(By John Tlumacki / Globe Staff)
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From the Boston Globe:
EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — A 78-year-old Washington state man running his third Boston Marathon was near the finish line when he was knocked down by one of two bomb blasts and caught in a news photograph that quickly went viral.
Bill Iffrig, of Lake Stevens, told The Herald of Everett that he heard a noise Monday and found himself on the ground.
‘‘It was only 5 feet away from me,’’ he said. ‘‘It was really loud.’’
He said he ended up with a scrape on his knee, and that a race official helped him to his feet.
Iffrig said most of the other runners near the area weren’t as close to the explosion as he was. He walked across the finish line and another half-mile to his hotel. Iffrig said of his proximity to the explosion that it was a ‘‘close one’’ and the experience ‘‘scared’’ him…
I kid you not: Every local Boston channel showed at least one interview with Mr. Iffrig, pleading for a how bad was it? how traumatized are you? do you think you can ever recover from the horror of that life- changing moment? sound bite, and he just would not take the bait. He got knocked down, scraped his knee, it was pretty scary. Then he got up, and a nice young volunteer made sure he could cross the finish line. Of course he finished the [unspoken expletive] race, he’d just run 26 miles and there was no point in quitting within yards of the goal. When one interviewer pushed him, he added that he’d run last year’s Marathon in the record-breaking heat, “and that was pretty bad, but today I was having a good run, right up until that bit at the end.”
Keep cahm n kerry ahn, indeed.
scav
Read somewhere he claimed to have finished second in his class. Keep cahm.
Applejinx
That is awesome. I also saw a picture of Steven Spielberg helping to carry injured people?
raven
@Applejinx: Apparently that is sketchy. I saw a clip and I was sure it was him and then found some stills posted but other folks have said no.
eta Of course we have this crazy fucker that was screaming at the governor at the press conference. He thinks it was all a fake put on to take away your liberty.
Valdivia
Admiration–I haz it.
Valdivia
I am reading on TPM that the now even more watered down Manchin Toomey cannot get enough votes. Fucking assholes.
raven
If he got knocked down, got up and moved forward and then left it probably wasn’t that bad. . .for him.
Anne Laurie
@Applejinx: Could be wrong, but the pic I saw just looked like every third Tweedy Bostonian Professional — lots of middle-aged upper-middle-class guys with beards and wire-rimmed glasses in this town.
(The Spousal Unit & I had to send a bunch of ha-ha-of-COURSE-we-weren’t-anywhere-near-the-site-of-such-strenuous-athletic-endeavor messages to family & friends yesterday, or I might have risked an unfortunate joke.)
raven
@Anne Laurie: Photo
Valdivia
@raven:
it does look like him!
raven
@Valdivia: So the conspiracy nut jobs are saying it was a movie.
Elizabelle
Love it.
I’m glad Mr. Iffrig is OK. Looks worse from the video.
raven
@Elizabelle: He went down because of his advanced age and the effect of the 26 mile run. I watched it many times and no one else in the area fell. I actually thought he got hit by shrapnel at first.
raven
There is a picture of him on the ground and at least one of the police officers have a gun drawn.
Todd
Deadspin has him pegged as a total badass because he made it back to his hotel sorta nonplussed. He’s pretty cool.
Cermet
Three dead and a still unknown number terribly maimed for life besides all the physiological damage that so many victims will suffer for years/life. So these/this sicko got the terror and horror they craved.
That said, I speculate from information given, so far, that this was either done by a rack amateur or a very calculating expert. The reason I say this is that the weapon yield was very low for a typical terrorist attack so more likely a homegrown terrorist. I feel it might be an amateur because such a man would more likely build a low yield bomb like a pipe bomb since gun powder is so available – talk about a substance that it is insane to sell to john doe public! (And if it is a pipe bomb that caused the dead/injuries.)
The reason I also suggested the later type of person is because the shrapnel pattern (either by design or accident) appeared to be directed to some extent (damper used?) – just from current reports of injuries it appears that the shrapnel hit more near the ground (all those leg injuries. Again, reports may be inaccurate.)
