Worst Violence? Boston Marathon Bombing

On April sixteenth, twenty thirteen, the FBI officially announces they are taking over the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing that happened the day prior on what was supposed to be Boston's happiest day, which is known as Patriots Day. Running the one hundred and seventeenth Boston Marathon, cheers echoed through the city. Then all of a sudden, two explosions shattered the city spirit and since the city into chaos with heroic responses and unprecedented manhunt that gripped the nation. Join us today as we explore one of the darkest moments in sports history and how we took this darkness, and as we find out, was this the most devastating moment in sports history? Today on Daily Sports History, Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide as you daily learn more about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge. Now, the Boston Marathon is one of the most popular marathons and it's historically the oldest marathon in America as it was inspired by the eighteen ninety six Summer Olympic Games. That's the very first Olympic Games, and in the year later they held the first Boston Marathon that wasn't even twenty six point two miles, as back then the marathon the mileage fluctuated as honestly, it was hard to tell mileage back then today could you tell where twenty six miles is on your own without a computer or your phone? I couldn't. So the fact that we were able to even measure it to be close to the twenty six point two which wasn't official till years after. And the course itself originally ran from Metcalf's Mill in Ashland to Irvington's Oval in Boston, and in nineteen twenty four they moved the starting line westward to Hopkinsville as the course lengthened to meet the Olympic standards which had recently been set at the nineteen oh eight London Games. And this tradition actually inspired the Boston Marathon to be held on Patriots Day, a holiday that commemorates the Battle of Lexington and Concord in seventeen seventy five. Initially was observed on April nineteenth, but it shifted to be the third Monday in April starting in nineteen sixty nine. So it moves around. It's not always the same day, So it gives you that long weekend that we all love to have in America because we don't get enough time off. Let's be very honest. And over the years then Boston Marathon has grown as we don't think of Boston. There are a great sports town, but they're not number one in a lot of different things. But it's the number one marathon. There's a New York Marathon, there's other marathons around the world, but Boston's like the number one across the world. In the first year, it only had fifteen participants and now annually there's on average thirty thousand runners that want to run an annually, and even more aren't able to register for the marathon. To register for it, you have to work your way and qualify to get into the marathon. So over a half a million spectators line the route every year, and it has been held every year since its inception, except for during the pandemic in twenty twenty, it was the first year they did not have it. So on April fifteenth, twenty thirteen, one hundred and seventeenth Boston Marathon, it was a full swinging Patriots Day. People were celebrating. It's a huge day in Boston. Everyone just had had a long weekend and runners are running as fast as they can. It's a huge moment for these runners, it's a huge moment for the city. Everyone enjoys this moment. Anytime a city takes a day off, the city comes together in enjoyment. And at two forty nine that day is when everything changed. Some participants had already finished the race, and so the crowds were all gathered around the starting line as competitors were starting to finish the race, and everyone was excited to see their friends and family finish as well as you know, top competitors finish. And in that moment, at two forty nine, homemade bombs were detonated near the finish line, just fourteen seconds and two hundred and ten yards apart. Both bombs were detonated Boylston Street and it sent shrapnel flying, causing spectators and runners to panic. And with the second one it meant even more fear started as people were scared that where there would be even more. People were scrambling trying to flee. Others were assisting the injured. There ended up being three casualties. Martin Richard, who was eight years old, Crystal Campbell, who was twenty nine years old, and Lindsay Lou a twenty three year old. I say their names because we all ever forget the vitalities in these moments. We focused on the people that did it. We need to remember these people's names. This is important. Victims are really important, and these weren't the only victims. There are two hundred and eighty one people who were injured, suffering severe trauma, and sixteen individuals lost limbs. And part of this was because these device were pressure cooker by meaning they packed them with shrapnel basically nails, ball bearings, any kind of things to maximize harm to people, not necessarily meant to kill, but meant to wound. In Maine, so quickly after these bonds went off, a fifteen block area around this was immediately coned off as a crime scene. As they wanted to find immediately what happened. They went into chaos mode to try to prevent and try to catch exactly what happened. And this was a unique manhunt because it was twenty thirteen. The Internet, social media, all these things were around, Pictures were everywhere being