So who else has been following the madness that has been unfolding in the Boston area this morning? We're on lockdown here. Businesses are closed. People have been instructed to stay indoors and away from windows. Now I know how my toy collection feels.
This is some serious stuff, and I hope it can just end soon. Heed the warnings and chill somewhere safe, stay home, etc.
More details for who interest. Hope no more bad news! Spoiler (CBS/AP) WATERTOWN, Mass. - All residents of Boston were ordered to stay in their homes Friday morning after the suspects in the marathon bombings allegedly killed an MIT police officer overnight, injured a transit officer in a firefight and threw explosive devices at police during their getaway attempt, authorities said. PICTURES: Manhunt for Boston bombing suspects PICTURES: Boston bombing victims Below is a timeline of events of what occurred in a long night of violence that left one suspect dead and the other still at large, as of 9 a.m. Friday. 5:10 p.m. Thursday: The FBI releases photos and videos of two suspects investigators believe are behind Monday's Boston Marathon bombing. Apprx. 10:20 p.m. Thursday: Robbery takes place at at 7/11 convenience store in Cambridge, near the MIT campus. 10:30 p.m. Thursday: An MIT campus police officer was found shot in his vehicle in the area of Vassar and Main Streets. According to authorities, the officer was found with multiple gunshot wounds. He was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital and pronounced dead. Moments later, police received reports of an armed carjacking by two males in the area of Third Street in Cambridge. The victim was carjacked at gunpoint by two males and was kept in the car with the suspects for approximately a half hour. The victim was released at a gas station on Memorial Drive in Cambridge. He was not injured. Authorities said the suspects threw explosives from the car as police followed it into Watertown, just west of Cambridge. The suspects and police exchanged gunfire, and one of the suspects was critically injured. A transit police officer is seriously injured. Apprx. 1 a.m. Friday: Gunshots and explosions are heard in Watertown. Dozens of police officers and FBI agents converge on a Watertown neighborhood. A helicopter circles overhead. 2 a.m. Friday: The FBI releases a new photo of Suspect #1 and Suspect #2 on its website. 4 a.m. Friday: Boston Police and Cambridge Police Chief confirmed that the two men involved in the fatal shooting of an MIT campus police officer, and a shootout-chase scene into Watertown were the same suspects believed to be involved in the Boston Marathon bombing. The Middlesex County D.A. confirmed that Suspect #1 has died while Suspect #2 escaped. Police release a new image of Suspect #2, apparently taken from a surveillance photo at a 7/11 convenience store that was robbed several hours earlier. He is wearing a grey hoodie-style sweatshirt. Apprx. 4:30 a.m. Friday: Massachusetts state and Boston police hold a short outdoor news briefing. They tell people living in that section of eastern Watertown to stay in their homes. 5:30 a.m. Friday: Gov. Deval Patrick suspends all public transit service on the MBTA system. People living in a number of communities were ordered to stay inside homes. The communities included Watertown, Waltham, Belmont, Newton, Allston-Brighton and Cambridge. MIT, Harvard and other local colleges cancel classes. Apprx. 6:35 a.m.: The Associated Press reported that the bomb suspects are from a Russian region near Chechnya and lived in the United States for at least one year. Apprx. 6:45 a.m.: The Associated Press identified the surviving Boston bomb suspect as 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who has been living in Cambridge, Mass. Apprx. 8:40 a.m.: A U.S. law enforcement official and the uncle of the suspects confirmed that the name of the slain suspect is Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's older brother.
helicopters here too....it's really surreal all of this is happening in our neighborhoods. stay safe patrick, other folks in the area.
I was pissed last night when they cut into "Hannibal" for a special report and then again while I was watching Jimmy. Hope they catch him without incident but his maniac has had too much time to make something happen.
I forget what station I was listening to yesterday, but they were interviewing Bostonians (is that acceptable?) and asking how they felt about increasing security in America, guards on corners, curfews, etc. you get the point and I was astonished at how many people said they were okay with this. One woman said something like "This is the world we live in now, it's more dangerous and we as citizens need to feel protected..." That type of shit is what really scares the fuck out of me! I absolutely am NOT trying to downplay what has happened in Boston, either. But it was this same attitude and acceptance that gave us Homeland Security and carte blanche to the Bush/Cheney reign of terror and stupidity. not to derail this thread, but any thoughts?
i dont think it will get that bad again, (hope) but I find it sad that these two where from Chechnya who sought asylum. They know pain and suffering first hand and its so friggin sad that they couldn't leave it over there.