This attack pattern may change with more information but if this was innate to the bomb design, then the person really knew what they were doing. Also, then their motive (one, at least) and aim was, strangely, to create more lower type of injuries rather than just achieve more deaths.
While pure speculation and since information is sparse all this may be nonsense; however, it does appear to be homegrown terrorist – either an anti-government type hoping to make a statement on tax day or (and this is really out there but worth considering) an ex-runner aiming for mostly lower body injuries (i.e. legs) to attack the marathon itself. If the later terrorist type, then that would be really and truly bizarre.
HeartlandLiberal
@Valdivia: Beware of Trojan horses. Their bill is full of gifts to gun owners and manufacturers that will actually weaken gun control even more, and allow guns in the hands of those who clearly do not need them. Even gun nuts are supporting the bill for that reason. The bill deserves to die, because, like every bill coming out of Congress, it does the opposite of what it claims to be. Remember, we are living in the age of the Patriot Act. Do I need to explain everything that is wrong with that bill and the 24×7 warrantless surveillance and police state it has created?
As for the mainstream media coverage of the bombing at the marathon, could there be any clearer illustration of the useless, tabloid, shallow, and sensationalistic nature of current mainstream news reporting? Confirmation of why I hate what our journalistic establishment has become, and refuse to have anything to do with it anymore, other than our local small town newspaper, which still manages to report on what is happening in our community.
Linda Featheringill
Very Boston! I hadn’t seen it put that way. Cute! :-)
raven
Yea, I can think of one. The immediate screaming about the mainstream media coverage.
WereBear
It’s not political, because no one has come forward with claims to ownership. I mean, terrorism does not attack anonymously, that’s the whole point.
I actually thought “crazed person with running connection” myself
But then again, the famous NY bomber had a grudge against Con Edison… and bombed random targets. Yet, his first bomb WAS aimed at them:
zoot
if Mr. Iffrig and the rest of the runners had been packing heat this whole thing would have been avoided: feel the freedom!!!!
Why isn’t corporate media getting the NRA’s take on this…what does wayne lapierre have to say about this – sick morons are all dying to know.
MikeJ
@scav:
On the other hand he probably also finished last in his class. Maybe even last in the entire race.
Kathleen
I saw Mr. Iffrig interviewed on NBC. While he said he’d do another marathon, he was not eager to commit to running Boston again. Amazing guy. Very low key.
Todd
There’s something different in the public mood this time, can’t completely put my finger on it.
Try as the 24/7 newsies may, they aren’t inspiring the same sort of hysteria that they used to.
Elizabelle
@raven:
Yeah, I thought shrapnel too.
Sensational coverage of the Boston bombing is to laugh, but then you remember a dead 8 year old, two other dead, and grievous injuries.
Aren’t Brits better at this? Stiff upper lip; keep calm and carry on.
hamletta
@MikeJ: And into the pie crust you go!
Elizabelle
Oh gawd.
Tuned in Morning Joe to watch the hyperventilating.
Enormous graphic: TERROR IN BOSTON
Checking out top of network broadcasts now. Awaiting their serious voices.
Keith G
@raven: I saw several pics of that guy (I didn’t watch TV, but waded through collections of photographs and video online) and it seems to me that the individual in question is younger and taller than Spielberg.
For better or worse, the photos of the younger man who suffered the double traumatic amputation are seared in my brain.
hamletta
@Cermet: You throw out many words, Mrs. Malaprop.
F’rex: “rack amateur.” It’s “rank amateur.”
Have I mentioned you’re full of shit?
Elizabelle
NBC going with “TERROR IN BOSTON”
ABC has “TERROR AT THE BOSTON MARATHON”
CBS softpedals it, no graphic, promising “your world in 90 seconds.” All right CBS! And it’s all Boston. *smacks forehead*
Elizabelle
BBC America covering Boston in full, but more measured and no graphics package. Yea Brits!
And correspondent mentions anti-government and Tax Day, and the ominous April 19 anniversaries coming up (Waco/Branch Davidians and Oklahoma City/McVeigh bombing).
