Boston Marathon Bombed

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According to the AP, the bombs that were detonated at the Boston Marathon appeared to have been made out...of all things...pressure cookers.

http://www.mail.com/news/politics/20229 ... age-set1-1

Straight out of the al Queda bomber's guide or the Anarchist Cookbook. All available on the internet.

ruveyn

My mother tells a story of an exploding pressure cooker,I think a jar broke and clogged the safety release,it exploded and there were sweet potatoes all over the ceiling like stalactites in a cave.Maybe militant feminists?Not to many men know there way around a pressure cooker.And I'm joking,dark humor.

[quote="Misslizard"Maybe militant feminists?Not to many men know there way around a pressure cooker.[/quote]
Well, that's why the pressure cookers exploded, you see...

^^^^^Or no one wants to admit to another deep fried turkey disaster.

Using a pressure cooker pretty much confirms that they were low explosives. The sturdy container would be needed to create the pressure needed for simple propellant to explode (black/smokeless powder, match heads, and similar). Pipe bombs in other words.

Terrorist/militant groups wouldn't bother with such if they had time to plan and prepare.

E: a pressure cooker tends to run around 5 liters or so. So you'd have 5 kilos to play with in regards to propellant, ignition system and prepacked shrapnel. That seems about right given the size of the blast and the damage done to those in close proximity to it (those missing lower limbs were probably standing very close to it; which would have absorbed much of it. Positives and negatives to that).

what i cant understand is how anyone could have carried around such a heavy device without being seen.a pressue cooker filled with ball barings.big;hard to hide and heavy;slow to move.

someone somewhere must have seen this guy

A backpack/satchel is rather innocuous and common attire.

People put packs/satchels down for a variety of reasons, and they can also be left unattended. Say if someone put one down where they planned to sit/stand, and they walked off to do something for a minute.

Unless they guy looked like he belonged there and knew what he was doing. He could have looked like an emergency responder examining security or crowd/fire safety, a city worker, or an employee of the event organizer. Considering this theory is completely untested, I won't speculate on any inside job (as opposed to an impersonator) theories I've heard.

No need for any special theories as any person could do what happened (well I suppose if you wanted it to look like any person...).

Crude and [relatively] ineffective devices matched with crude placement points to the likely source. I bet any form of concealment of the bomb placer was also crude, in addition to the evidence left on the bomb itself (sophistication tends to run across the board, just as crude does).

(The main problem is if they don't catch the person/persons involved. It'll show people how simple such things really are. Which they are, but most people don't know that.)

Or maybe they could leave it for longer than a minute. I guess it's not too hard to imagine a place where you could put a bag and nobody would think it was unusual for hours. Maybe the culprit was long gone by the time it happened.

Yep.

It's not abnormal to leave a backpack around for some time, especially if you're going to be there for some time too. You can fit a 5 kilo or so package in a pack easily enough and it wouldn't be detected just by looking at it. Someone carrying a couple of packs wouldn't draw much attention either.

They probably have the person or persons on film (CCTV), as such most likely wouldn't have been disrupted by the person or persons involved.

Are you one of our friends from across the waters? Because Americans tend to react hysterically to the very idea of closed-circuit TV systems monitoring them, even in public places. There's a park in Seattle where the city installed a CCTV system because of the high crime rate there - but they can't turn it on because of public protests over "Big Brother".

That's why the FBI would like anyone with footage or still pictures of the area before the event to provide them with copies - so they can piece together the scene from the myriad anonymous eyes of the 21st-century crowd.

You have to separate between how much violence is average really happening, and how much you get presented. If you look at statistic we live in a much more peaceful and less violent time then any others before. We are simply much more confronted with violence and everything, because of our nowadays technical knowlege we are facing the violence from all over the world. At my grandaunts time, she would have not been as shocked as we have been at catastrophes like the earthquake in Haiti, not because she wouldnt have cared, but because for her it would only be a black and white newspaper headline. Nowadays via Internet and television we see the suffering and horror of people right before our eyes, so its much more intense and rattles us more, then a simple newspapert headline without pictures could do. There was not less violence in earlier times, there simply was less information and less personal affecting information about violence acts, if they didnt happen around your town/neighborhood. 9/11 is a good and sad example, in earlier times I would have first heard from it at the evening news, with a picture of the still standing towers as background. While because of our information knowlegde you were watching it live, facing the emotions of the people you could see, sharing your arguing at the start how the hell that could happen that a plane crashes into the tower, then the shock and completely emotional confusion when the second plane suddenly crashed into the second tower before the cameras, you saw the people waving their hands outside the windows at the top levels and the shadows of the people that were jumping out of the windows, and it was simply impossible not to be affected and your brain was not able to tidy up all the confusion and horror and emotions you felt, because it simply affected you much, much more to face it then it would have been listening to a man, sitting in an propper television room with propper suit, and telling you with earnest voice about it. Sure it would have been a very important and sad information, but it would not have made you cry as example, it would not have made bus drivers in italy stop as it happened to friends of mine, because of him not being able any longer to focus properly on driving.

I do not want to say, that we should stop to care for such events, because knowlege gives you the power to prevent, but you should always remember yourself that its not the world getting worser, but simply our information networks getting more and more skilled. Its simply something else if you only get to read "...the relatives are in deep shock..." or if you are faced with a human that has a face and feelings.

that is a very good point.
these events often bring in auxilery police officers and volunteer fire fighters.the boston police would not likely been suprised to see someone they didnt know in some type of uniform

On the other hand, it might not only be present in Boston but also considered useful:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-575 ... he-answer/

(not that I agree with the ridiculous amount of coverage we have in the UK, in some places, but it can still serve a valid purpose)