terror attacks, and even presiding over attacks that succeeded in maiming and killing innocent people, should call into question their presence or involvement at any public event, especially when seen associating with unidentified, semi-clandestine organizations that appear to be private contractors.

Private contractors as well, do not answer or work for the public, but rather the highest bidder. Private contractors, most notably Blackwater and its various incarnations have operated both domestically and abroad, committing obscene crimes and atrocities with seemingly absolute impunity. The term “defense contractor” is in fact a euphemism for mercenary, and has no place in a civilized, democratic world, no matter what their alleged mission statement may claim.

That both of these nefarious entities were present and cooperating in the direct vicinity of the Boston bombings, with at least two contractors standing just meters away from where the bomb actually went off, raises a number of possibilities and concerns. A drill may have been being conducted, though the FBI and city officials have denied this. Or, a threat may have been communicated to event organizers ahead of time, which prompted the inclusion of “auxiliary” security, though again, both the FBI and the city of Boston deny receiving any information prior to the bombings. Whichever contracting firm this may have been, may just have wanted to swindle Boston’s taxpayers for an easy payday, and coincidentally found itself in the middle of extraordinary circumstances.

However, alarming suspicion is raised when the FBI makes no mention of an organization it was clearly coordinating with, particularly in terms of bombs and explosives before and after the incident, considering the nature of the attack. When an already dubious organization attempts to obfuscate the facts of any given event, it is the right and responsibility of legitimate law enforcement, public representatives and the citizenry itself to demand and get answers. If we are not persistent, with the FBI’s bizarre behavior over the past few days, including inexplicably cancelled and suspiciously rushed press conferences, and now what appears to be a Hollywood ending for the case, we may never get those answers.

[82_28]

"Suspect down." 20 shots or so.

WTF?!?!

Man, we're never going to know what exactly happened -- overall -- from the bombings to the lockdown. CBS here in Seattle has the live local feed from your CBS affiliate in Boston and they haven't mentioned this yet.

[FourthBase]

Saying he was hiding in a boat....

And...holyfuckingshit, I just heard something that makes my skin crawl.
Related to the town where I am. Not something imminent, but in the past.
Those of you who remember the Reddit furry...what that guy said, maybe.

[elfismiles]

BS News/ April 19, 2013, 6:44 PM
FBI interviewed dead Boston bombing suspect years ago
In this Feb. 17, 2010, photo, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, left, smiles after acceping the trophy for winning the 2010 New England Golden Gloves Championship in Lowell, Mass.

In this Feb. 17, 2010, photo, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, left, smiles after acceping the trophy for winning the 2010 New England Golden Gloves Championship in Lowell, Mass. / AP Photo

Updated 6:50 p.m. ET

The FBI admitted Friday they interviewed the now-deceased Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev two years ago and failed to find any incriminating information about him.

Play Video
New details emerge on lives of Boston bombing suspects

Play Video
Boston on high alert as one bombing suspect is still at large

12 Photos
Boston Marathon bombing suspects

As first reported by CBS News correspondent Bob Orr, the FBI interviewed Tsarnaev, the elder brother of at-large bombing suspect Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, at the request of a foreign government to see if he had any extremist ties, but failed to find any linkage.

Both Tsarnaev brothers were legal permanent residents of the U.S. There is no evidence so far that either brother received any tactical training.

CBS News correspondent John Miller reports it is likely Russia asked to have the elder Tsarnaev vetted because of suspected ties to Chechen extremists.

The FBI is likely to have run a background check, running his name through all the relevant databases, including those of other agencies, checking on his communications and all of his overseas travel. Miller reports that culminated in a sit-down interview where they probably asked him a lot of questions about his life, his contacts, his surroundings. All of this was then written in a report and sent it to the requesting government.

This is an issue they've had in the past. They interviewed Carlos Bledsoe in Little Rock, Ark., before he shot up an Army recruiting station in 2009. They were also looking into Major Hasan Nadal before the Fort Hood shootings.

However, the FBI has maintained in those incidents that they took all the steps they were asked to and were allowed to under the law.

Although the FBI initially denied contacting Tsarnaev, the brothers' mother said they had in an interview with Russia Today.

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva said her son got involved in "religious politics" about five years ago, and never told her he was involved in "jihad."

She insisted the FBI "knew what he was doing on Skype" and that they counseled him "every step of the way."

Did online chatter help the manhunt for Tsarnaev brothers?
Boston suspects' father calls fugitive son a "true angel," says brothers were set up
Boston Marathon bomb suspect went to Russia last year, gov't sources say

Tsarnaeva, who is a U.S. citizen currently in Russia, told Russia Today the FBI had called her with concerns about her elder son, although she did not specify when exactly she was contacted.

"They used to come [to our] home, they used to talk to me ... they were telling me that he was really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him," Tsarnaeva said. "They told me whatever information he is getting, he gets from these extremist sites... they were controlling him, they were controlling his every step...and now they say that this is a terrorist act!"

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-575 ... years-ago/

[Novem5er]

You guys are a step ahead of the news. CNN is reporting that the suspect is "possibly cornered or apprehended". Police are telling locals to go back inside and stay. This could be it. I hope they capture the guy alive, at least to get more information out of him. I'm not expecting that, though.

[General Patton]

Whole new angle on this that I haven't seen posted in this thread.

This is a bit strange.

Actually it's a 48 hour old angle.

[justdrew]

Parents in Bangor, Maine received automated alerts on Friday that at least three explosive devices had gone off at Bangor Middle School.

Bangor Public Schools Superintendent Ron Parker confirmed that at least two homemade devices had exploded in a locker at the middle school. Parker said that the simple devices were known as “works” and consisted of drain cleaner and aluminum in soda bottles.

“It wasn’t a big explosion,” Parker recalled. “The locker didn’t even open.”

According to Parker, a 15-year-old special needs student had admitted to placing the bombs after being dared by another student. Security footage reportedly showed the student placing one device in a school bathroom. It was later discovered that the device had exploded in the bathroom as well.

“There’s no doubt who did it and he readily admitted it,” Parker explained. The student was being taken into custody by law enforcement on Friday.

There were no reports of injuries, and the third bomb was not confirmed by school officials.

Watch the video below from Mlive.com, broadcast April 19, 2013.

---

"According to Parker, a 15-year-old special needs student had admitted to placing the bombs after being dared by another student."
So it appears to me that someone supplied this kid with the bombs and had him plant them and take responcibility for them.
did they pick up the other halfwit kid that "dared" him? You know, that kid that probably supplied the bombs?

you know, another possibility is that things are much more fucked than we're being let to find out. panic reduction would be a top priority