Notes on Boston events

[Conan The Librarian]

The thing that real jumped out at me is the military nature of the police. Since when do they have that many armored vehicles, and since when do they have storm troopers all dressed like Darth Vader?
 
9/11 was one heck of an effective attack. This one was too, when you look at how it shut down much of Boston, including air space, for quite a while. The terrorists got the reward they are looking for.
 
Interesting to note that the thermal imaging got a lot of credit when it was really a person's observation and phone call that ended it.
 
Notable quote from head of "homeland" "security": "There is no larger plot". Apparently there is.
 
With the publicity given to this bombing, do you think we've hit the tipping point where those intent on mayhem consider bombs as the weapon of choice? I certainly hope not.  Likewise for copy cats. I hope there are none, but that seems almost like too much to hope for.
 
Bless the injured, the dead, and their families.

[Empty Quiver]

I believe it was a perfect storm of sorts. I'm not sure we will see this sort of response again.


The entire incident was caught on film. It was during an iconic American event. It was for the most part the first time. The police have a crap ton of new toys they have never been able to use. Couple that with a police force that is no doubt familiar with a   war    on terror, on a battle field. Combine these things and you have a week in Afghanistan right here in America.


Soon the bill will come due. The overtime, the repairs to countless buildings, boats, cars, etc. No doubt these two little sumbitches will be multimillion dollar thugs.


Much was learned, some good and some bad. The response next time will be different. The outcome will be similar, but the road will change.

[spruce]

One thing that struck me as I was watching the search going on was the lack of coordination of the multitude of police departments involved.  I had the sense that in general the search was somewhat "fragmented", with each group doing it's own thing.
 
The search teams knew how to search a house, but had no training on how to properly "sweep" a large area.  There seemed to be no chain of command in place to coordinate the various departments and teams as to searching in a methodical pattern and then securing the area they had already searched.  Seems it would have been relatively easy (with a little luck) for the suspect to sneak back into an area that had already been searched.
 
This is not the fault of the officers doing the searching, but on the command structure and the politics involved in the upper echelons of the various agencies.
 
All day long the politicians (Governor, Mayors, heads of police departments) were talking about what a "huge area" they were searching, yet according to a civilian the suspect was caught about 3/8 of a mile from where the chase ended and the firefight occurred the night before!