Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

[don]

Re: 117th Boston Marathon Tragedy

Early reports mention several were found intact - that's a lot of information.

[LorenS]

Re: 117th Boston Marathon Tragedy

I have some formal experience and training with explosives.

From the video I saw, I would hazard a guess of HME(home made explosives).

If high explosives such as C4 or PETN were used I would have expected to see different things in the video so I'm guessing lower velocity explosive.

But I'm not an SME, just my guess.

The amount of smoke in those videos sure makes it seem like some kind of combustible powder instead a real explosive.

Watching the news is like hearing about my grandmother's health problems third hand from my mom. You seldom get facts, they've been lost in translation.

[Chris Coles]

Re: 117th Boston Marathon Tragedy

Hi Chris.

I'm not claiming they gained or changed anything.

Just pointing out that many western countries have been here before.

I actually see such groups(bar the IRA) as symptoms of a broader set of problems.

In no way do I condone such actions, nor do I wish to debate their success or failure, but trying to look at it from a clinical and detached perspective I wonder if in some ways we are simply seeing history repeat itself.

I agree with you on the fact every country has nutters.

What brought these and other nutters out?

We have to wait and see on this one, but isn't it possible or even maybe likely that many of the issues we debate here that are causing such massive financial and social havoc MAY directly result in such actions by a malignant few?

A million protest
Ten thousand commit acts of civil disobediance
One hundred commits acts of violence
One builds and detonates a bomb

Surely somewhere hidden in all the numbers such as student debt, youth unemployment, uni grad unemployment, underemployment, pension losses, foreclosures, bankruptcies, etc lies some equation to roughly indicate risk/probability of such things happening.

I see it here in the 3rd world(we just received a valid suicide bomber threat at the local girls school), are we really that different?

Beyond the likelihood/frequency of course.

Just this morning a local who to look at you would not think anything of cited the French revolution; so the points you make are valid. I particularly agree with your vision of the difference regarding the IRA; that is a dispute that has deep historical origins.

The anger of the many is a perfectly valid expression; particularly when placed up on the likes of an iTulip as a point of debate; the problem is with the very few that probably do not have any real capacity to publicly express their resentment; which bottled up becomes the driving force for what are incredibly stupid ideas such as killing and maiming ordinary people.

Here, I do hope the next week is peaceful here in the UK with the Thatcher funeral tomorrow and our own marathon Sunday.

[c1ue]

Re: 117th Boston Marathon Tragedy

I have some formal experience and training with explosives.

From the video I saw, I would hazard a guess of HME(home made explosives).

If high explosives such as C4 or PETN were used I would have expected to see different things in the video so I'm guessing lower velocity explosive.

But I'm not an SME, just my guess.

If the explosives were tearing off limbs, isn't that the hallmark of higher propagation speed? That's the kind of thing that seemed to happen with US military bombing during the Vietnam war, for example.

The billow of smoke also would seem to rule out plastic explosives, but then again you don't need C4. Maybe artillery shells as in Afghanistan, maybe fertilizer based stuff, there are all sorts of options I'd think.

[Mega]

Re: 117th Boston Marathon Tragedy

Carlos the Jackel ?

[shiny!]

Re: 117th Boston Marathon Tragedy

In times of tragedy many people show their character:

Boston Marathon heroes: Kindness and humanity amid the carnage

By Harriet Alexander

11:29AM BST 16 Apr 2013


One of the most shared messages on Twitter was a quote from American television host and Presbyterian minister Fred Rogers: "Look for the helpers. You'll always find people who are helping."

And it proved to be true.

So many of the runners continued to run across the finishing line and onwards to the Massachusetts General Hospital, in a rush to give blood, that they had to be turned away.

"Due to the generosity of our donors we don't need blood at this time," wrote the Red Cross for Eastern Massachusetts on Twitter.
Related Articles

But the volunteers kept on coming, leading the organisation to tweet an hour later: "We do *NOT* need blood at this time. Please schedule a future donation."

So great was the wish to help that the Red Cross was forced to set up a diary to arrange appointments for all those queuing up to give blood.

Others provided more immediate assistance. One man was caught on camera rushing straight to site where the bomb had detonated, where bloodied people were lying dazed on the pavement. He ripped off his belt to make a tourniquet and stem the bleeding, before turning to assist other seriously-injured victims.

Luke Russert reported on Twitter that he watched as a white-shirted volunteer in his red official baseball cap wheeled a woman out of the danger zone before rushing immediately back to the scene.

