Today is a quiet day. I’m sitting here listening to the rain, trying to collect my thoughts on what happened one year ago today. Back in the summer of 2012, I remember sitting on the back deck of my brother’s new home in Newton. I watched as my toddler gleefully ran around that little fenced yard chasing bubbles. Carefree and full of giggles. Less than a year later, 2 miles up the road, the Boston Police Department and JTTF would be facing off with one of the most wanted men in Boston… a scumbag hiding in a boat in Watertown, who had cowardly bombed the Boston Marathon.
This blog may have Maryland in the name, but if you are familiar with my postings, you know my ties to Boston. The City of Boston is where the people I love most in this world call home. But this post isn’t about me, it’s not about the fear and panic I had that day when I heard the Boston Marathon was bombed…
It’s about the victims whose lives were lost… the survivors who have stayed strong this past year… the first responders who raced to the scene… the runners who ran the extra 2 miles after the finish line to donate blood at Mass General… the individuals who ran TO where the bombs went off to help the injured. Last but not least though, I want to take a moment to remember those who spent countless hours working on the manhunt to find the cowards who set the bombs off. Federal agents and the Joint Terrorism Task Force knew they had a new mission on their hands, and that become the number one priority. The FBI, along with ATF agents, the CIA, DEA agents, and the National Counterterrorism Center named their suspects and began their work.
The City of Boston shut down. Again, it shut down. The feds came in with a job to do, and the City understood. Along with police forces of Boston, the manhunt was over within days. One suspect dead, the other captured.