I agree, John, it’s scary and disturbing, especially with what has been in all manner of news outlets of late regarding the militarization of police forces around the country. This incident and its aftermath will only be used to justify more of the same. Read a fascinating article about drone technology in the New Yorker a while back; apparently, drones are being looked on/aggressively marketed as the next big thing for local police forces, whether you’re in NYC or Tucumcari. The powers of surveillance and crowd control for local cops are about to increase exponentially. Yes, ideally all of this new tech would only be put to use catching bad guys and pre-empting violent tragedies like what occurred in Boston. Ideally...
It is also sad that apparently all but three of the 46 Senators who voted against Obama's background check reform were recipients of cash donations directly from the NRA. Some received this cash (more than $800,000 in total) in the last two weeks. The lobby system in the US is broken, this is just one symptom. More guns is not going to stop horrible acts like these. And the Senate vote was only on background checks, and then only for assault weapons. I am not anti-guns at all, but if you need to provide this kind of personal information to buy a car, need to have a special license that then permits you to operate that vehicle, and are required to register it with the state, what kind of priorities are those? I don't think militarising is going to stop any of these tragic events, since they are almost wholly unpredictable and carried out independently by individuals (i.e. not State-sanctioned attacks); and I think history has backed up this point. I hope that the aftermath of this does not lead to a post 9/11 style surge, because it is evident what that lead to.
^^^ I'm clearly not new to all of this paranoia and giving away our civil liberties, and I can't wrap me noggin' around how people can allow themselves to come to such a conclusion. I absolutely do not subscribe to this way of thinking. To make an assumption that new technology and the ilk will only be used to apprehend "evil-doers" and criminals is ludicrous and plain silly. And, for the record I am not some nutty conspiracy theorist. Nor do I think the government as a whole is out to control the people in this country. I'm curious as to how the fine people of the UK (more so those of London) feel about being watched by their authorities at all times via their abundance of surveillance cameras...
And I am not singling out the US by any means either. It is just such a large 'entity' in the global world, that what it does necessarily affects others too. I would say we had a better system here, but that is being stripped away day by day.
Agree with you all, John, Mike, and Stephen. It IS a scary world that we're living in - but I'm more scared about the "powers that be" gaining more and more power, than I am by the random acts of violence. I've been getting a very 1984 feeling. I also wonder whether the shut down of Boston isn't just to see how the public responds, and whether they can successfully impose a curfew on a large metropolitan area. It appears they can. But it seems to be overkill when there's only a single suspect at large - it's not like there's a small army of insurgents that are waging urban war.
That's too conspiracy theory mentality for me. No offense. It's not all of Boston, correct me if I'm wrong. Also, to effectively put something like this together would take planning that quite frankly I don't feel our government can accomplish. Those changes take time to implement and they sort of roll over you like a warm bath. Where it starts is fear and there's no shortage of that these days, mostly unwarranted.
None taken. And I can see how the idea treads in that territory. Though I'm not suggesting that the government was behind the bombing - just that some agency thought this might be a good "proving grounds" for urban curfew implementation. And really, I'm not even suggesting that that's the case - just musing. I definitely think some agency has plans in place for just such a scenario. I freely admit to liking a good conspiracy theory though. Even if I don't take them seriously I think they're good for at least keeping an open mind rather than just accepting the most likely, or most reported on, version of events.
While I personally don't believe that our government is behind these types of attacks, I do agree that they use these to increase the general fear of the populace. They use this fear for control, and that is the scariest part of all. No matter what they do, you cannot prevent these types of things from ever happening again, yet that is exactly what they try to sell when they are stripping away our freedoms and privacy bit by bit. Once they have enacted these new policies, we as a people usually give a little resistance at first, but over time become used to these new standards and life goes on until the next tragedy they can exploit for more surveillance and to further lock everything down. And as far as locking down even part of a city over a single person? Yea, that seems to be a little overkill. Not to make light of the current situation in the least, but that does almost seem to be testing the waters to see how everyone will react. I'll stop my conspiracy laden rant now
Well, nobody is trying to institute an unlimited curfew. That's not the worry. But the government is currently seeing that they can effectively restrict the mobility of a large population for a short period of time. I would venture a guess that Bostonians wouldn't put up with this for more than 24-48 hours. But regardless, that's a huge amount of power that the government just demonstrated. I understand that it was a request, and not a legally enforceable curfew, but the effect is largely the same.