A retired American Football star, Joe Andruzzi, who won the Superbowl three times with the New England Patriots, carried victims away from the carnage (above). All three of his brothers were firemen in New York who responded to the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers.

His charity cancer foundation was hosting an event on Boylston Street – the same street where the explosions were detonated – and the 37-year-old immediately dashed to help.

Other people opened their homes to those who were stranded, or offered lifts to people without transport. A Google document was set up with offers of help, such as: "Located across the street from Mass General Hospital. I have a couch and an inflatable twin mattress for anyone who needs to stay."

Kristin Corona who lives in central Boston wrote: "I have a couch to offer and two beautiful chihuahuas to love you. My apartment is open to anyone in need."

Restaurants in the area offered free meals and shelter to those caught up in the tragedy, allowing people to pay only if they were able to.

"Open wifi, place to charge your phone, cold drinks, or just don't want to be alone," tweeted the owner of El Pelon, a Mexican restaurant in the area.

"My coworkers and staff deserve a lot of credit: not one blinked when asked, not one when home when they could, those not working came in."

[Ellen Z]

Re: 117th Boston Marathon Tragedy

If anyone is interested in learning more about explosive devices and injuries, here's a resource.
___ Explosions and Blast Injuries: A Primer for Clinicians
___ http://www.bt.cdc.gov/masscasualties/explosions.asp

Here's a page with many resources, for clinicians and the general public, on how to prepare for and cope with this sort of event. (The news stories I’m hearing say marathon organizers did a good job of thinking ahead of time about what they’d need to do if something like this happened.)
___ http://www.bt.cdc.gov/masscasualties/index.asp

[lakedaemonian]

Re: 117th Boston Marathon Tragedy

Carlos the Jackel ?

He's been in jail for nearly 20 years.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: 117th Boston Marathon Tragedy

If anyone is interested in learning more about explosive devices and injuries, here's a resource.
___ Explosions and Blast Injuries: A Primer for Clinicians
___ http://www.bt.cdc.gov/masscasualties/explosions.asp

Here's a page with many resources, for clinicians and the general public, on how to prepare for and cope with this sort of event. (The news stories I’m hearing say marathon organizers did a good job of thinking ahead of time about what they’d need to do if something like this happened.)
___ http://www.bt.cdc.gov/masscasualties/index.asp

The good news/bad news of the last 10+ years has seen considerable improvement in treatment of blast injuries largely through the efforts of publications such as Journal of Special Operations Medicine, albeit as a result of so much unfortunate experience.

20 years ago military medicine spent a lot of time learning from inner city hospital staff with large numbers of gun shot wounds, etc.

Now it's kind of going the other way with some trauma.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: 117th Boston Marathon Tragedy

If the explosives were tearing off limbs, isn't that the hallmark of higher propagation speed?

Not necessarily.......low order/velocity explosives are still easily capable of tearing limbs off of people. IIRC overpressure of about 8-12PSI is sufficient to do so, death can occur at less than that.

Low order/velocity of course being a relative thing compared with far more powerful explosives such as C4 or PETN...low order/velocity explosive effect is still generating a blast wave velocity well above that of a rifle round.

That's the kind of thing that seemed to happen with US military bombing during the Vietnam war, for example.

The billow of smoke also would seem to rule out plastic explosives, but then again you don't need C4. Maybe artillery shells as in Afghanistan, maybe fertilizer based stuff, there are all sorts of options I'd think.

Heaps of possibilities, and I'm not schooled up enough to differentiate beyond the basics.

Based on the video, my amateur guess is something like ANFO with a booster.

If it were a reasonable amount of military explosives I believe the explosive effect could have been greatly magnified due to the far higher velocity and blast wave it can generate.

Just my best amateur guess.

--------

What is worth mentioning is the use of pressure cookers.

Pressure cookers being used to make IEDs has been common in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as been used in India and Nepal.

Pressure cookers are probably the most common kitchen appliance here in Afghanistan and coincidentally make a capable improvised explosive container that performs several functions.

A pressure cooker explosive container was found in Times Square back in 2010 I believe.

I think this indicates either a possible link to an overseas based individual/group OR it could indicate someone inside the US with a fair bit of open source knowledge of IEDs used overseas.

