That bit struck me as well. I had wondered if it was the result of careful planning in the explosives, or just a coincidence. Thanks for the insight into Boston. I recall you lived quite some time there, so I imagine you have a different viewpoint than most people here.
As much as my heart goes out the people from the attack, I think we need to really change the way we deal with terrorism. They do it for attention, so 1 min after the attack the news is all around the world. We are giving them exactly what they want, so of course they will keep doing it.
So, this morning, 3 dead, 140 injured, and I think 6 - 9 critically injured. 4 - 5 devices, apparently. Its a bit of a catch-22: either the press do the right thing as a free press and give it attention and (sadly) publicity, which is exactly what attacks like this want; or just go quiet, have twitter go crazy, and wait for the public to question (eventually) why it was kept quiet. Evidently, this shows the sad fact that many, many events, even those with huge preparation are vulnerable. Ball bearings is a truly cruel twist: they must have wanted to cause as much pain and wounding as possible.
As I understand it a nailbomb is pretty standard fare for amateur-built devices, the same with planting several around the scene - the more go off the better, but home-made fuses are very unreliable.
When I first saw the explosion last night I could help but notice the orange hue to the smoke as if it was tannerite based..
they are not sure yet who did this I've been keeping an eye on the news (not fox I might add) and most certainly not that racist scumbag Erik Rush, everyone must keep an open mind as to who did it until the perpetrator or perpotrators are found and brought to justice. My thoughts and prayers are with those affected
Here's some interesting new snippets of info. A flat is being searched in a suburb, after a guy was seen driving outside the police stations several times, and was stopped and seemed quite nervous. April 15 is Tax Day in America. Whether that has any bearing, I don't know.
I have deeply mixed feelings right now, please don't jump to conclusions! In such an event as this, who just who has the F*CKING time to pull out there phone and snap pictures of those who have been injured, limbs blown off and everyone bleeding badly. If your that close you help anybody even if it's the police in creating a cordon. (Reddit /wtf) As much as I can't get over that, being able to see such images helps bring home the type of physical and mental damage these people are facing. Hence my mixed feelings
I think you're right to a point Burnout - there were a great number of emergency responders around, do you really want your usual public swarming in to try and help?
In fairness to those who did take photos, many would have been filming the people crossing at the time anyway, and so it would have been easy just to turn their cameras on the events. This seems like quite a good summary of what is known so far: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/boston-marathon-explosions Perhaps, whilst I'm at it, I'd just like to share a story of one guy who did good that day, Carlos Arredondo: EDIT: Please note, the photo included shows a person who almost certainly will have had to be amputated, and I believe the guy involved is holding an artery closed. If you're squeamish, please don't look, http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/04/cowboy-hat-carlos-arredondo-boston-marathon http://gawker.com/5994736/cowboy-ha...m_source=gawker_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
My problem in one video is you can see the emergency responders trying to pull the fencing away to get access. Now at the time one person was focusing on filming rather than helping move the junk. Yes response was great, but standing in the way filming isn't helping, nor is snapping photos
True - I'd have put the camera on the ground to help shift things out the way, then probably got back to filming (that, or have lost my mind and legged it for fear of more explosions). Probably worth being careful which bits of news you look at surrounding this - I stumbled onto an extremely disturbing photo of a soon-to-be double amputee being wheelchaired away from the scene. I'm not usually squeemish, but that really knocked me sick.
Certainly a terrible attack. There is no way of knowing who did it yet as extremists of all sort seem to be able to come up with an basis for justifying killing almost every person on earth in their cause.
Most of it doesn't bother me - this particular one was a chap with both feet blown off and most of the flesh around his calves flapping about/shredded up to the knee.
That one caught me out, very surprised publications were showing that with a non blurred face and a warning.
So according to reports I just got at work. The DHS says that only 2 explosive devices were found(the ones that exploded). The other suspicious devices(up to seven of them) were found to have no explosives. That includes the two additional controlled detonations.
See this is bugging me now, last night's (last night here) the press conference mentioned the two explosions on Boylston and the 3rd bomb at JFK library. How is it, nearly 24 hrs after the event it's still so sketchy as to what's happened...