Now: an earthquake in Iran, magnitude 8 tremor reaching to New Delhi.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
“Terrorism” is one of those words that is ruined. It has a specific meaning but people attach a whole set of assumptions to it when they hear it, especially if they are inclined towards those assumptions anyway.
Obama’s smart to avoid it. Conservatives have attached a whole host of political and ideological baggage to it that shouldn’t be there but is.
Keith G
@hamletta:
That is always a possibility, still I am wondering what are the supports for this argument you are making?
Punchy
@Elizabelle: why y’all upset by the headline? How was this not terrorism?
Elizabelle
@Punchy:
It’s a murderous bombing, and tragic.
I’m fussing more about the sensational packaging of it. If it bleeds it leads, and if you can show or discuss severed limbs, all the better.
CBS will have Mr. Iffrig on in a few.
BBC America covering world finance, Syria, technology. Oh, and Baroness Thatcher is still aboveground. State funeral tomorrow.
All TERROR all the time on US networks.
mai naem
@WereBear: Wow, hadn’t heard about it being an ex-runner. That would have to one whacked out person. Funny watching Tom Ridge on Morning Ho, saying he shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions then going back to Mika who’s …”Yeah, us tooo, then she goes right back to speculating.
MikeJ
@Elizabelle:
I’m guessing you weren’t in London watching TV on 7/7. Or even when Croydon was burning.
Punchy
@Elizabelle: come on, be logical about this. It leads b/c not every marathon ends with 2 bomb blasts. It leads b/c its East coast. It leads b/c the suspect(s) are still at large and pose a hypothetical threat to others….
Kay
@Elizabelle:
It’s weird, because they know the meaning has been muddled or manipulated and is used politically. They made the distinction over and over yesterday, “we DON’T know if this is domestic” but they ALSO jump on the GOP bandwagon where conservatives have re-defined the word to include assumptions about actors and motive.
They have to decide. They can’t reclaim the word while promoting the political use of the word.
Keith G
@Elizabelle:
If this were a school/church bus accident in Yazoo, MS, I would agree.
Two out of three bombs exploding in the center of a major American city is gonna be a loud, visual story. Add in the possibility of all the (maybe) terror connections….
You are fussing at the sunrise.
Edit… As I type this birds outside my window are announcing this sunrise. Let’s all try to get away from the news for a bit today and find a bit of peace in this new Spring day.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
It could easily have been a single guy. Pipe bombs aren’t hard to make and small enough to emplace without attracting any notice. If they were triggered by a cell phone in each one, however, the whole plan was startlingly inept.
The way I reconstruct it—and I’m pulling all this out of my ass, so feel free to reject it—if it had been more than one person they could have dialed more than one simultaneously. As it is, the bomber dialed the first device; it went off. He dialed the second device; 15 seconds later, it went off.
He tried to dial the third device, but by that time so many people in the immediate area were clogging up the system that the call dropped and it never went off, nor did the fourth. (We know there were at least four: two went off, the bomb squad detonated one and defused one intact.)
This really shows amazing cluelessness. It’s exactly what you would expect from some Tea Party clown—anybody with any training at all would have known about the effect the first two blasts would have on cell phone traffic and taken measures to speed up the process.
Or, I’m full of shit. But it sure doesn’t carry the earmarks of an international terrorist conspiracy to me.
danielx
@hamletta:
Actually, it was fairly amateurish, which is not in any way to diminish the deaths, injuries and terror inflicted. But if those devices had been assembled by someone who really knew what he was doing, wanted to inflict a lot of casualties and who, god forbid, had access to military-grade explosives or even just plain old mining explosives, there would have been a lot more deaths and injuries. Making something like a homebuilt directional mine is well within the capabilities of a lot of people throughout the world, including what is politely referred to as the U.S. Special Operations community.
But what was done is more than bad enough; as that wise man V.I. Lenin once remarked, the purpose of terror is to terrorize. It does make one wonder what the reaction will be on the part of our feckless legislators – Patriot Act II coming right up?
BruceFromOhio
It’s the endless televised regurgitation posing as speculative banter that makes me want to break things. Just give me the facts, refer to one or two experts, and move on.
