American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombing

[DanaK]

From Netflix streaming April 12

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The 2013 Boston Marathon bombing paralyzed a great American city on what was supposed to be its happiest day. Ten years later, this three-part series delves into the massive manhunt that followed the tragedy, as remembered by the law enforcement officials who brought the bombers to justice and the survivors caught in the crossfire.

Press release and trailer

http://thefutoncritic.com/video/2023/03/29/video-american-manhunt-the-boston-marathon-bombing-official-trailer-netflix-834212/20230329netflix03/

[Raja]

It seems as if The Futon Critic has not updated its web security features. Here is the direct from YouTube.

I do wonder how much of a composite character Mark Wahlberg played in Patriot's Day.

[Bastet]

Thank goodness for the inclusion of the journalist who said it's not very good police work to spray 200+ bullets around a neighborhood willy nilly, and no neighbors getting shot was pure luck.  And then lighting up the boat with over 100 bullets (and those are just the ones that hit the boat), not even as return fire this time, but because one trigger happy cop started shooting so the others figured, hey, I should shoot, too.

Other than him, and hearing from the man who was forced to drive them around, I pretty much hated this apart from the first segment that focused on the victims.  Because other than sharing their stories, all it did was show how incompetent the cops were (the surviving bomber was hiding a block or two away from where he ditched the car, and they shut down the entire frakkin' city to do a grid search, but couldn't spot the boat with bloody hand prints on its cover?) and how reprehensibly odious a piece of legislation the PATRIOT Act is.

That Boston PD bigwig can go take all the seats. 

[Calvada]

You should read the after action report done on this incident.  It's available online, I think at the National Policing Institute.  It's very good, does not whitewash anything.  

[General Days]

4 hours ago, Bastet said:

Because other than sharing their stories, all it did was show how incompetent the cops were (the surviving bomber was hiding a block or two away from where he ditched the car, and they shut down the entire frakkin' city to do a grid search, but couldn't spot the boat with bloody hand prints on its cover?) and how reprehensibly odious a piece of legislation the PATRIOT Act is.

That Boston PD bigwig can go take all the seats. 

Candidly (and I'm no fan of the Patriot Act), being a lefty, being from the area, and being in a shutdown neighborhood, I did not feel like my rights were being trampled. I felt like my family was protected.

It was damned frightening. We hated the lockdown, but not as much as we hated the monsters who blew up the Boston Marathon.

One of the victims is buried right near a family member. When we went to bury that family member, I saw the Boston bombing victim's name and image of their face carved into their headstone, and it took my breath away. 

Quote

A subsequent review by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts provided this more specific summary: "One officer fired his weapon without appropriate authority in response to perceived movement in the boat, and surrounding officers followed suit in a round of 'contagious fire', assuming they were being fired on by Tsarnaev. Weapons continued to be fired for several seconds until on scene supervisors ordered a ceasefire and regained control of the scene. The unauthorized shots created another dangerous crossfire situation." [LINK: Scroll to "Discovery and Capture]

Three people died as a direct result of the Boston Marathon bombing. Krystle Marie Campbell (29), Lü Lingzi (23), and Martin (8) Richard. Martin's death, and all his family suffered, still haunts me. His little sister sang the National Anthem at a Sox game (last year or the year before). I couldn't stop crying.

MIT cop Sean Allen Collier (27) was shot and killed by the bombers in his patrol car. Boston Police Department officer Dennis Simmonds died in April 2014, from head injuries sustained during the 2013 Watertown shootout.

I guess my point is — don't act like it was nothing. Don't act like this was all cop error, or Patriot Act overreach. It was awful in its own right.

[Bastet]

1 hour ago, General Days said:

I guess my point is — don't act like it was nothing. Don't act like this was all cop error, or Patriot Act overreach. It was awful in its own right.

I didn't, and of course it was; the two bombers started it all, and their actions alone would have permanently altered the lives of hundreds beyond those they directly ended even if everyone had acted perfectly in the aftermath. 

But it became worse than it needed to be in that aftermath, because cops in the U.S. are woefully ill-trained and even their training is woefully ill-equipped for dealing with reality.  And this documentary shows that, but downplays it, in favor of focusing on law enforcement narrative.  Which is generally not a good idea, and certainly not here. 

And there's never an excuse for the PATRIOT Act (not even the 9/11 attacks, which provided legislators cover for shit-canning fundamental rights via that piece of legislation to begin with).

Even with its stated purpose (the manhunt, rather than the victims) this is a mediocre documentary for its anemic attempt at context. 

[Whimsy]

I live about 45 minutes from Boston. So, far enough away that the shelter-in-place obviously didn’t affect us but close enough where it was all we lived and breathed until Dzhokhar was caught. Tamerlan‘s body was brought to the funeral home directly next to my work in Worcester (it was a big deal. Tons of police and warnings- I guess so people wouldn’t storm the funeral home?). The feeling of Boston Strong really did unite the entire state at the time when we felt so shaken and uncertain. My husband is a fire captain and works the marathon as part of the Mass HazMat team. He’s working tomorrow, too, so I’m sure there will be a lot of dedications and speeches to commemorate the 10 year anniversary. 
 

