When two bombs exploded at the 117th annual Boston Marathon, time seemed to stop. A huge percentage of the student body here at Connecticut College hails from Boston and its surrounding towns, and everyone seems to be connected to the city in some way or another. The attack also shed light on the ever-changing role of social media. While Google unveiled its incredible Person Finder to ensure that family and friends could gather information about loved ones, other sites like Twitter and Reddit became catalysts for online manhunts that led to false accusations.
Alumna Dana Silverberg ’11 was among those closest to the finish line on Monday, April 15 when the bombs were set off. Currently a graduate student at Tufts University, Silverberg shared her marathon experience with Newsday, which published her account of the bombings two days later. Newsday reported: “A last-minute decision to watch the Boston Marathon several blocks from the finish line was a fateful choice for former Huntington resident Dana Silverberg.” The former Conn cross-country and track athlete explained how she had suggested to her friend – who had wanted to watch from the finish line -that they watch at a location further away from Copley Square, which was sure to be so crowded they would not have gotten a good view of the runners. The pair moved to Commonwealth Avenue and Hereford Street, about four blocks away from the finish line itself. They had only been there for about twenty minutes before they heard a loud blast, followed by an even louder explosion only seconds later.
Silverberg told Newsweek of her immediate reaction to the bombings, explaining, “at first no one made a move and the runners continued… Police didn’t seem to be responding to anything and revelers continued to watch and cheer, and maybe thought it was a cannon or fireworks for Patriots Day. But it was too loud to be what I thought was a cannon. And they happened so close to each other.” But then, “All the emergency vehicles started coming; it was so fast… We weren’t sure what was going on… People started yelling, ‘It’s a terrorist attack!’”
According to The New York Times, more than 23,000 people were set to complete the marathon this year, but at around 2:50 in the afternoon, the first of two explosions stopped the remaining competitors in their tracks as they neared the finish line on Boylston Street. As first responders raced towards the area, TV stations and online news sources beginning their own race of reporting information to the public. Students at Conn struggled to keep up with the emerging story, as it seemed as though conflicting information was pouring in from every source. “The media was sometimes quick to report false information,” said Caroline Noonan ’16, who lives only a few blocks away from the site of the attack. “[It] complicated the story and made understanding what was going on in my neighborhood confusing and more upsetting than it had to be.”
While the FBI began conducting their investigation, civilians behind computer screens took it upon themselves to help in the search for any suspects. Reddit users began scanning photos from the marathon, and officials eagerly accepted tips and photographs from citizens. However, allowing non-professionals to aid in the search for culprits of the terrorist attack had detrimental consequences. As the Associated Press reported, seventeen-year-old Salah Eddin Barhoum, a Moroccan-American student in Massachusetts and track runner, was falsely accused of planting the bombs. By Monday evening, credible, well-respected newspapers were reporting that a “Saudi national” or a “black man” was suspected in the attack. “The best way that I could understand and make sure the information was legitimate was to pay close attention to the press conferences with Governor Patrick, Mayor Menino, and Police Commissioner Davis,” explained Noonan. Kat Barker ’14, a native of Dedham, Mass., who is currently studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, also spoke to the rumors and false reports. “For me in the beginning it was mostly confusion,” Barker recalled. “Hearing what at the time felt mostly like rumors about bombs going off at the Boston Marathon was really hard to believe. It wasn’t until I saw footage the next morning on the TV in Buenos Aires that I really could feel the fear, chaos and sadness of the events.”
President Obama, in his initial speech hours after the explosions occurred, referred to the bombings as a “heinous and cowardly crime.” It was not until Tuesday, April 16 that he labeled the previous day’s attacks as an “act of terror.” He promised the American people, “We will find whoever harmed our citizens, and we will bring them to justice.”
Thus, the manhunt ensued. While the case unfolded on live television, rapidly evolving information was made available to the public by way of social media. Noonan commented that she “kept up with the news coming from Boston through CNN on Twitter, checking Boston.com, talking to [her] parents, and watching the news on TV.” CNN reported that on Thursday, April 18, the first photos of the brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were released to the public. Only hours later, government officials received a call that a police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had been killed on their campus, prompting more confusion and speculation.
Tamerlan and Dzhokhar, along with the rest of the Tsarnaev family, immigrated to the Boston area about a decade ago. Tamerlan, 26, is reported to have been somewhat of an outsider in American society; he told photographer Johannes Hirn, “I don’t have a single American friend. I don’t understand them.” However, his nineteen-year-old brother, Dzhokhar, had many friends and was actively involved in his community. He went to the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, and is currently enrolled as a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, which was briefly evacuated pending Dzhokar’s capture. David Remnick wrote for in The New Yorker, “Members of the family occasionally attended a mosque on Prospect Street in Cambridge, but there seemed nothing fundamentalist about their outlook.”
