The Boston Marathon and 102 Hours We Will Never Forget

It took me a while to fully digest the entirety of the Boston Bombings. Especially since the whole saga took place in my back yard. This piece is something I've been writing this since the night they caught Dzhokhar Tsarnayev, and this is just one Bostonian's perspective on the week that felt like Boston turned into Gotham City. 

Time stops. Work too. All you can think about is your phone, your contacts list. This is Boston. Everyone knows people in the city and many more in Almost Boston (Brighton, Allston, Watertown, Brookline). If you were lucky enough for fate to spare everyone you care about, you knew one of them might have a victim in their phone book. 200+ injured? It's the smallest big city in the world filled with gregarious, outgoing individuals, and it's the heaviest day of the year for foot traffic. You couldn't help but fear the worst.

Since the attack, I've heard the argument "don't say this could have been worse, it's disrespectful to the victims." I disagree. This was a very serious attack. Had the bombers placed their bags higher, the blast radius would have been wider, and instead of shrapnel flying at people's legs, it's flying at their heads and chests, and instead of amputees, we have body bags. They also had several bombs in their home in Cambridge. Marathon Day clearly was not the only attack they planned. This could have been much worse with very little effort on the part of these cowards the day of the bombing.

These guys intended for this to be their London Bombings, an assault that killed 52 and injured over 700. No one wants to see 500+ more victims and their families and loved ones join in the despair of being that person who knew that person. I don't know about the rest of you here in Boston and Almost Boston, but I was fuckin' rattled.

No one close to me was harmed, but the 102 hours of the Boston Marathon Bombings was like a series of 102 mph inside fastballs for me. I knew several people that were way too close to the bombs on Monday. A few of them were less than a mile away, one of which was high up above the blast and could "only see blood and smoke" from her office. Another friend took this picture from the finish line 2 hours before the first bomb went off.

Tuesday and Wednesday were eerie, especially Tuesday. The best way I can depict Boston and Almost Boston is that an army moved in and they were operating at DEFCON 1. I had a meeting down by Fenway Park and decided to walk from Brighton, just to see what the criminal investigation and security operation in the wake of the largest terrorist attack since 9/11 looked like.

Comm Ave. heading out of Boston and towards the Mass Pike had an unusual amount of fit middle aged men and women (the stretch between BU and BC, it's usually filled with students). Ambulances seemed to be running at an almost constant pace. Every vehicle had their lights flashing at all times. It was as if a police state was putting on some sort of ballet. Wednesday was a little more mellow. But there was still a near constant police presence. A siren would jump you from your seat every 15 minutes or so.

Thursday night, I found myself outside of Boston and Almost Boston. My sister is down to her final choices for college and came out from Colorado to visit some schools. I spent most of this time glued to Twitter*, as I had been from the moment I read "bombing at the marathon?" on gchat.

*This experience validated my faith in our design of Pollis.com. Journalism is ALIVE and very well, especially here in Boston. We just need to clear all the useless clutter and slow the eff down. Oh, and everyone, STOP LIVE TWEETING POLICE SCANNERS. They're not an official source and you're helping criminals in the process.

As Thursday night drew to a close, the younger brother made a mistake that proved fatal to both of them. In another "way too close" moment, my friend in Cambridge walked in to 7-11 at 10:25 pm. That same 7-11 snapped the kid's picture going out the door at 10:30 and the chase began. We checked in to our hotel room outside Boston around 11.

Shortly after we settled in, we heard that people were throwing grenades out the window of a stolen car. Who the hell steals a car using explosives? It had to be them. I turned on the police scanner. A skirmish broke out just off of Mt. Auburn Road, a 5 minute drive from my apartment. Over 200 bullets were exchanged, a pressurized bomb kind of exploded because the jackass who threw it couldn't keep the top on, and two car accidents occurred.

A quick tangent about the police: For that level of chaos, it sounded fairly tame on the scanner. I didn't realize how bad it was until I started reading about the firefight the next day. The Boston Police Department was ruthlessly efficient and remarkably composed throughout this terrifying ordeal. Sorry CM Punk, BPD stole your title.

I laid frozen in fear in our hotel room, miles away from my home, and followed the firefight taking place minutes from my roommate and my close friend down the street, who were both locked indoors like the rest of the city. Once the younger brother got out of the car and ran, all that separated him from my neighborhood was the Charles River. Around 4 am, there were reports that he was in fact, heading to the river, a moment where several of my friends sat within a 2 mile radius of him. I refreshed my phone in horror for another couple hours before passing out as we descended into an information blackout.