Another consideration is waiting to see how the IEDs were aligned with one or more unexploded IEDs recovered. Unfortunately, naughty people have often set complex IED ambushes where they are arrayed in such a way to not only cause initial damage, but to result in a secondary detonation designed to inflict harm on first responders as well.

It shows a greater than "amateur hour" level of knowledge, planning, and execution.

All bits and pieces that much more experienced folks will piece together during the investigation to hopefully lead to an arrest and prosecution.

[shiny!]

Re: 117th Boston Marathon Tragedy

It's been over 24 hours and to my knowledge nobody has claimed responsibility. That seems unusual, doesn't it?

[don]

Re: 117th Boston Marathon Tragedy

It's been over 24 hours and to my knowledge nobody has claimed responsibility. That seems unusual, doesn't it?

Have no data but that seems to be the case more often than not.

A good thought to keep:

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Ben Franklin

[don]

Re: 117th Boston Marathon Tragedy

Clues emerge . . .





Video Points Investigators Toward Suspect in Boston Bombings

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and MICHAEL COOPER

BOSTON — Investigators have found video footage of a man who they believe may have planted the deadly bombs at the Boston Marathon, a person briefed on the matter said Wednesday, saying that they had pinpointed the image on video that was captured shortly before the blast.

The possible break in the case came as investigators have pored over scores of videos and photographs that they solicited from surveillance cameras from nearby businesses, smartphone-wielding marathon spectators and television crews who were filming the Boston Marathon when the deadly blasts went off on Monday near the finish line. The revelation of the video footage was the first sign that the authorities might be moving closer to discovering who was behind the attacks, which killed three people and injured more than 170.

As the Boston investigation went into a third day, there were signs that the nation was jittery, and on high alert. New York City officials said there had been an increase of reports of suspicious packages. In Oklahoma City, City Hall was briefly evacuated Wednesday morning as the authorities examined a stolen rental truck that was parked outside, just a few days shy of the anniversary of the 1995 bombing of the nearby Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. (There was no bomb, officials there said.) And in Washington, parts of two Senate office buildings were shut down as officials investigated reports of suspicious letters or packages, and the Secret Service said that a letter addressed to President Obama, containing a suspicious substance, had been intercepted at a screening facility outside the White House.

In Boston, meanwhile, the third fatality of the blast was described as a young woman whose ambitions and hard work took her from her rust-belt hometown in northeast China to graduate studies at Boston University.

The woman was identified as Lu Lingzi by a classmate, a Chinese university official and a state-run newspaper in her home city. Ms. Lu, 23, had moved to Boston to study statistics at Boston University after studying international trade at the Beijing Institute of Technology, according to a résumé that was posted online. In her hometown, Shenyang, the Shenyang Evening News, the state-run newspaper that announced her death, darkened its Web site in honor of a “Shenyanger who passed away in a far away place.”

The three people killed in the blast were a cross-section of Boston, brought together seemingly at random to watch one the city’s proud traditions, the marathon. There was Ms. Lu, one of the thousands of international students drawn to the area’s universities. There was Martin Richard, a vivacious 8-year-old third grader from a well-loved family in Dorchester, a tight-knit community. And there was Krystle Campbell, 29, of Arlington, Mass., a hard-working woman known for her sense of humor who had started working at restaurants as a waitress in high school and now worked as a restaurant manager. Boston prepared to mourn them at a service with President Obama on Thursday.

More surgeries were scheduled for Wednesday for the victims of the bomb blasts, including eight at Boston Medical Center, officials said.

A 5-year-old boy remained in critical condition Wednesday at Boston Medical Center, Dr. Peter Burke, the chief of trauma services at the hospital said at a morning briefing. He was one of 19 patients who remain there, he said, and one of two who were in critical condition — down from 10 who were in critical condition on Tuesday.

“I’m very optimistic,” Dr. Burke said, adding that it was possible that another patient or two could be discharged Wednesday. “I will not be happy until they’re all home,” he said.

Three children who were injured in the blast remained at Boston Children’s Hospital on Wednesday, the hospital announced: a 2-year-old boy with a head injury was listed in good condition, while a 10-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl, both with leg injuries, were in critical condition.

A piece of the lid of one of the pressure cookers that investigators believe were used as explosive devices in the bombings was found on a rooftop near the blast, a law enforcement official said on Wednesday — giving a sense of the tremendous force of the explosion. Law enforcement officials said that the bombs were most likely rudimentary devices made from ordinary kitchen pressure cookers, except they were rigged to shoot sharp bits of shrapnel into anyone within reach of their blast and maim them severely, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

The pressure cookers were filled with nails, ball bearings and black powder, and the devices were triggered by “kitchen-type” egg timers, one official said.

