On This Day in History: April 15

The bombing of the Boston Marathon

AUDIO VERSION HERE

In 2012 I was writing a fitness column for the Los Angeles Times and regularly covered the subject of running. Since I’d never run a marathon, I decided to make L.A. my first, finishing in 3:52. A friend said, “That’s a good time. You should run Boston.” I looked at the qualifying times and said yeah no. But then some assholes blew it up.

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: April 15, 2013--

I won’t say their names. Their names are Asshole 1 and Asshole 2. Asshole 1 was born in the Soviet Union in 1986. His brother, Asshole 2, was born in Kyrgyzstan in 1993. Asshole 2 came to the U.S. in 2002 with his parents, and Asshole 1 followed two years later.

The father of the two assholes is Muslim and raised them as Muslims, but not to be extreme. The two assholes found extremism on their own. The supposed motivations of the two terrorist assholes to blow up innocent people, including a little boy, was the American military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On April 15, 2013, at 2:49 p.m., two homemade bombs set by Asshole 1 and Asshole 2 exploded seconds apart near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. At the time of the first explosion, the race clock read 4:09:43, which is when a bulk of finishers were crossing. The timing of the explosion had been planned for maximum carnage. Three people died. Their names were Martin Richard, age 8, Lü Lingze, age 23, and Krystle Campbell, age 29. Almost 300 others suffered injuries, 17 of them losing limbs.

A massive manhunt followed, during which the assholes shot and killed a member of the MIT Police Department, Sean Collier. Four days after the bombing the two assholes had a shootout with police. Asshole 1 was shot, and Asshole 2 ran his asshole brother over with their stolen vehicle while trying to escape and Asshole 1 died. Two police officers were seriously injured in the gunfight. One, Daniel Simmonds, died a year later. Fifteen other officers were also injured.

Asshole 2 drove a short distance from the gunfight then fled on foot. A resident found Asshole 2 hiding in his boat and told the cops. Asshole 2 was shot then arrested. He was tried and sentenced to death, but that sentence was later overturned pending resentencing. Judge Thompson said Asshole 2 will either die via execution or in prison, but he’s never getting out. (The death penalty was just reinstated last month by the Supreme Court.)

I did manage to qualify for Boston, barely, and was there the following year to help with reclaiming the finish line as a triumphant experience rather than a terrifying one. More than double the usual number of spectators were present on that beautiful April day, cheering us on.

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*Republishing rights have been purchased by Bantam. A new version of Volume I comes this October, and a new version of Volume II next year.