Friday on lock down was tense. After visiting a college in the morning, my dad, sister and I set out to their hotel in Boston. I made the mistake of not driving, because my father, with no knowledge of the circular nature of downtown Boston, made a wrong turn and we drifted towards South Station and the Prudential; the two "DO NOT ENTER" areas of Boston that day. The city was populated only with officers from the Coast Guard, ATF, BPD, and FBI decked out in military garb. It felt as if Batman and the Joker were about to throw down in the middle of Government Center.

Seriously, this is what it looked like. Complete ghost town.

My sister and I sat down and overlooked the waterfront as we ate lunch. We watched five men with assault rifles patrol along the docks. An SUV that was basically a small tank would pass by every 15 minutes or so. We could see two pretty clear checkpoints, one of which was fortified. A handful of people were jogging and walking their dogs. It was disturbingly quiet.

The only real lead that had surfaced all day was the discovery of their home which was literally around the corner from where I worked in Cambridge. I would walk to and from my job and I unknowingly passed those bastard's green Civic twice a day. Four times when I would go out for lunch. I remember their car with shitty silver lining around the tail lights, and their plate number: 116-GC7 (I have a little bit of OCD and it leads me to read a lot of stuff, including license plates). It was parked right next to the church at the end of their street almost every morning.

For all of us who hovered around them and feel some level of guilt (like their apoplectic mechanic): It is painful knowing that if you could go back in time with the knowledge of 4/15/2013, you would be in position to stop them. But you didn't know, and you couldn't. Our takeaway from this should be to increase our vigilance in combating threats to the public. Every one of us has a camera and a GPS in our pockets. Reporting crimes or suspicious stuff is easy, and we all need to assume a larger responsibility to make our communities safe for our friends and families.

On Friday night, when they finally caught Dzokhar, I was overwhelmed by a rush of adrenaline and my spine was tingling intensely. It was as if a giant block of ice fractured off the top of my neck and fell to the ground, bursting into a million pieces, enabling my back to feel warmth for the first time in days. "We got him" was all that filled my head for the next few minutes as tears welled up in my eyes. I didn't have to worry about the safety of my friends anymore. The last standoff in Watertown was especially stressful because it was clear it was over, we just didn't know the outcome of final chapter of the saga. If he had a suicide vest, it could end tragically with the whole world watching. Thankfully, our law enforcement played it perfectly and took the kid alive.

The next day, I went to the game at Fenway Park. The pregame ceremony was incredibly well done and extremely moving. The crowd was appropriately rowdy. Big Papi solidified his status as a top 10 most beloved Boston athlete of all time by coining a phrase that should appear at the bottom of every Massachusetts license plate: This is our fucking city.

The game itself was a metaphor for the entire week. The Sox and Royals battled in a 1 run affair the entire day, with Boston playing from behind for most of the contest until Daniel Nava hit a dramatic 3 run home run with 2 outs in the 8th inning. Then, in the 9th, Andrew Bailey gave up a blast that landed just short of the Citgo sign, laboring through an incredibly stressful save. Fenway erupted as the Sox recorded the final out and "Dirty Water" blared from the speakers. It was the most incredible experience I've ever had at a sporting event.

Sunday, we headed down to Boylston Street just to see what the aftermath was like. The FBI still controlled about a 3/4 mile stretch of road. The scene was very peaceful and quiet despite having about a hundred people hanging around and talking to each other. Many were taking pictures then moving along so others could get up close to the memorial and pay their respects. The international presence was strong as well. A cameraman and a reporter from France stood behind me, and a German contingent to their right filmed the crowd as I snapped this first picture.

The memorial down by the Public Library

It was vitally important to catch these guys and catch them quickly. This was the first serious terrorist attack since 9/11 and the escalation of the surveillance state. The United States needed to establish a precedent for all future cowards to see.

Terrorism is all about images. They attack high profile targets with the intention of killing as many people as possible. So the optics that are shared with the rest of the world are vitally important to the outcome of the battle. They believe they are exposing our soul with their madness, claiming that our hearts are blackened by evil and this event will prove it. Well, they got one part right. Our character was, in fact, on full display during the Boston Marathon. The enduring images from this tragedy will be those of the helpers and the good people who opened their arms to the victims. These ideologues forced our true nature to come out, and it was overflowing with goodness.