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Blasts at Boston Marathon Kill 2 Boston Marathon Blasts Kill 3 and Maim Dozens
(about 2 hours later)
BOSTON — Two bombs exploded near the finish line at the Boston Marathon on Monday, leaving two people dead and dozens more wounded. BOSTON — Two powerful bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday afternoon, killing three people, maiming dozens and transforming one of this city’s most cherished rites of spring from a scene of cheers and sweaty triumph to one of screams, bloody carnage and death.
A third explosion was heard just before 4 p.m., about an hour after the first two blasts, at the nearby John F. Kennedy Library. The police later said that episode may have been unrelated. Some three-quarters of the 23,000 runners who participated in the race had already crossed the finish line when a bomb that had apparently been placed in a garbage can exploded in a haze of smoke amid a crowd of spectators on Boylston Street, just off Copley Square in the heart of the city. It was around 2:50 p.m., more than four hours after the race had started, officials said. Within seconds, another bomb exploded several hundred yards away. 
The two explosions, which occurred seconds apart, created a chaotic scene, as wounded runners and bloodied spectators were helped to a nearby tent that was being used for weary runners, The Associated Press reported. Some were crying and several said they saw limbs on the ground. Pandemonium erupted as panicked runners and spectators scattered, and rescue workers rushed in to care for the injured, some of whom lost their legs in the blast, witnesses said. The reverberations were felt far outside the city, with officials in Washington heightening security on public transit and shutting down streets near the White House, including Pennsylvania Avenue, which the Secret Service cordoned off out of what one official described as “an abundance of caution.” 
Many blocks around the race’s finish line were cordoned off while the police began an investigation. In New York, the Police Department said it was stepping up security at hotels and other prominent locations in the city until more is learned about the explosion.
Police officials said they did not yet have any suspects in custody. A person briefed on preliminary developments in the investigation said that members of Boston’s Joint Terrorist Task Force were at Brigham and Women’s Hospital interviewing a wounded man seen running from the scene of the two blasts, near 671 Boylston Street. The person said that police investigators had contacted the local gas and electric company and determined that the explosions were not related to gas or electrical service. “The first one went off, I thought it was a big celebratory thing, and I just kept going,” recalled Jarrett Sylvester, 26, a marathon runner from East Boston, who said it sounded like a cannon blast. “And then the second one went off, and I saw debris fly in the air. And I realized it was a bomb at that point. And I just took off and ran in the complete opposite direction.”
The authorities also found a device at St. James and Trinity Streets that did not explode, the person said, and two other devices were found, including one in Newton, outside of Boston. In the chaotic hours after the explosions, there were reports of at least two other devices found nearby. Police officials said that at least one was blown up in a controlled explosion.
The Mandarin, Marriott and Lenox hotels were evacuated because of reports of suspicious packages, but no confirmed explosive devices have yet been found at those hotels. It was unclear Monday evening who might be responsible for the blast. Although investigators confirmed that they were speaking to a Saudi citizen, several law enforcement officials took pains to note that no one was being held in custody.
The person also said that the maritime security level in Boston was raised from level one to level two; three is the highest level. And some law enforcement officials noted that the blasts came at the start of a week that has sometimes been seen as significant for radical American anti-government groups: it was the April 15 deadline for filing taxes, and Patriots’ Day, a week that has seen attacks in the past. April 19 is the anniversary of the deadly 1993 fire near Waco, Tex., that ended a 51-day standoff and left 80 members of a religious group called the Branch Davidians dead. April 19 is also the anniversary of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which prosecutors said was conceived in part a response to the Waco raid.
“We’re treating this as an ongoing event at this time,” Edward F. Davis, Boston’s police commissioner, said at a late afternoon news conference. President Obama, speaking at the White House, referred to the Patriots’ Day holiday in his condemnation of the attack, calling it “a day that celebrates the free and fiercely independent spirit that this great American city of Boston has reflected from the earliest days of our nation.”
He said he was unsure whether the first two explosions were related, but that his department was treating them as such. He added that the police had no advance warning of the explosions. He vowed to bring those responsible for the blast to justice. “We will get to the bottom of this,” the president said. “We will find who did this, and we will find out why they did this. Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups will feel the full weight of justice.”
The commissioner declined to call the blasts a terrorist attack, but said, “you can reach your own conclusions about what happened here.” Investigators interviewed an injured man at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who had been seen running from the scene of the first explosion, a person briefed on preliminary developments in the investigation said on Monday afternoon. A senior law enforcement official said early Monday evening that the man was a Saudi citizen, about 20 years old, who, according to witnesses, was acting suspiciously before the blast. The official said he was being questioned by the F.B.I. and Boston police. The man has not been charged and is among several people who have been or were being questioned by investigators.
At the White House, President Obama said that those responsible would “feel the full weight of justice.” Police officials closed down a 15-block radius around the blast site; some transit stops were closed; landings were briefly halted at Boston Logan International Airport and the Boston Symphony Orchestra canceled its Monday night concert. A Boston Celtics game scheduled for Tuesday was canceled.
Several news outlets reported that a loud explosion was heard on the north side of Boylston Street, near a photo bridge that marks the finish line, at about 3 p.m. Another explosion was heard shortly afterward. The first two blasts occurred about 50 to 100 yards apart, Mr. Davis said, about four hours after the start of the men’s race, which meant that there were still several thousand runners yet to finish the course. Boston’s police commissioner, Ed Davis, urged people to stay off the streets. “We’re recommending to people that they stay home, that if they’re in hotels in the area that they return to their rooms, and that they don’t go any place and congregate in large crowds,” he said at a news conference.
Mr. Davis added that a “controlled explosion” also took place on Boylston Street. It had begun as a perfect day for the Boston Marathon, one of running’s most storied events, with blue skies and temperatures just shy of 50 degrees. More than 23,000 runners started the race, which typically draws half a million spectators. And long after the world-class runners had finished — the men’s race was won by Lelisa Desisa Benti of Ethiopia, who finished it in 2 hours, 10 minutes and 22 seconds — the sidewalks of Boston’s Back Bay were still thick with spectators cheering on friends and relatives as they loped, exhausted, toward the finish line.
People were also cleared from an area around the Copley Plaza Hotel after a package was found on a footbridge nearby. Stephanie Grammel, a 26-year-old from nearby Medford, was among them, there to watch her little sister run her first marathon.
More than 23,000 runners started the race and 17,600 had already crossed the finish line. Nearly 4,500 other runners did not finish and were presumably diverted from the course. “All of a sudden there was a loud boom — you felt the boom,” she said, estimating that she had stood 10 or 15 feet away from the smoky blast, which she said caused bloody injuries throughout the crowd. “There was, at one point, a man with no legs — an image I never want to see again.”
Will Ritter, the press secretary for Gabriel Gomez, a Republican candidate for Senate, was trying to arrange a party for Mr. Gomez, who was running the marathon. He said the explosions sounded like the end of a fireworks display, “the concussions you send off, it sounded like that.” The blast was so powerful that it damaged a window on the third flood of the Boston Public Library’s Central Library in Copley Square, which was closed to the public today for Patriots’ Day.
People started screaming, “Bomb! Run!” People ran east while the police ran west, Mr. Ritter said, adding that he saw injured people being wheeled away. Many runners never made it to the finish line. “These people are at the edge of their physical ability, wandering around sweaty and wondering where to go.” Dozens of people were injured in the back-to-back explosions, and 22 were taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, said Dr. Alasdair Conn, the hospital’s chief of emergency services — and several had lost their legs.
Authorities in large cities are typically on the highest level of alert for events like a marathon, said Anthony Roman, a security expert. “This is like a bomb explosion we hear about in Baghdad or Israel or other tragic points in the world,” Dr. Conn said, adding that he had never seen such carnage in Boston.
“It is quite the counterterrorism effort,” said Mr. Roman, who runs Roman & Associates, a New York firm. Runners, just finishing the grueling race, could not believe the scene. Nico Enriquez, 19, who was running in his first Boston Marathon, had just turned onto the final straightaway on Boylston Street and was looking at the ground when he looked up and saw people running toward him. “Their faces were just freaked out,” he said. “I thought I was hallucinating.” 
For major events in New York and other large cities, Mr. Roman said the police would typically weld manhole covers shut, while also examining the entire route just before the race. They would also place snipers on rooftops, with helicopters overhead. Analytic cameras in the city would also be used, he said. Ed Frontino, 26, from Boston was standing near the doorway at a bar near the finish when the explosion knocked him to the ground, sending shattered glass into his leg.
“They have all the analytic cameras in the city focusing on the race with their advanced software network, reading license plates,” Mr. Roman said. The police faced another problem as they tried to secure the blast scene: many spectators dropped their backpacks and bags as they scattered to safety, and investigators had to treat every abandoned bag as a potential bomb. There were bomb scares at area hotels. At one point in the afternoon, Boston police officials said that they feared that a fire at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum could have been related to the marathon bombs, but later they seemed to suggest it was not related after all.
The Boston Marathon, established in 1897 and one of the six World Marathon Majors, is one of running’s most storied events. It typically attracts an estimated 500,000 spectators and requires certain qualifying times for most runners to compete. As Mr. Davis, the city’s police commissioner, urged people to stay indoors on Monday afternoon, he stressed the uncertainty of the situation. “We want to make sure we completely stabilize the situation,” he said.
David Monti, editor and publisher of Race Results Weekly, was already back at his hotel when the explosions went off. But he said because the Boston Marathon has a staggered start, “finisher density was high” when the bombs exploded. “Most race organizers have security plans in place, but let’s face it, marathons are no different than other street celebrations like parades.”