Fucking vultures.
ETA: Mr Iffrig, you have set the bar. Well done, sir.
raven
Don’t consider the idea that the horrid MSM doesn’t tailor content for people that watch it hour-in-and-hour-out. Maybe they think people who tune in want information so they put out what they have. This event is certainly dominating but to say there is nothing else is just wrong.
raven
@BruceFromOhio: Turn it the fuck off.
danielx
Also, too – I was at a bar last night with a friend and they had Fox News on with Sean Hannity bloviating. I don’t know why, but I find him almost more obnoxious than Rush Limbaugh, possibly because of Hannity’s sanctimonious air. The sound was turned off so I was mentally making up the dialogue and it was still fit to make to make a drill instructor puke.
JPL
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge: The Boston Globe has a story on how crudely built the bombs were.
JPL
@JPL: here’s the link
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
Thanks, JPL.
bg
Carlos Arredondo, who was running in the race for Iraq vets, lost a son in Iraq and was beaten up at an anti-war rally, helped rescue the victims.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/16/17773869-the-man-in-the-hat-at-boston-marathon-finish-line-carlos-arredondo-didnt-set-out-to-be-hero?lite
Schlemizel
@WereBear:
I don’t recall Erick Rudolph taking credit for the Atlanta blasts.
We can all sit around and talk about it but it all means nothing. If it makes us feel better I suppose that OK but its all pointless supposition.
Valdivia
omg, they are still beating the Saudi man thing to death. Because people saw him running away from the explosion and he had serious burns. Gah!!!! Running while brown. Shame on these fucking people.
MikeJ
@Schlemizel:
It’s been a while since I read it, but I don’t think they took credit at the beginning of The Turner Diaries either, and it’s been a blueprint for rightwingers for decades.
raven
@bg: He wasn’t running, someone else was running in his son’s honor. Also, he was trying to help people who were wounded and he WAS traumatized unlike MR Iffrig who got knocked down, got up and continued on.
“Arredondo’s story appears equally dramatic, and harrowing. He was reportedly waiting at the finish to greet a runner who was competing in the race in memory of his son, Alexander Arredondo, a lance corporal in the Marines who was killed by a sniper in 2004 in Iraq. Carlos Arredondo, a self-employed handyman, reacted to the news by attempting to set fire to himself inside a van, suffering severe burns. . .
Video footage shot after the blasts shows Arredondo, still gripping the blood-soaked flag, shaking in shock as he describes the scene to people on the street, describing the apparent cause of the blast as an IED-type bomb.’
danielx
Excellent advice from that wise man John Rogers of Kung Fu Monkey; he who postulated the 27% Crazification Factor.
gene108
@danielx:
That would be USA PATRIOT Act 3, we’ve already done 2.
Also, too who ever came up with the acronym USA PATRIOT Act deserves a medal, because it really made the law like a club to be used against people, who didn’t vote for it.
scav
@gene108: And in excellent timing NYT (April16, 2013) U.S. Practiced Torture After 9/11, Nonpartisan Review Concludes
GregB
@raven:
Jesus Christ, a Zelig of human tragedy.
But I am with Kung Fu Monkey, this changes nothing. Keep cahm.
Cermet
@hamletta: I have carefully stated my post is speculation but is based on information currently available – so what hair is up your ass? If you can’t handle reading posts here, go play with other’s more at your low level IQ. Typo’s are normal in any posting – wow, your are so important to catch that mistake – lol.
Also, some unconfirmed sources have said the device used ball bearings (I think that is a big if considering) – that would be strange for anyone but an expert to use those – not the best cutting weapon for shrapnel; rather, screws or nails work better and are cheaper/easier to obtain but ball bearings are extremely good for distance.
WereBear
@mai naem: To be clear, I’m just speculating, as the commenter I quoted was.
Just trying to come up with reasons for the target, and the way it was done.
If this were a movie, of course it would be a deranged, disabled, war veteran. And it might be. But we don’t know.
cvstoner
Voice of reason.
