Twitter seems to be the only way to really follow what is going on in Boston and its suburbs. I just have to rely on my own filter to weed through the fire hydrant of information and decide what is reliable and what is not. Every other media source is too slow. The cable stations can’t keep up.
I think we only have a small piece of this puzzle solved right now. There are definitely more than just two people involved. In addition to the two brothers who were presented as suspects by the FBI yesterday, there’s someone suspected of being on a train and another man in his 60’s or 70’s who was confronted on Arsenal Street in the Watertown area. He supposedly had an explosive vest or device of some kind and possibly a trigger in his hand.
We will have to wait until things settle down until we can come to any conclusions about who is responsible for yesterday’s crimes and the marathon bombing. And then we’ll have to decide what it means as far as policy after that.
We know too little right now to draw conclusions.
Meanwhile, this story draws the oxygen out of the media and blogosphere. What else is going on?
To my mind, this story is of the same nature as one of the mass shootings that we have seen recently involving young white men.
But because they are “furriners”, the tendency is to strain to tie it with terrorism.
Quite frankly, that is a way to romanticize terrorism. For some types of people.
This is the best meta-tweet I’ve seen regarding twitter’s role.
yeah, I saw that and laughed.
Aren’t you concerned that a lot of the info you see on Twitter is b.s.?
Choose who to follow carefully.
But then, there was this insightful comment on Twitter:
Sure, but last night I was able to follow a running gun battle through people monitoring the police scanners, people who lived in the area, people and reporters on or near the scene. It was incredible. And it went on for an hour before the cable news even went live. I even got pictures of a bullet-riddled chair in a dude’s house mere minutes after it happened.
Ah, primary sources. Got it.
The uncle is doing his best to look and sound like an American, didn’t see it coming. Nevertheless, his brother is staying overseas (Chechnya or Dagestan?), sister-in-law Zubeidat Tsarnaeva was arrested last year and he hasn’t seen his nephews for a couple of years.
There was no chatter on the intelligence lines, so I do believe the brothers were loners, became losers and radicalized while living in Cambridge. The older brother clearly had sympathy for extremist Islam – see my diary.
In the interview to ABC, Anzor Tsarnaev confessed he talked with his son about the bombing earlier this week.
The father of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Anzor Tsarnaev, says his son, who still remains at large, is “accomplished medical student” and “a true angel”. He spoke from the city of Makhachkala, capital of the Russian republic of Dagestan, shortly after police said his other son, 26-year-old Tamerlan, had been killed in a shootout.
“We talked about the bombing. I was worried about them,” he said.
Anzor Tsarnaev called on his son to give up peacefully. At the same time he warned that if the US kills his son, “all hell will break loose”.
The uncle lied about the birthplace of the brothers, claimed they are not Chechyan but are from Kyrgystan. From RT article, they fled Chechnya, stayed a year or so in Dagestan and moved to Kyrgystan in 2001 before traveling to the US as a refugee.
Someone pointed out in the video, there is a woman in yellow with backpack following the two men … an accomplish? The sister of the brothers refused an interview with the press.
I have not checked on Twitter. The right-wing nuts have been bashing Islam and immigration all over comment posts. CNN, and even the Washington Post, have comment threads that are hateful of entire groups, blaming Obama for “letting these non-real-Americans in the country” and jumping to conclusions based on their prejudices. They sound like they were hoping for slightly darker-skinned people to be the perpetrators. F-ing bigots. They make these situations worse.
Is it confirmed that they came to the US in 2002 or so? This would mean not only well before Obama’s administration began but also at the height of post-9/11 paranoia. Immigration scrutiny would presumably have been high.
Under the Shrub and Cheney, the only things that were at a high level were noisy incompetence and finger-pointing.
In 2002 would a 15-year-old and an 8-year-old would show up on anyone’s radar? It seems to me that we have over a decade of mistaken profiling to lean back on and distract from real threat analysis. And what were BPD resources used on in the past couple of years? Suppressing Occupy Boston, for one thing.
Scrutiny has to be of behavior, not identity. And like the recent mass murders, no one saw this coming. Not friends or relatives.
Unfortunate, the Obama administration is making a similar mistake with Syria.
It’s a routine Boston police operation. They are keeping Dunkin Donuts open.
Otherwise, paramilitary SWAT teams, helicopter surveillance, and pontificating politicians (yes, Congress finally got to work this morning). The new normal?
No? The New Extreme? Used very rarely? Under the most unusual of circumstances? For brief periods?
What’s this use of the question mark called? The Fox Mark, or something?
The libertarians are whining, crying, and bitching about how the people of Boston are being denied their civil rights. The suggestion that they stay in doors is seen as a taking away their freedom/liberty.
Just curious as to what’s the legal authority for this. Is it a specific law or does it fall under general public safety?
Note: I obviously think this is a better plan that arming people and sending them into the streets.
It was just a request not an order, anyone is free to take their chances.
It’s really no different from the annual suggestions from the Department of Health that people stay indoors in the evening during EEE season.
Where are all the Tea Partiers? Shouldn’t they be rising up and taking to the streets against the tyranny that is being imposed on them? Isn’t this the fight they have all been waiting for? Rise up, Baggers!! Grab your tri-corner hats and your DON’T TREAD ON ME flags and exercise your liberty!
Libertarians not admitting that the police did not order anyone to stay in, just advised them to. Libertarians in Boston can still take their chances.
“libertarian”. Isn’t that a fancy word for “idiot”?
I live a few hundred yards from the Watertown line. This sucks.
they are so trying to de-WHITE these young terrorists.
Any confirmation on the suicide vest story, Boo?
I don’t know. I’ve been checking out his [friends https:/twitter.com/ChinksMcGee] on [Twitter https:/twitter.com/Cool_BlackGuy]. The second guy recognized him instantly and Tweeted about it.
the guy who lost his legs in that iconic photo id’ed the bastard. Said he dropped the bag in front of him, they made eye contact, and BLAMMO.
Apparently, he id’ed the guy from his hospital bed in the immediate aftermath.
I am counting down the hours til they find suspect 2. That dude is in a WORLD OF SHIT.
This story just keeps getting weirder.
Damn! I just got off from work. It’s amazing what things you miss when your in the basement (most labs in hospital are on ground floor or basement). Shit I got a lot to catch up on.
where is the best place to get a timeline/point by point writeup where I can read about what I missed
Meanwhile, when the world is not watching:
Wow. IIRC that was completely blatant.
Cops are always heroes who can do no wrong. This sort of impunity has a long history in this country.
Random thought: given all the violent, hate-filled sentiments finding expression today, and despite his terrible record on civil liberties, aren’t you glad that Obama, rather than Bush, McCain, or Romney, is in the White House right now?
At least nobody in an official capacity is blaming the whole mess on Iran. Yet.
Weird story. Really weird. A lot we don’t know.
so I’ve gotten updated on the suspects and it would seem they RE NOT North African.
Just sayin.