BOSTON - Investigators on Tuesday searched for the person or group responsible for planting two bombs at the Boston Marathon finish line that killed three people and wounded more than 100 in the worst bomb attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation led a battery of
federal, state and local law enforcement agencies on the case,
while critically wounded victims of Monday’s blasts fought for
their lives and others contemplated a new life as amputees.
The bombs ripped through the crowd at the finish line of the
Boston Marathon, shattering the annual civic celebration on the
Patriots’ Day state holiday while tens of thousands of people
packed the street to cheer on the runners.
The two devices using gunpowder as the explosive were packed
with ball bearings and other shrapnel to maximize injuries, said
a senior law enforcement official briefed on the investigation
who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the
information.
No one has been arrested in the bombing. A White House
official said the case would be treated as an act of terrorism
but it had yet to be determined whether the attack came from a
foreign or domestic source.
President Barack Obama promised to catch whoever was
responsible.
“It is a criminal investigation that is a potential
terrorist investigation,” said Richard DesLauriers, the FBI
special agent in charge for Boston.
Many runners were heading for the finish when a fireball and
smoke rose from behind cheering spectators and a row of flags
representing the countries of participants, video from the scene
showed.
The two explosions came moments apart some four hours and
nine minutes into the race, long after the world-class runners
had finished but around the time average contestants were
arriving.
‘A LOT OF BLOOD’
“I saw people who looked like they had their legs blown off.
There was a lot of blood over their legs. Then people were being
pushed in wheelchairs,” said Joe Anderson, 33, a fisherman from
Pembroke, Massachusetts, who had just run the race holding a
large U.S. flag.
Many of the victims were gravely injured, Massachusetts
Governor Deval Patrick said.
Some suffered shrapnel wounds and amputations and will
require repeat operations in the coming days, said Peter
Fagenholz, a trauma surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Doctors treated 29 patients including eight who were in
critical condition, Fagenholz said.
Many of the seriously injured patients had suffered bone,
soft tissue and vascular damage to their legs, he said.
“We’re seeing a lot of shrapnel injuries” from small metal
debris, Fagenholz told reporters outside the hospital.
There had been “several” amputations, he said.
“A number of patients will require repeat operations
tomorrow and serial operations over the next couple of days,”
Fagenholz said.
The dead included an 8-year-old boy, the Boston Globe
reported, citing two law enforcement sources briefed on the
investigation.
A 2-year-old with a head injury was being treated at Boston
Children’s Hospital, the hospital said in a statement.
The blasts put police on alert in major cities across the
United States, including in Washington, D.C., and New York City,
sites of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The annual Boston Marathon, held since 1897, attracts an
estimated half-million spectators and some 20,000 participants
every year.