Gin & Tonic
@Cermet: Time for airing a pet peeve. Those small round things are balls, not ball bearings. The ball bearing is the whole assembly that holds the balls, the “race” they roll in and, of course, the balls. But take the balls out and put them in a bag or a box and they are just steel balls.
Yeah, I know it’s a lost cause.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@Gin & Tonic:
Don’t get me started on people calling sheetrock “drywall”, now!
magurakurin
@hamletta:
I kind of like “rack amateur” though. A bit like “garden variety dickhead,” an “off the rack” amateur. “What a rack asshole,” has a nice ring. Not only is the person an asshole, but they are so not different from any other, run of the mill, garden variety, off the rack asshole, that they are barely even worth considering.
I like it.
magurakurin
@Punchy:
It is possible that is just some sick fuck who is getting his jollies from blowing off people’s legs and arms. Unless there is some sort of political objective or message (however twisted or perverse that may be) every single act of violence is not immediately terrorism.
AxelFoley
@Gin & Tonic: @Cermet: Time for airing a pet peeve. Those small round things are balls, not ball bearings. The ball bearing is the whole assembly that holds the balls, the “race” they roll in and, of course, the balls. But take the balls out and put them in a bag or a box and they are just steel balls.
Yeah, I know it’s a lost cause.
Gin & Tonic
@AxelFoley: I’d call it a ball housing or casing. Reducing rotational friction is not the testicles’ primary function.
TooManyJens
I’m running in the half-marathon at the Illinois Marathon on the 27th. I just heard a radio interview with the director, who said that not only are people not getting scared and backing out, but 440 more people signed up yesterday.
“It was a rush, not a retreat.”
Runners, fuck yeah.
Fort Geek
I wonder how much of the low-key reaction across the country is because President No-Drama Obama sets a calm tone.
Reminds me of that picture of him captioned with “Everybody chill the fuck out. I got this.”
Bush would have paused from clearing brush and dug out that 10-gallon hat for his 2-gallon head so he could climb up on a firetruck and deliver the “dead or alive” speech again. His lackeys would be not-subtly hitting media panic buttons.
schrodinger's cat
@TooManyJens: Last couple of years I have slacked off on my running. This incident makes me want to start training for a marathon in fall or at least a half marathon.
TooManyJens
@schrodinger’s cat: Do it! This is making me want to train for the full. Hell, it’s making me wish I could switch my registration for next weekend to the full even though I’m not trained for it.
Mnemosyne
I was very relieved to wake up this morning and discover that the bomb-maker was incompetent and didn’t manage to kill nearly as many people as he probably hoped. With luck, we’ll catch him before he can work on his “craft” and make deadlier bombs for next time.
(The more solid information that comes in, the more this looks like an Eric Rudolph type, striking out against the “decadent” liberals, so I’m also assuming he will at least try to strike again.)
BruceFromOhio
@raven: Never turned it the fuck on. Had enough of it with Newtown.
ETA: @TooManyJens: Awesome. Thank you.
Wapiti
@Schlemizel:
Rudolf didn’t take credit for that attack until after being convicted.
Al Qaeda/bin Laden didn’t claim responsibility for 9-11 until 3 years later.
McVeigh was busted before he made a claim for Oklahoma City, as far as I can tell.
I think the idea that there must be a claim for something to be terrorism is dead.
Short Bus Bully
Understatement lives on. This ability to cope with shit properly, this is what we can learn from our elders such as Mr. Effrig.
Well done, sir.
kc
Not only that, the old fella is almost as fast as Paul Ryan.
Chris
@magurakurin:
I miss the days when terrorism was treated as a common crime, because you didn’t want to dignify it by acknowledging its political content or give the impression that politics (as opposed to murder) was the reason you were going after the terrorists.
LittlePig
@raven:
My first thought was heart attack, because he appeared to clutch his chest before he crumpled. I thought shrapnel until I saw that nobody else that far out was effected. I wondered last night if he had died.
I hooped and hollered when the 8:30 am (CDT) NPR bumper was about the old guy. I had no idea what his name was, but I knew who they were talking about.
Awesome.
redheadedfemme
As far as I’m concerned, that photograph should win the Pulitzer Prize.