A smaller memorial, but one just as meaningful, had sprouted on the campus of MIT, where loved ones, friends, and total strangers came to say a final goodbye to Officer Sean Collier. Bagpipes wailed as an honor guard of Sean’s fellow MIT police officers carried his flag-draped casket onto the field.
Fellow cops, numbering in the thousands and coming from as far away as Australia, filled rows of chairs across Briggs Field, where Collier was eulogized by his boss, MIT Police Chief John DiFava, and by US Vice President Joe Biden.
“What made Sean so good? There are many reasons,” DiFava told the sea of mourners that included Sean’s parents, brothers, and sisters. “I believe the most important is the fact that he was the same person in uniform that he was when he wasn’t wearing the uniform. His caring and compassion was genuine, without duplicity, and because of this depth of character, he was able to achieve a level of trust with people of all backgrounds that was truly remarkable.”
The vice president met with the Collier family privately and told them about losing his wife and one-year-old daughter in a car crash in 1972, and how he had learned to cope with the tragedy. He also offered them grieving strategies to get through the coming days and months with a pain so fresh. When Biden took the podium at Briggs Field, he shared personal stories about Collier told to him by the family and also used the service to explain the differences between Americans and those who target free people.
“On every frontier, terrorism as a weapon is losing,” Biden said. “It is not gaining adherence. And what galls them the most is that America does remain that shining city on a hill.”
[21]
SHARING THE BLAME
In early July 2013, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev made his first appearance in federal court, where he was arraigned on thirty charges stemming from the Boston Marathon bombings. Dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit and appearing sleepy-eyed and nonchalant, the nineteen-year-old terror suspect yawned during his brief eight-minute court appearance. He had a cast on his left arm and a wound that was still healing on the left side of his face. A group of MIT police officers, all wearing “Collier Strong” armbands, stood at attention outside the court house in South Boston in a show of solidarity for their fallen brother. Several marathon survivors attended the arraignment. They all wanted to get a closer look at one of the men who authorities say killed and maimed innocents in the name of Islam. Inside the courtroom, Tsarnaev said “not guilty” seven times before Judge Marianne Bowler. He also blew a kiss to both of his sisters, who were in attendance. They were not his only supporters. More than two dozen people stood outside the courthouse holding signs, some wearing T-shirts with his image.
Months later, United States Attorney General Eric Holder would announce that federal prosecutors would seek the death penalty against Tsarnaev. “The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision,” Holder said in a statement.68
Death had already come to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, as well as his friend and accomplice in the Waltham murders, Ibragim Todashev. In late May 2013, investigators from the Massachusetts State Police and an agent with the FBI tracked Todashev to Orlando, Florida, where they interviewed him for more than four and a half hours in his apartment. During the interrogation, the Chechen immigrant admitted his involvement in the gruesome September 11, 2011, murders of Brendan Mess, Erik Weissman, and Raphael Teken. Authorities then asked Todashev to write out his confession on a piece of paper. As the Chechen began to write, his mood quickly changed from one of cooperation to rage. This caused one Massachusetts state trooper to remove a decorative sword that was out in the open and hide it behind a shelf in the kitchen. The trooper then texted his state police colleague who had stepped briefly outside. The FBI agent had also taken his eyes off the murder suspect to review some notes taken on a legal pad. At that moment, Todashev lifted a coffee table he had been using to write on and threw it in the air at the federal agent, striking him in the head and knocking him to the floor. The Chechen ran into the kitchen as the FBI agent attempted to grab his ankles to slow his escape. The agent, now bleeding heavily from the blow to the head, could hear the rifling of drawers in the kitchen. The state trooper pulled his gun and raised it but quickly lowered it when he mistakenly thought Todashev was attempting to flee. Instead, the Chechen came right after him brandishing a long, javelin-like pole. Seeing Todashev running toward the trooper, the FBI agent fired as many as four shots at him. The Chechen was struck by several bullets, his body twisting as he dropped to his knees. Still breathing, Todashev lunged at the trooper again, this time getting cut down by four additional shots, including one through the skull. Ibragim Todashev was dead.69
His body was later claimed by his father and flown to Grozny, Chechnya, for burial at a Muslim cemetery. His father would maintain his son’s innocence, as would the parents of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. In an interview with the Associated Press in Dagestan in late April 2013, Zubeidat Tsarnaev called the allegations against her sons “all lies and hypocrisy.”70
The mother feigned outrage, but she refused to return to America to claim her eldest son’s body, which remained at a Worcester, Massachusetts, funeral home for two weeks after he was killed. The simple reason was that no cemetery in the state would agree to accept it. Tamerlan’s uncle Ruslan, who had called his nephews “losers,” finally claimed the body and had it buried at a Muslim cemetery in Doswell, Virginia, unbeknownst to local officials who said they learned about it through the media.71
Reporters and members of Congress would keep this story white-hot for months to come.
During a trip to Russia in late May 2013, Massachusetts Congressman William Keating said that he had been shown specific information by members of the Russian Federal Security Service that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had planned to join the insurgency in Dagestan just one year before. US officials would later claim that the Russians had refused to provide additional information about Tamerlan to the FBI until after the bombings. During its initial investigation, the Feds believed that Tamerlan had posed a greater threat to Russia than he did to his adopted country. Yet, according to an April 2014 report filed by the Intelligence Community Inspector General, the CIA, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security, there was plenty of blame to go around. In 2011, Russian officials warned the FBI that Tamerlan and his mother were adherents to radical Islam and that the son was preparing to travel to Russia to join “bandit underground groups.”72 The Russians also provided the FBI with the family’s home address, phone number, and email addresses. The FBI agent assigned to the case made a few drive-bys of the Tsarnaev apartment on Norfolk Street in Cambridge and interviewed Tamerlan and both of his parents. What the agent failed to do was ask Tamerlan or his parents about plans to visit Russia. The agent also never visited or interviewed anyone at the Cambridge mosque where Tamerlan had made anti-American outbursts, and he never interviewed Tamerlan’s wife, his former girlfriend, or any of his friends or associates. The agent never even alerted local police. Based on very little legwork, the FBI closed its investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in June 2011, finding no link or nexus between him and terrorism.
