Theory on timing of the bombs:

[JimDandy]

The bombs went off far enough into the race for all elite and foreign runners to have had time to cross the finish line. Wouldn't someone simply looking for attention aim to get the largest media exposure possible and therefore time the bombs to go off when the foreign elite runners were crossing. This bomber seems to have waited.

Foreigners probably weren't the intended targets. The bomb went off after about half of all registered runners had crossed. Americans who came just to run the marathon, not win it (the non-professional runners), would have been the bulk of runners likely to be crossing at the time the bombs went off.

If the bomber was a anti-government right wing nut/teabagger/etc, as some have suggested, wouldn't they have timed the bombs to go off when it would hurt the American government the most--when the elites were crossing? Instead the bombs went off when it would have hurt Americans the most--non-specific, everyday Americans. That might speak of someone whose family/countrymen had been hurt or killed that way--as collateral damage from an American bomb. Isn't it more likely then that the bomber is a foreigner who didn't want other foreigners hurt-only Americans?

Just ruminating here...probably not worth the post space.

[Common Sense Party]

1. Or it could have simply been the shitty Boston traffic delayed the bomber.

We won't know until we know, y'know?

[JimDandy]

16. I know.

Hard to not try and figure things out from my couch. Ridiculous to do so though, when there isn't enough info and using only one metric (timing), but it's difficult not to go immediately into "figure out the mystery" mode. Really, it could have been anybody, and the timing could have been as simple as what you suggested, or having to wait until the security lessened after the elite runners crossed, in order to get into the area and leave the bombs in a way that wouldn't be noticed (I'm assuming there was a security sweep of the area prior to the race beginning).

[KT2000]

2. someone on AC said

the end had the runners who were running for charities etc.
Anyway, it is really sick.

[JimDandy]

18. How awful. Didn't know that. n/t

[Tx4obama]

3. They said on the news that...

... the person that put the bombs where they were probably couldn't get close to the finish line until the time he did because before then there were too many people in that area all squeezed in really close to each other.

After some of the folks were leaving the area, after some of the runners had finished the race, then folks could move around more freely.

That seems to make sense to me.

[polly7]

9. That might help narrow it down for the purpose of screening any available video.

It's a good theory .. I hope it helps them catch the SOB(s).

[JimDandy]

23. Yes, he would have been taking a big chance

of being noticed trying to shove through a packed crowd like that. Many more people would have been killed, so whatever the reason for the timing, the impact was thankfully lessened, then.

[kestrel91316]

4. I heard that most the runners finishing up at the time of

the bombs were WOMEN. One could infer that the bomber(s) has a problem with women, which fits with the whole RW terrorism thing.

[ChangeUp106]

5. Timing

He/She/They did it when they did because it was the time of the race that the most people were crossing the finish line. When the winners come across, it's maybe 4-5 at once. Plus the winners were hanging around watching the others come across.

[MADem]

6. They turned off the cellphone towers shortly after the first two explosions.

I think this might have been a halfassed/poorly planned effort. There were a ton of people in the stands across from the two bombs that went off, and supposedly there was a bomb under those stands that didn't go off--I wonder if they wanted to blow up the stands and send those who survived that blast across the street to be blown up by the other explosions?

Perhaps all the behinds sitting on those stands prevented the cell signal from getting through to that bomb?

I was fortunate to be able to get through to relatives on cellphones right after the blasts and before they shut down comms.

I'm glad I kept my landline.

[Puzzler]

29. According to CNN cell phones were not shut down

Apparently the system was overwhelmed.


http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/16/tech/social-media/social-media-boston-fakes/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

[MADem]

37. They may have shut down the Copley tower. It's entirely within the realm of possibility.

My family couldn't contact a family member/student over on Huntington (very close by) for a bit IMMEDIATELY following the blasts (within a minute, if not seconds).

I also know there is a cell tower right in Copley.

SLATE has one of those little explaining stories on it:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2013/04/cellphones_after_boston_marathon_bombing_can_the_government_shut_down_towers.

...Is there a procedure for turning off a cellphone network during a crisis?
Yes. While cell towers are privately owned by telephone companies, they are licensed by the federal government, which has the authority to silence them in an emergency. The National Communications System, a subdivision of the Department of Homeland Security, established a protocol for emergency interruptions in 2006, in the wake of a controversial shutdown in New York after the London subway bombings.
The process can begin when a state authority, such as a governor, makes a shutdown request to state homeland security advisers. These advisers, employees of an agency called the National Coordinating Center, evaluate the request; if it seems valid, they contact the cellphone carriers, which must temporarily dismantle the networks by shutting off their base stations.
On a smaller scale, local law enforcement agencies—including city bluecoats and transit authorities such as San Francisco’s BART or the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey—have access to devices that can jam signals over specific areas and block target phones. They do not need consent from telecom companies to use them, which has prompted some First Amendment scholars to wonder whether such disruptions compromise cellphone owners’ right to free speech. In 2011, BART shut down the wireless service in select San Francisco subway stations to stave off protests following the shooting of Charles Blair Hill by police....

