<p>Xig,</p>
<p>I think that is going to be a very interesting story when more details come out</p>
<p>From WaPo:
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<p>Something tells me that if he turned out to have an explosive vest and wasn’t stripped, and his self-detonation killed scores of police officers and perhaps civilians and journalists, you would be criticizing the police for not thoroughly searching him.</p>
<p>You can’t accuse the police for being too thorough and not thorough enough at the same time.</p>
<p>As several posters have mentioned, it is not clear how the brothers’ lifestyle was financed. An acquaintance, who may have been the owner of the garage, said that they liked expensive cars. The younger one owned a white Mercedes; it was probably old, but still. He was in college and had a dorm room there. The scholarship he got from the city of Cambridge was only $2,500/year, about 10% of the COA. The brothers had an apartment on Norfolk St. in Cambridge. I can tell you that anything in Cambridge is very expensive. The area around Harvard Square is horrendously expensive, it that area a million dollars will buy you a small handyman’s special on tiny lot. The less exclusive areas, with ugly triple-deckers on almost nonexistent lots, are also shockingly expensive. I checked Zillow and, on the block where the brothers rented an apartments, there is a condo for sale, 2 br, 1 ba, 600 sq ft, asking price just under $360k:</p>
<p>[392</a> Norfolk St UNIT 3, Cambridge, MA 02139 - Zillow](<a href=“Real Estate & Homes For Sale - 18670 Homes For Sale | Zillow”>http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/392-Norfolk-St-UNIT-3-Cambridge-MA-02139/62650695_zpid/)</p>
<p>You can see from the photos that it is nothing much. How could they afford rent in that area? Did either of them have a job?</p>
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<p>Poetgirl, you’re illustrating my point. Keeping out the bad guys by screening as some are advocating is futile exactly because of the examples such as yours. What percentage of immigrants from non-Muslim heritage become radicalized compared to those from Islamic families?</p>
<p>As to the numbers killed by serial killers or Colorado/Newtown - it’s a different story altogether. Most serial killers have different reasons for their actions, hence there’s no one solution that can address it, and they are from a population of 300+ million. With regard to Islamists, you are talking about people with a very similar ideology, and from a minute fraction of the 300 million people - in terms of “ORM” hundreds of times higher represented.</p>
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not to say, of course, that being less Americanized or wearing more traditional clothing makes someone radical.</p>
<p>Well, why don’t you Monday morning quarterbacks go work for the FBI and show all those inept responders how its done.</p>
<p>You folks must be wonderful to work with. Classic.</p>
<p>I think the lockdown was effective in this case. If everyone had gone about their business the next day, the homeowner likely would have gotten up and gone to work and not noticed the changes in the boat. And all the normal hustle and bustle would have given the suspect some cover. How many of us go into our back yards and check the grounds every evening? He only did that because they’d been locked up all day and this was his first time to get out and survey the property.</p>
<p>I think the authorities did some stuff right and some stuff wrong. They had the guy in a car leaving the scene where there were scores of police cars that could have pursued. I am amazed he was able to elude capture that first night.</p>
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<p>Perhaps because we keep so many of the potential terrorists out with our immigration policy. </p>
<p>Frankly, we want the ratio the way it currently is.</p>
<p>xiggi, I would beg to differ. Boston’s first responders were a model. On Marathon Day they calmed the chaos and got wounded to the hospital in record time - so far not one of the 60 people who were critically injured have died. I believe only 3 remain in critical condition. All those amputations, all that shrapnel and burns, all that blood loss, and the only ones dead are the ones who were killed virtually instantly. No one else died (or was seriously injured) in a panicked stampede. The city did it’s best to go about its business the rest of the week, until Friday. Then, only when they absolutely needed to, the authorities shut the city down. And people obeyed. Yes, in the confusion of a dark night in a suburban area and a gunbattle which no one expected, one suspect got away - throwing explosives around, driving over his own brother’s body, then running thru the darkness in a somewhat suburban area with a lot of trees, fences, houses, etc. The authorities couldn’t get a perimeter set up quickly enough in the middle of the night in an area where they’d had no reason to believe there would be trouble. But they did what they had to do, and in the end the guy was taken in, alive.</p>
<p>“He has the right to criticize, who has a heart to help.” Abraham Lincoln</p>
<p>Oh wait. We should just buy some pompoms and start cheering? Mindlessly?</p>
<p>xiggi- with respect, I don’t think we know enough to go either way- how great a job they did or that it was insufficient. At this point, we can only look at what we now have, each day’s “snapshots.” I’m waiting for either the massive, detailed review or the books.</p>
<p>Anyone who wants to rest on Kitzenberg is welcome to. I won’t be with you. Nor withthe supposed superiority of the info shared by any big news outlet, when so much proved wrong, from early on. We have to piece this together and filter. </p>
<p>As for how the brothers financed their lifestyle, here we are on CC, where kids cobble together college funds, etc. The garage owner? It was a 1967 station wagon. Someone look that up in Blue Book. They had been in that apt for a long time, no one said they bought it at recent comps.</p>
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<p>I don’t think it’s mindless. Lafalum84 pointed out that there are myriad things to celebrate. Could it have been done better? Always. But just because it wasn’t a job perfectly done doesn’t mean it wasn’t a job well done.</p>
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are most serial killers not psychopaths or mentally unstable? yet we do not discriminate against the mentally handicapped. Muslim families should be no different.</p>
<p>As for rent in Cambridge, I know someone who lives VERY close to the bombers’ house. Their rent for a new 3BR, 2BA apartment is $3k/month. This is not the nicest area of Cambridge, although nothing in Cambridge is really cheap. It’s about a mile from the nearest T stop, although there is bus service closer.</p>
<p>Lafalum, i was not talking about the responders on Monday. I was talking about the responses to the MIT killing and the use of the cell phone to track the car(s) to Watertown. The first engagement has been reported to be one between a couple of cops and offduty officers. Why not engage them with larger forces? How did one escape? Not surprising that no details have surfaced. </p>
<p>And the list goes on.</p>
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<p>Here is [one[/url</a>] who killed many times more people than died in the recent bombing.</p>
<p>And here is a [url=<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh]native”>Timothy McVeigh - Wikipedia]native</a> born American](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seung-Hui_Cho]one[/url”>Seung-Hui Cho - Wikipedia) whose act dwarfed the recent bombing.</p>
<p>Look, we don’t know what their rent was. So how do we speculate some cell was funding 3k? And why would they fund 3k, when there were other options?</p>
<p>No xiggi, not mindlessly. With endless gratitude for the thousands of officers who put their lives on the line for all of us, every single day. For the ones who rushed TOWARD the explosions, and the ones who poked their heads under porches and into dumpsters looking for the suspect. For the ones who didn’t sleep for 24 hours or more, hunting this guy. The only thing mindless would be to sit comfortably at home and accuse them of being incompetent. </p>
<p>Bostonians know this - did you see all the people yelling and cheering and clapping as the police drove away from Watertown last night? Yelling “Thank you?”</p>
<p>I’m very sorry to say this, but certain details both pull at our heartstrings and enrage. Whether or not more were killed/injured in other incidents is immaterial, to me. The issues are more than statistical. And the resolution is more than getting the 2nd brother and lots of footage of cheering crowds.</p>
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I guess the cops didn’t get the email or the tweet or the engraved invitation from the bombers, letting them know that they were going to be carjacking someone, driving into Watertown and tossing explosives all over the place.</p>
<p>Geez.</p>