posted, which gave extreme access to the authorities to be able to be able to show this, and within three days the FBI released photos and surveillance footage of the suspects, which were two brothers who were Tamer Larne and Jaikar Shanaya who had immigrated here from Checking You. But by this point they didn't have names. They just had photos, and they asked the public to come out and help identify them, and they did. It also helped that that same day, at nine point thirty one, the brothers approached an MIT police officer, Sean Collier, who was sitting in his patrol car on the campus, in attempts to steal his service weapons, and they shot him multiple times, point blank range, in the side of his head, which resulted in another death from these two killers. Shortly after killing him, they carjacked a man in a Mercedes SUV and forced him to withdraw eight hundred dollars from the ATM as they drove towards Watertown, Massachusetts, and early the next morning at twelve forty four am, police located the brothers in Watertown, leading to a firefight where the brothers threw homemade explosives at the officers while exchanging gunfire and Tamberlin was critically injured during the shootout and Jaikarf attempted to flee and a stolen suv as he ran over his brother's body that laid in the street, and his brother would later be pronounced dead. So there's one less killer out there to worry about. But they still needed to find his brother and it was a city wide manhunt. Authorities put in a shelter in place order for the residents. Anyone caught outside their house be questioned by police as police would go through multiple houses. And then on that nineteenth at six forty two pm, a Watertown resident discovered Jacarf hiding inside a dry docked boat in his backyard and alerted authorities who used flash bang grenades to coax him out to take him into authority, which ended a four day manhunt. Now later it be found out that there was connections to al Qaeda because of this, and it was an act of terrorism and Jakarf was sentenced on thirty charges of bombing and sentenced to death on several accounts. After this, the slogan Boston Strong became synonymous in the sporting world. It was done all sports done by the Celtics, the Bruins, the Patriots. All major sports supported this, as well as colleges and just the town itself and the country supported Boston during this time as this was an act of terrorism which we hadn't seen the likes of since nine to eleven. But the question was after this, what do you do? Do you hold the marathon again? It's held on like a special day, Patriots Day. It would seem almost crazy to not come back and hold the marathon, which they did, where they had a record breaking over thirty five thousand runners participating, showing defiance against the terror. And now I've looked up how to pronounce this, there's a lot of letters in that name. I'm sorry if I got up wrong. Kel j Vici, who despite his unique name, was the first American man to win the Boston Marathon since nineteen eighty three, symbolizing the triumph and how America came together after these dead the attacks, and of course this increased. There was increased security after this, enhanced measures as there's bomb sifting dogs used regularly, rooftop surveillance, increased police presence throughout, and new safety protocols were put banning backpacks and large backs among the route of the race. These measures have helped keep it safe since and likely we won't have something like this happen again at the Boston Marathon. We usually never know when these Harris attacks are going to happen. They happen at random times when we're not ready. But it's good to know that we are advancing in our reaction to them, and we often do forget about the race that was held. Leslie Desaiah actually got the victory for the mens side. An Eath the open runner who ran the race in two hours ten minutes in twenty two seconds, pulling away, getting his first Boston Marathon title, which should be celebrated as it's often forgot about. And Kenya's Rita Jeptu ran hers in two hours, twenty six minutes and twenty five seconds, breaking away winning by forty kilometers, winning her second Boston Marathon. And I know these runners are often forgot about due to what happened on this day and for a reason, but they still had great moments on this day as well, and that should be celebrated because they did not get to celebrate their win. Now, was this the worst violence done in a sporting event? It had a lot of injuries compared to some others. There was the Munich Olympic massacre, where a Palestine group black September took eleven Israeli athletes, coaches and athletes during the Olympics, where twelve ended up killed, including one German police. In the Mexican City Olympic massacre happened just days before the Olympics, where one hundred people were killed. But this had the most injuries of any sporting event ever. The death toll is lower than some other ones that have happened, but it's hard to compare these, and all of them are tragedies, but the Boston had the most severe injuries of all of these by number. Total death total was lower, but it was still a bad moment. And I don't want to compare these because they're all bad. I'm just gonna say Boston Marathon was bad. Every single time someone dies or is injured at a sporting event that's not on the field, it's bad no matter what. Only sports injuries should happen at sporting events. 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