My connection with the Boston Marathon was slight. I have donated money over the years to friends who were running for the benefit of one hospital or another, their 4-hour times not sufficient to qualify under the standard rules. I have seen a few friends run fast enough (3 hours?) that they actually qualified. I photographed the 100th anniversary event back in 1996 for Hearst Magazines (see my 100th anniversary Boston Marathon photos). I’ve flown aerial photographers over the event in an East Coast Aero Club helicopter.
Security has not been a primary concern for most Bostonians. We’re not a center of commerce like New York. We’re not a center of power like Washington, D.C. or many of the other cities that have suffered attacks like this. The massive changes in U.S. society since 9/11 touched us mostly when we dealt with TSA at Logan Airport , when we need to visit a high-rise office building tenant for a meeting (ID checks now required in the lobby), or when someone wants to take a helicopter tour during a Red Sox game (a 3-mile, 3000′ “no fly” zone is established over Major League Baseball stadiums, ostensibly to improve security but primarily as a means of excluding advertising competition from banner-towing planes (the typical terrorist would not be worried about violating a regulatory flight restriction such as this one)). We don’t have so many government buildings that our sidewalks are now littered with concrete blocks for protection against truck bombs. It is rare for hundreds of police and Secret Service to shut down large parts of our city for a politician’s visit (Massachusetts is virtually guaranteed to vote for a Democrat so Obama did not campaign here, though he sometimes shows up for fundraising events, thus shutting down the city for all but the donors; Obama’s annual vacations on Martha’s Vineyard have a huge impact on life and commerce there but most Bostonians aren’t rich enough to go to the Vineyard).
People seem to be in shock right now, unsure what to do differently going forward and trying to figure out what happened yesterday. In a metro area of about three million there were not so many who need any kind of direct help as a result of this attack. Therefore the majority of us are left to feel helpless and watch the news.
[I have fielded about 100 emails, text messages, and phone calls from friends and family. It turned out that I spent yesterday practicing 6 instrument approaches in a Cirrus SR20. I flew the eight-year-old four-seat airplane while wearing a hood that obscured my view of the natural horizon. Two pilot friends watched from additional seats to make sure that we did not conflict with other aircraft (the one friend in front is designated the “safety pilot”). We flew from Hanscom Field to Danbury, Connecticut and back for lunch with my cousin and her four-year-old son. Personal aviation is not typically regarded as safer than being a sports spectator but yesterday was an exception. None of my friends were injured, but friends of friends were.]
Today I photographed a relative as she was sworn in as an attorney at a supreme court in a state where the justices literally get into physical altercations and allegedly choke each other. And yet, I was warned that wearing anything less than a tie may jeopardize the dignity of the court and I could be removed. The court brought up yesterday’s incident in Boston and spoke of living in very uncertain times.
While I asked myself what should we change going forward? What is the next move from our courageous elected officials? Maybe they participate in next years marathon in a show of strength and solidarity. Nah. they passed this little piece of legislation: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130416/08344222725/congress-quickly-quietly-rolls-back-insider-trading-rules-itself.shtml
So, the lesson of the day, is if you are wearing a tie, your actions are dignified, no matter how despicable. Funny, I didn’t see a single suit out there yesterday using his tie as a tourniquet while dragging a wounded victim to an ambulance. Yeah, the court today got jeans and they should be happy with that.
This got very personal to me. I was visiting MIT and Boston for a weekend break, and for the first time in my life went to see the Boston Marathon finish line. I had my two cellphones (iPhone 5 on AT&T and LG Nexus 4 on T Mobile) as well as my DSC-RX 100 camera. I ran out of storage space on both my DSC-RX 100 and my iPhone 5, I tried to buy an SD card at both the AT&T store and the Apple store on Boylston but neither had it. The DSC RX-100 can still take photos, but the storage for videos went low a few feet before the finish line, so the videos from then on are on my Nexus.
I took pics and videos on each side of the finish line, all the while talking trash to myself. Then I decide I have seen everything to see and start walking back.
I am just about to arrive at the intersection of Boylston and Exeter when I hear a loud explosion behind me (and I now see in maps, literally right behind me was where the first explosion occurred!). My first thought was, this is really bad, and start running down Exeter towards Beacon street (and hear the second explosion), video blogging be damned. My instinct told me that Boston Marathon finish line is a perfect setting for a scumbag wanting to cause damage and seek attention, and sadly this time my instinct was right. People laugh when I say “only the paranoid survive”, but this time my paranoia helped. (Strangely and thankfully, I was calm and rational the entire time, only felt sad the next day watching the news. )
A couple blocks down (around Comm Ave I think) I felt safe enough to resume the video blogs, and started documenting reactions, etc. Lots of “interesting” things happened later in the day (all caught on my camera), but is less relevant here.
Phil, I haven’t shared any of my videos with law enforcement yet because my understanding is they have a right to seize it and not bother returning it. I already backed everything up in the cloud, and if there is anything in these videos that can help law enforcement find the responsible, I would love to help, provided I can keep my photos and videos (they are personal memories after all). Also, it would be interesting if all of this video stuff is being processed by AI and vision researchers at MIT, I bet they have stuff there that would make the forensics easier and faster.
Anyway, just a few thoughts. Phil, I am still in Boston, you can see my email address, so if you can give me any suggestions/pointers, either in this blog or in private, I would appreciate it.
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_23045629/boston-marathon-bombings-dogs-that-provided-comfort-sandy
Quick update, I did share most of my videos and photos with Boston PD. Their IT equipment was subpar, but I was glad I was able to help them with some basic IT, right at the time when Obama was across the street giving a speech at the Holy Cross. Boston Police was laughing that Obama’s trips inconvenience them, which is I guess stating the obvious. But a lot of people get solace from the president so it is worth it IMO.
In any case, I have looked back at my videos myself since and found nothing useful, no images of the two suspects in any of my videos and photos. I was probably a few mins too late for catching them on camera, and left a few secs too early (thankfully!) to be able to film or photograph the actual explosions. (I could have stuck around to video the second one, but after the first one my only instinct was “run for my life”).
I am safely back in SF now.