[longship]

7. Anomaly hunting?

These big historic events are messy affairs. The last thing one should do is interpret apparent anomalies as intentional. That only leads one to inevitable conspiracy thinking.

The events today were what they were and nothing more. It would be a mistake to interpret the timing of the blasts as anything but coincidental unless one has specific information, which I am sure none of us here on DU have.

Plus, Okham's Razor says not to multiply entities unnecessarily. Your speculation gets a big shave, IMHO.

[defacto7]

10. Wise. n/t

[JimDandy]

22. My speculation

was in response to other DUers speculation as to the type of person, foreign or domestic, who might have committed this atrocity. Using timing as a way to figure that out is not unreasonable, even if, in the end, it turns out there was no connection. It's human nature to try to figure out a problem to make sense of it, and I am only human.

The likelihood of my speculations being correct is not good, not because I didn't have enough info, but because I didn't have enough of the info that was available to others at the time I was speculating. Speculating helps to draw out some of that missing info. I've dabbled in skip tracing and adoption searches and speculating in the face of very little info often helped solve the problem.

Of course it's not inevitable, that connecting two parameters of a crime (in this case timing to type of perpetrator) would lead one to conclude the crime was a conspiracy. Why do you think that interpreting apparent anomalies in an event as intentional, would inevitably make one conclude that more than one person was involved in the event?

[defacto7]

8. Maybe I missed something....

Those bombs weren't strong enough to reach the runners directly. It killed and maimed bystanders... isn't that right? Were there runners seriously injured? I may have missed that point.

I suppose the makers of those bombs didn't know how strong they would be and they weren't strong enough for their purpose.... hell I don't know.

[JimDandy]

24. I lumped them together.

When the runners cross the finish line, my experience is the bystanders are generally of the same nationalities as the runners because they are their family and friends. So when the professional runners crossed, there would have been a high percentage of other foreigners in the vicinity (media and family). When the non-professional runners (mostly random, average Americans) crossed much later, the bystanders would have changed to their family and friends--also Americans.

[JI7]

11. i don't think someone like that would care if foreigners were hurt or not, you can say the same abou

al qaeda . their target was americans .

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

12. In my opinion, it's the point of the race where the most people are in that area

I've watched the Marathon, not too far from the bombing area.

It's a mixture of runners who've finished, becoming spectators to cheer on others, and it's also the time where the bulk of the runners are crossing as you said.

More victims in the crowd, exactly.

[JimDandy]

25. You have a good point.

Number of people, as opposed to their nationality, would certainly have been a top consideration of the bomber. And what you described is what I have also seen happen in Bloomsday races.

[cthulu2016]

13. I suspect someone may have looked at the average finish time

thinking (erroneously) that would offer the biggest target

[olddots]

15. We may never know who did this or why

[Eleanors38]

35. Maybe. But this guy or group seems to be making an effort to fly below the radar...

which means he knows the culture and the people of Boston, the roads, habits, and what not to say. Those are big advantages. But by that same token, he is amid thousands of folks who are at least as "expert" as he.

My own speculation is that he may have used a simple black powder bomb because there is virtually no regulatory scheme to track purchases of such, except perhaps in a final product like fireworks. According to some of the first reports, intelligence-types said there was no communications "traffic" before or after the attack, and black powder or some other pedestrian explosive would fit in to a quick in & out approach. Much as I dislike cameras at every locale and second of one's life, this may be the place to start. Picture of the grandstands before a package appeared, picture after a package was deposited, and who was around. Same with the other location.

Man, I'd hate to be in charge of collating the images that will be pouring in to investigators.

[hack89]

17. It is the time when the most runners per minute finish

which means bigger crowds in the area. They wanted to kill as many people as possible.

[randome]

19. If pressure cookers were used, might it be possible they were powered somehow?

Then the time they went off wouldn't be too precise.

[JimDandy]

27. The police fixated on cell phones pretty early on

as the mechanism for the timing of the explosions--they allow the bombs to be remotely exploded with precise timing.

