by ALISON LEVIER Section Editor
The Boston Marathon, held on Monday, April 15, turned to tragedy when two bombs went off at the finish line. Three are left dead, and 170 are left injured after this incident.
Authorities are still trying to piece together how everything happened, and finally took one of the suspects into custody. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is being charged and could possibly face death if convicted. His brother, Tamerlan, is also being eyed in a grisly triple homicide that occurred in 2011.
Just before 3 PM, hours after the race began and the first winners were determined, two explosions a block apart from each other went off, causing destruction and disarray as runners, officials, and spectators struggled to make sense of the situation.
“I was saddened at the fact that bad situations keep happening to America when we don’t need anymore hate in our world. This also made me frightened because I had the realization that you are not ever truly ever safe. This was also such a tragedy, and I hope the people who committed this crime are severely punished,” says junior Gabrielle Tumminia.
The explosions came from bombs inside of pressure cookers inside backpacks left on the ground in the middle of crowds of spectators. The cookers were filled with metal, ball bearings, and nails. The purpose of the bombings seems, at this point, to be to hurt as many people as possible, not necessarily killing them, but causing many small injuries from the waist down. Many of the injured had to have their legs amputated due to the severity of the damage.
“I cannot believe that people can be this disgusting. I honestly don’t think there is a better way to describe it. You would think after 9/11 people would see the world differently and wouldn’t try to make something like that happen again, but, apparently, and unfortunately, they do not,” says senior Samantha Widmer.
Among the dead is an eight-year-old boy, Martin Richard, who was watching his father run in the marathon. Richard was standing with his mother and sister in close range of where the bomb was located, leaving his mother with brain damage and his sister now an amputee.
Krystee Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager is also one of the three dead. She attended the event with her friend, and was looking forward to taking a picture of her friend’s boyfriend when he crossed the finish line.
“This was tragic. I do not know what kind of person would do something that awful. It ruined an annual event,” says sophomore Jeffrey Gardner.
Authorities asked anyone and everyone who had photos or videos of the event to send them in for review, hoping to find something of a lead. After carefully searching surveillance tapes from the streets where the explosions went off, the FBI released video and photo identification of the two main suspects in this case. In the video they released, two Caucasian males wearing baseball caps can be seen walking on the sidewalk, both carrying backpacks.
Thursday night, the suspects were identified as brothers from Chechnya. The two shot a campus cop at MIT, even though they do not attend the school and are not in America on a student visa. In a shoot out with police, the older of the two Tamerlan (20) was shot dead, while the younger Dzhokhar (19) managed to escape, possibly possessing a firearm as well as a bomb. However, he was caught late Friday night after the whole city of Boston had been locked down for searching.
What happened at the 127th annual Boston Marathon is a true tragedy, and thoughts and prayers are surely being sent Boston’s way from the Falconer’s Voice, as well as the rest of the country.