Monday - April 15, 2013

Terrorists!!

Late Night Keyboarding: let’s open a new box of Reynold’s Wrap and start folding us some new hats!
* Reports of up to 5 other bombs found - did cops shut down local cellphone service (or jam it?)?
* Was the word already out?  - running coach reports bomb sniffing dogs all around before the blast, something he’d never seen at any other marathon. Nothing to see here, just a training exercise ... and then BOOM.

No, I’m not getting glib. I’m just trying to note the things I find before the story gets turned inside out in a couple days. Again.

Updated update ... Not much to add, now almost midnight in Boston:

A first responder source confirms to Fox News that five total explosive devices were found in the Boston area, including the two that exploded. Authorities spent the next several hours sweeping the area for additional devices.

SMALL UPDATE:
TV: 2 dead (one an 8 yo boy), 70 wounded, some say over 100, multiple limbs lost; first bomb was in a garbage can.
Just about everything else you hear is a rumor; “person of interest being held; a Saudi national”; just rumors or unattached facts. Don’t leap to conclusions.

‘Like a huge cannon’
The terrorist attack, near the marathon’s finish line, triggered widespread screaming and chaos, shattered windows and barricades and sent smoke billowing into the air at Copley Square.

They were about 50 to 100 yards apart, officials said.

“It felt like a huge cannon,” a witness told CNN about one of the blasts.

Photos from the scene showed people being carried away on stretchers. One man in a wheelchair had blood all over his face and legs.

The bombs shook buildings, sending people to seek shelter under tables, witnesses said.

Federal authorities are classifying the bombings as a terrorist attack, but it’s not clear whether the origin was domestic or foreign, a federal law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation said.

Another explosive device found

Authorities in Boston found at least one other explosive device that they were dismantling, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said.

DEVELOPING: Multiple casualties are reported after at least two explosions were heard near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, according to the Boston Herald.

Witnesses reportedly heard booms that sounded like two claps of thunder near the finish line inside the Fairmount Copley Plaza Hotel.

The explosions occurred just before 3 p.m. Video of the scene showed a number of emergency crews in the area tending to victims and blood on the ground near the finish line.

“I saw two explosions. The first one was beyond the finish line. I heard a loud bang and I saw smoke rising,” Boston Herald reporter Chris Cassidy, who was running in the marathon, told the newspaper. “I kept running and I heard behind me a loud bang. It looked like it was in a trash can or something...There are people who have been hit with debris, people with bloody foreheads.”

A photographer with Fox affiliate WFXT reported seeing a number of victims with lost limbs.

Competitors and race organizers were crying as they fled the chaos. Bloody spectators were being carried to the medical tent that had been set up to care for fatigued runners.

“There are a lot of people down,” said one man, whose bib No. 17528 identified him as Frank Deruyter of North Carolina. He was not injured, but marathon workers were carrying one woman, who did not appear to be a runner, to the medical area as blood gushed from her leg. A Boston police officer was wheeled from the course with a leg injury that was bleeding.

About three hours after the winners crossed the line, there was a loud explosion on the north side of Boylston Street, just before the photo bridge that marks the finish line. Another thunderous explosion could be heard a few seconds later.

Runner Laura McLean of Toronto said she heard two explosions outside the medical tent.

“There are people who are really, really bloody,” McLean said. “They were pulling them into the medical tent.”

BOSTON (MyFoxBoston.com) – Two explosions shattered the euphoria of the Boston Marathon finish line on Monday, sending authorities out on the course to carry off the injured while the stragglers in the 26.2-mile trek from Hopkinton were rerouted away from the smoking site of the blasts.

Competitors and race organizers were crying as they fled the chaos. Bloody spectators were being carried to the medical tent that had been set up to care for fatigued runners.

Witnesses reported hearing two explosions on the north side of Boylston Street near the photographer bridge just before 3 p.m. Fox 25’s Maria Stephanos, whose husband had just completed the race, reported that the explosion appeared to come from the inside of a building, possibly Marathon Sports.

“I was right there, I saw a plume of smoke coming from a building,” said Stephanos.

Video from SkyFox showed blood on the ground near the finish line. A Fox 25 photographer at the scene reported seeing a number of victims with lost limbs.

Reuters was reporting that the Boston Marathon headquarters was in lockdown.

It was not immediately known how many people were injured or the extent of their injuries.

The Boston Marathon was suspended. Runners were being stopped at mile 26.

The Massachusetts Ave bridge was closed and the MBTA had suspended service on the B and C lines of the Green Line.

The air space over Copley Square was closed and SkyFox was ordered out of the area at about 3:40 p.m.

Boston (CNN)—At least two explosions rocked the finish line at the Boston Marathon on Monday afternoon, injuring at least a half-dozen people, a CNN producer at the scene said.

The blasts occurred a few seconds apart on opposite sides of the street, CNN Producer Matt Frucci reported. The first left “a big plume of smoke” hovering over the area, around Boston’s Copley Square; the second occurred perhaps 10 seconds later, he said.

The explosions occurred about 2:45 p.m., about an hour after the first of the race’s nearly 27,000 runners had crossed the finish line, Frucci said. The race was halted after the explosions as was subway service into the area.

Paramedics were treating several victims at the scene, and police ordered onlookers to back away from the area. Troops from the Massachusetts National Guard were assisting police as well.

Onlooker Josh Matthews said he heard the blast, then saw police running toward the scene.

“We just heard a lot of sirens, and people were kind of frantic, and it was a bad situation, so we got out of there,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Massachusetts General Hospital said four patients were being treated there.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/15/2013 at 02:43 PM   
Filed Under: • War On Terror •  
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