The resulting explosions sent metal tearing through skin and muscle, destroying the lower limbs of some victims who had only shreds of tissue holding parts of their legs together when they arrived at the emergency room of Massachusetts General Hospital, doctors there said.

Law enforcement officials said the devices were probably hidden inside dark nylon duffel bags or backpacks and left on the street or sidewalk near the finish line. Forensic experts said that the design and components of the homemade devices were generic but that the marking “6L,” indicating a six-liter container, could help identify a brand and manufacturer and possibly lead to information on the buyer.

Details about the explosives emerged as President Obama announced that the F.B.I. was investigating the attack as “an act of terrorism,” and made plans to travel to Boston on Thursday for an interfaith service at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

But officials said they still had no suspects in custody and did not give the impression that they were close to making an arrest as they repeatedly noted that the investigation was in its infancy.

“The range of suspects and motives remains wide open,” Richard DesLauriers, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.'s Boston office, said at a televised briefing on Tuesday afternoon. And, he added, no one has claimed responsibility.

At this stage of an inquiry, officials said it was not unusual for there to be no suspects. But with the paucity of leads, Mr. DesLauriers and others pleaded with members of the public to submit any photographs or video they may have taken at the blast site to help in the investigation. At the briefing, Mr. DesLauriers said that someone somewhere almost certainly heard a mention of the marathon or the date of April 15.

“Someone knows who did this,” he said. “Cooperation from the community will play a crucial role.”

Officials said they had received more than 2,000 tips from around the world. As marathoners left through Logan Airport on Tuesday, security personnel reminded them of the importance of sharing their pictures with the F.B.I.

Counterterrorism specialists said the authorities would aim to match the faces of any possible suspects, using facial recognition software, against an array of databases for visas, passports and drivers’ licenses. “It’s our intention to go through every frame of every video that we have to determine exactly who was in the area,” Edward Davis, the Boston police commissioner, said at the news briefing. “This was probably one of the most well-photographed areas in the country yesterday.”

Given the force of the blasts, doctors at area hospitals said that the death toll could have been much higher but that the triage teams at the blast site had done a good job of sending the victims to the hospitals capable of handling them.

“The distribution worked wonderfully,” said Dr. Stephen K. Epstein, attending emergency physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “It was very easy to match the number of patients to the resources available at each of the hospitals.”

The scale of the attack and the crude nature of the explosives, coupled with the lack of anyone claiming to have been the perpetrator, suggested to experts that the attacker could be an individual or a small group rather than an established terrorist organization.

“This could have been a one-person job,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism specialist at Georgetown University. “That makes it much harder to track. When we catch terrorists, it’s usually because they’re part of a conspiracy and they’re communicating with one another.”

“It will have to go through a many tests to see what they can glean further and identify where it was produced and sold, and then look at it forensically,” a law enforcement official said. Officials said on Tuesday that evidence from the scene was being shipped to labs in Quantico, Va. Fox News showed pictures that it said were from the crime scene that showed a chunk of a somewhat pulverized stainless steel pressure cooker, with its UL number visible.

Steven Bartholomew, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said that the blast was powerful enough to toss debris on top of buildings. “Some of that debris got projected on top of buildings, and embedded in buildings in that finish line area, so that tells us we have a lot of work to do,” Mr. Bartholomew said.

Katharine Q. Seelye reported from Boston, and Michael Cooper from New York. Reporting was contributed by John Eligon, Mary Pilon, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Jess Bidgood from Boston; Scott Shane, Eric Schmitt, Mark Landler and Michael S. Schmidt from Washington; William K. Rashbaum from New York; and Chris Buckley in Hong Kong.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

mental health disorders,!

The state does nothing to help in regards to mental health disorders. So many suffer from mental health disorders and their family members ask for help from authorities but they do nothing unless they threaten to harm themselvs or someone else. It is deplorable because so many don't exhibit either of those.

I know because an immediate family member of mine has a mental health disorder.

I describe people who have multiple personality disorders or are bipolar as being trapped within their own mind, not knowing what is real and what is fake.

[shiny!]

Re: Multiple Explosions Reported at Boston Marathon

Lots of pictures of the scene before the blasts, with possible "persons of interest" highlighted.