Perhaps illustrating a generational stereotype, social media has granted the public a more in-depth view into the lives of these perpetrators than would otherwise be available. Tamerlan’s YouTube channel contains a plethora of videos propagating fundamentalism and violent jihad. Dzhokhar’s Twitter account, @J_tsar, paints a more complicated picture of the individual. Some tweets reflect the sentiments of a typical nineteen-year-old college student, bragging of beer pong skills and stressing about schoolwork. Others convey a stronger anti-American tone: “a decade in america already, I want out,” “Idk why it’s hard for many of you to accept that 9/11 was an inside job. I mean I guess fuck the facts y’all are some real #patriots #gethip.” Even after the marathon, the tweets continued: “Ain’t no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people” and “there are people that know the truth but stay silent and there are people that speak the truth but we don’t hear them cuz they’re the minority.” On April 16 he published his last tweet, “I’m a stress free kind of guy.”
On Twitter, he follows ninety-seven people. Since his name was released to the public, 91,984 people now follow him.
Alden Griggs ’14, of Cambridge, Mass., described the attack and the days following as “disturbing” and “scary.” When Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s name was released following the MIT shooting, his experience became all the more disturbing. Griggs had attended the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School with Dzhokhar, as well as elementary and middle school prior to that. His sister had called him on Friday, April 19 with the news about Dzhokhar; Griggs admitted, “I was in such shock I didn’t even believe her until I turned on the news.”
Griggs reflected on growing up near the Tsarnaevs; while he was not particularly close with Dzhokhar, a handful of his good friends were. He recalled playing basketball in a park near their homes – they both lived in the neighborhood near their high school. “I saw him at parties and stuff… he was just a normal guy,” Griggs said. “It’s all so surreal… I still don’t think I’ve been able to fully process it.” Many of Griggs’ friends and acquaintances were interviewed by various news stations and newspapers, and the Department of Homeland Security even called Griggs himself, seeking background information on Dzhokhar.
Griggs wouldn’t call himself an “active Twitter user,” but he had heard that Dzhokhar had continued to tweet following the bombings and began using the network to navigate the developing story. He was Facebook friends with Dzhokhar, too, before the latter’s account was deactivated.
Cambridge Rindge and Latin School held forums this past weekend during which students and alumni gathered together to digest the events that had occurred in the prior weeks together. When asked how his neighborhood is faring now, Griggs remarked that the wake of tragedy has “really brought the community together.”
Federal agents began interviewing Dzhokhar while he was in Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center on Sunday, April 21. According to The New York Times, “he admitted to playing a role in the marathon bombings.” Dzhokhar “indicated that he and his brother had learned to make the pressure-cooker bombs that they used at the marathon from Inspire, the online Al Qaeda magazine.” On April 22, he was charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and also faces charges of malicious destruction of property resulting in death. Dzhokhar will be tried through the American federal justice system – not, as some suspected, as an enemy combatant. Spokesman Jay Carney explained in Washington that as Dzhokhar is an American citizen, he couldn’t be tried before military commissions.
The United States now finds itself forced to confront domestic terrorism. Abroad, Barker shared her reactions to the events unfolding at home, which she was able to keep up with through a range of social media and live news streams.
“Being in a different country made me feel really far away from my family and friends in Boston and I want[ed] to stay connected, but it was hard. I was asked a lot about it here. People would say, ‘Why do these things happen in the US? Why are there shootings and attacks in the US so much?’ I would talk to them a little bit about gun laws, but it’s hard [for] them to understand. At the same time, I can only put it into perspective. The banner [that was made in Syria said], ‘Boston bombings represent a sorrowful scene of what happens every day in Syria.’ And it’s true. Living abroad changes your perspective on things a lot… There are robberies and killings a lot here in Argentina. [It’s] sad, hard to understand events [that] happen every day around the world. I’m proud to be from Boston, a place where people come together when things like this happen; a place where I heard that people rushed towards the bomb site instead of away from it to help all those that were hurt. Things like that aren’t happening all around the world…”
Silverberg also reflected on her study abroad experience in 2010, when she studied in Israel. There, she “was more mentally prepared for a possible terrorist attack.”
“I never expected in Boston for something to like that to happen,” she reflected. “It’s been really hard to process.”
“Overall, being here is a strange mix of people going about life normally while the effects of the bombings are still very physically and emotionally present,” said Noonan, who went home for the weekend following the marathon bombings. However, Noonan reported that even among the increased police presence and memorials to those lost in the blasts, “the overwhelming feeling you get being in Boston right now is one of immense pride.”