I really liked both of the reporters and my heart broke for the Boston Globe reporter who said that his father was on the first plane to hit the World Trade Center. He has to see these images & videos over and over. I can’t even imagine. I also respect how much effort he went to find out the reason behind the actions of the bombers. I also really respect the other journalist for calling out the errors of the police department. I remember, even at the time, critical responses to a lot of the tactics. The shelter-in-place was a good idea, but just think how quickly it would’ve been resolved if whoever was in charge of that section of the search grid actually effectively did their job. I get adrenaline and the fact that this was unprecedented, but that was a big boat with a lot of blood. How was that missed?  I also didn’t really like the old police commissioner. He’s still convinced the Tsarnaev brothers were part of a bigger cell, but nothing has happened since, so he needs to let that go. 

Overall, I actually appreciated being able to watch this (saying I liked it sounds too happy for a serious subject) because there was lots of footage and information that was new to me, or I simply forgot about.

 

[Raja]

While it was a show mostly cops and feds patting themselves on their own backs the reporter's criticisms of the Watertown Police and their supposed lack of fire discipline was grating in hour 2. I was asking myself when was the last time he got ambushed and somebody started throwing pipe bombs at him? Would he hold his fire and let them get closer into an easier throwing range?

But even with the longer run of 3 hours I really got nothing more from his than I got from the Patriot's Day docudrama movie.

[Bastet]

8 hours ago, Whimsy said:

I also respect how much effort he went to find out the reason behind the actions of the bombers.

Yes, that was great.  Once it was revealed the older brother had spent time in Dageston, everyone decided he'd been radicalized there, but he actually looked into it and showed no, the resentment and using Islam to justify horrible acts in response to that resentment happened in America.  There's no group of foreign terrorists backing these guys, they chose to do this.

And, of course, stating the simple fact the brothers weren't born to be marathon bombers, so here's what we know about what turned them into that got completely distorted as justifying their actions (people really need to learn the difference between explaining and excusing), to the point people were writing him to say they hope he or someone he loves is killed by a terrorist.  (Which, of course, had already happened.)

I also appreciated hearing from the imam whose first thought after the bombing was basically Please don't let it be a Muslim -- because, if it was, he knew exactly what his community was going to be in for. 

[MaggieG]

I learned a few things that I didn't know while watching this. I had no idea the younger brother ran over the older brother with the car while trying to escape. Watching that grocery store footage of him just strolling along, buying milk, like he didn't just set off a bomb, was very chilling. How did he get from being the kid that the teacher described to that? Was it all just his brother's influence?

[Future Cat Lady]

I really liked the two journalists in the documentary.

I was a little disturbed by the cop's excitement about being in a shootout in the middle of a residential area.

[emma675]

I finally got around to watching this and it left me with a few thoughts.

1. I get that this was unprecedented, not something most cops would have been trained for then, and adrenaline and exhaustion were huge factors. But TWO massive shootouts in residential neighborhoods within days is insane. The fact that no innocent bystander was hurt or killed is a miracle. 

2. How on earth was Tamarlin still alive and standing after being shot so many times during the first shootout? I had no idea his brother ran him over and that's basically what finished him off.

3. I wish they had gone more into the radicalization of Dzhokhar (I also was confused on how his name was pronounced. I thought it was "yo-car" but his friend made it sound like "ya-har."). His teacher made him sound like a happy, popular high school student who had friends and opportunities. What happened in that year between the end of high school and his freshman year of college that changed him into someone who had no problem placing a bomb next to children and walking away like it was nothing? Did Tamarlin have that much influence over him? 

4. I wonder what's happened to Tamarlin's wife? I had forgotten he even had one and they glossed over her.

5. How long was Dzhokhar in the boat? The crime scene photos showed dozens of rants and wordings carved into multiple locations in it, how did no one notice a bloody tarp and figure for hours? 

6. Is Dzhokhar out of appeals? I saw the footnote that mentioned his execution was reinstated but I'm not familiar with how it works on a federal level. 

[Raja]

15 minutes ago, emma675 said:

6. Is Dzhokhar out of appeals? I saw the footnote that mentioned his execution was reinstated but I'm not familiar with how it works on a federal level.

He is being held in a supermax prison instead of a normal prison for those with a death sentence waiting for their execution.

 

19 minutes ago, emma675 said:

4. I wonder what's happened to Tamarlin's wife? I had forgotten he even had one and they glossed over her.

As the government could make no case she is somewhere, presumably in America with their daughter.

21 minutes ago, emma675 said:

2. How on earth was Tamarlin still alive and standing after being shot so many times during the first shootout? I had no idea his brother ran him over and that's basically what finished him off.

Just as is shown on the many medical and paramedic shows  when the hero medics save you some minutes after the trauma people don't go down like they do on shows trying to keep the PG-13 rating or the old production codes. If you are not hit in a critical spot you would generally keep going due to combat adrenaline being pushed by your body  until shock sets in and you bleed out.