I don't know much about bombs, but just thinking it through, the pressure cookers would provide a tightly sealed container (much like a pipe bomb sealed at the ends) needed for the explosion and choosing such a large volumed container (instead of a pipe) allowed the bomber to pack in a whole lot more shrapnel for maximum damage.

I am only familiar with the stove-top variety of pressure cookers. Why would the cookers be powered? Do you mean for a pressurized explosion? Pressure cookers make noise as they heat to high pressures. I don't think the bomber would have wanted his delivery device to be noticed before it had time to go off. My guess is he wanted it for it's tight sealing properties and large capacity. Maybe someone elsewhere would know the answer to your question.

[randome]

30. Yeah, that's what I was thinking, that the pressure cookers may have heated up.

But that has too many flaws, as you point out.

[HereSince1628]

20. As what-ifs go...what if someone just wanted to murder a specific person

I suppose you'd wait until that person passed the bomb. The actual time in the race wouldn't be an issue.

[JimDandy]

31. Yep. My OP was only to try and answer

the anti-government vs foreign terrorist as the bomber. If this was a personal vendetta against a specific individual all bets are off. And the bomber made a real mess of it then. What a risky and imprecise way to get to one person.

[backscatter712]

21. Eric Rudolph was so incompetent...

His bombing of the Olympics missed all the elites!

[Duer 157099]

26. All I want to say is

that it is worth the post space. I don't have an opinion either way on the speculation, but I applaud that you are looking at the situation crtically, given the info that you have.

I personally cannot stand reading posts where people try to shut down conversations because they involve speculation. A working brain will speculate, that is what it does, that is how natural selection has settled upon your set of genes.

So, I say just on general principle.

[JimDandy]

28. Thank you for your encouragement! n/t

[bobclark86]

32. Comments like these...

"Isn't it more likely then that the bomber is a foreigner who didn't want other foreigners hurt-only Americans? "

"One could infer that the bomber(s) has a problem with women,"

...really aren't worth the post space. A trained mind will wait for data before blasting unfounded guesswork for the whole world to see.

Here's a quote we should all wisely remember: "Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

Right now, there are virtually NO facts. Therefore, unintelligent guesses under the guise of a "theory" are really a waste of time.

[Duer 157099]

33. Sorry, I disagree

I was brought up believing that "there are no dumb questions" and I think almost any discussion is worth having, as long as it is an honest discussion, which means it isn't a platform simply to advance someone's agenda. Sometimes I can detect when that is the case, sometimes I cannot. But I wouldn't shut down all discussions just so that some pushing agendas can't do so.

I trust my brain to work through the difficult issues, not avoid them.

And as for this quote: "A trained mind will wait for data..." I can tell you with utter certainty that many scientists propose a hypothesis and then figure out how to see if it might be true. If all scientists waited for the data before proposing a hypothesis and designing experiments, we'd really never get anywhere.

[Duer 157099]

34. ...also, for an event that was CAPTURED ON VIDEO

I'd say that's one helluva lot of FACTS, rather than "virtually NO facts."

What the hell do you think a fact is, anyway?

[bobclark86]

36. How about...

images of people planting bombs...

...or full explanations of what kind of bombs were used...

...or even a suspect... or a "person of interest."

Here's what we know: There were two bomb blasts. We have a basic idea of what they were made out of... and anybody with access to a gun shop, the Internet and a thrift shop could have built it (so... pretty much everyone). Three people died, and a bunch of people were injured. The bombs were planted at near-ground level.

That's about it. No radio/cell chatter, no paper trail as of yet uncovered. No unexploded bombs, no fingerprints, no writing samples, no DNA, no guys pulled over with no license plates and being held on a weapons charge in the county lockup who are acting fishy.

We don't have the slightest fucking clue who did this, how many did this (I would guess, but I have squat for facts), or why they did this. Anybody who says otherwise is a liar (and probably works for the NY Post).

"I can tell you with utter certainty that many scientists propose a hypothesis and then figure out how to see if it might be true."

Yeah, but they start with a basic understanding of something first. "Scientists" who start spouting off without any basis of fact are generally in favor of "intelligent design" and deny climate change.

BTW, there was plenty of video of 9/11 and the Challenger explosion. You can't tell from a video whether it was Saddam of Osama, and you can't tell if it's a loose panel or a frozen o-ring.

[Baitball Blogger]

38. It could also come down to opportunity.

We don't know when the bombs were planted. He may have felt that there would have been less photo coverage AFTER the elites had gone by.

[JimDandy]

39. Opportunity surely was a part of the timing. n/t