John Eligon reported from Boston, and Michael Cooper from New York. Reporting was contributed by Steve Eder, Ashley Parker, William K. Rashbaum, Katharine Q. Seelye and Mary Pilon from New York, Michael S. Schmidt and Eric Schmitt from Washington, and Joel Elliott, Dina Kraft, Tim Rohan and Brent McDonald from Boston.

Based on last year’s finish, more than half of the runners — or about 11,000 people — would have crossed the finish line within 30 minutes of the first two explosions.
The course winds through several outlying cities, including Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley and Newton, before it ends in downtown Boston.
Unlike many sporting events that take place in closed arenas, marathons are known and heralded for their sprawl, allowing throngs of spectators to line the 26.2-mile course.
Within minutes of the explosions on Monday, social media and cable networks projected the images of gray smoke on Boylston Street, with emergency crews on the scene.
After the explosions, a spokesman for the New York Police Department said security was being increased at hotels and other prominent locations in New York. The New York Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sent officials to Boston as well.
Flights in and out of Boston were grounded and the airspace over Washington, D.C. was closed.

Reporting was contributed by Steve Eder, Ashley Parker, William K. Rashbaum, Katharine Q. Seelye and Mary Pilon from New York, Eric Schmitt and Michael S. Schmidt from Washington, and Josh Elliott and Tim Rohan from Boston.