When Tsarnaev made his travel plans to Russia in January 2012, a US Customs and Border Protection official alerted the FBI agent who had handled Tamerlan’s case. The agent did not act upon the information, or he may not have gotten the information in the first place, as it might have simply gotten lost or misplaced: the federal agent often liked to communicate in an unreliable, low-tech way — by passing sticky notes.
As Tamerlan boarded an overseas flight from JFK International Airport in New York to Moscow on the evening of January 21, 2012, he was identified as a “potential subject of interest” by border patrol agents, but he was deemed a “low priority” compared to other passengers on the flight and therefore was not screened before he departed. When he arrived back in the United States on July 17, 2012, Tamerlan went unnoticed thanks to more miscommunication between border control personnel and the F
BI agent. The report by the Inspector General concluded that “additional investigative steps would have resulted in a more thorough assessment” of Tamerlan Tsarnaev.73
Some have also called into question the FBI’s decision against releasing photos of the Tsarnaev brothers on Wednesday, April 17, instead of a day later. The photos were shared by millions, including Sean Collier. Could the MIT police officer’s execution have been prevented?
The man who made that decision, FBI Special Agent in Charge Rick DesLauriers, stepped down from his position in June 2013 and disappeared into the private sector. At just fifty-three years old, DesLauriers was only four years away from the mandatory retirement age for FBI agents.
Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, universally lauded for his work on the case, left the department in September 2013 for a position at Harvard University. He was succeeded by another Boston marathon hero, William Evans.
“I feel very positive about leaving at this time on my timeline,” Davis said. “Knowing that I will be leaving having done my very best.”
Mayor Tom Menino thanked the commissioner for protecting Bostonians during the city’s most trying days. “On behalf of the entire city … I thank Commissioner Davis for his leadership and tireless commitment to improve the quality of life for the people of Boston.”74
[22]
FIELD OF DREAMS
One key decision made in the hours following the bombings was to establish a sanctioned, primary charity to benefit survivors and the families of the victims. Both Governor Patrick and Mayor Menino had seen the chaos and corruption that had ensued after 9/11 when a number of phony charities popped up to separate well-intentioned donors from their hard-earned money. The name of the charity created by the two politicians was as simple as its mission. Instead of confusing the public with multiple charities, they would establish one fund. Officials quickly set up a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and the call for donations to One Fund was announced on April 16.
The charity was a massive success. More than sixty-one million dollars was collected in the first seventy-five days. All the money went exactly where it was supposed to go — to the bombing survivors. People donated an additional twelve million dollars in the months to come. A portion of the money was generated during a special Boston Strong benefit concert at TD Garden in late May that featured Boston music icons Aerosmith, James Taylor, the J. Geils Band, Dropkick Murphys, and New Kids on the Block. Out-of-towners Carole King, Jimmy Buffet, and Jason Aldean also performed.
Many of the survivors, including Jeff Bauman and Carlos Arredondo, packed the Garden for the show. Boston’s comic legends also took part, giving a grieving and healing city a chance to laugh.
“Boston Strong, I love that phrase,” Lenny Clarke told the crowd. “You know what phrase I don’t like? ‘Shelter-in-place’ … we were stuck in our homes for sixteen hours with our wife and kids. Twenty more minutes, we would’ve started killin’ each other.”
The New Kids joined Dropkicks for a thunderous chorus of the city’s unofficial anthem “Shipping up to Boston” before taking over the stage with their early ’90s pop hit “Hangin’ Tough.” There was a bit of everything for everyone.
“It’s hard to even talk about Boston and everything that’s happened without sounding cliché,” said singer and actor Donnie Wahlberg as he waved a police shield given to him moments before by members of the MIT police department, Sean Collier’s former colleagues. “There is just no way to ever thank all those who made the ultimate sacrifice, like your brother.”
An hour or so later, all the performers gathered on stage with Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, and the rest of Aerosmith for a rousing rendition of “Come Together.”
The city had come together like at no other point in its storied and patriotic history. But while many survivors found strength in groups, others fought their battles and attempted to heal out of the public eye.
In July, the Richard family traveled to one of their favorite places in the world, Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. It’s a classic New England summer retreat where the family owns a home not far from where Larry and Nina Marchese live. The two families spend many summer weekends there, cooking out, swimming, boating, and playing games. The Richard family needed a break, especially little Jane, who had endured twelve surgeries and thirty-nine days in the intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital. After that ordeal, she had been transferred to the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital a few miles away, where she would undergo long, arduous hours of physical therapy.
On the lake in New Hampshire, Bill and Larry took the kids out tubing. It was something Martin loved to do, and it killed Bill to be doing it without his son. Jane, despite her missing leg, tubed like all the other kids. But when some of the kids wanted to go knee-boarding, it was time to make a tough call.
The little girl is a spitfire and wasn’t planning on letting a missing leg get in the way of her fun.
“I want to knee-board,” she announced.
When she was told no, she protested, “Why? I have both knees.”
It was child’s logic that was equally heartwarming and heartbreaking. Throughout that first trip back to their New Hampshire house, Jane had played like the rest of the kids. She scooted on her behind around the floor of the cottage. All day long she swam out to a raft with the other children, climbed onto it, scooted across, and dove into the water.
But as inspiring as it was to see Jane recovering and just being a kid, it was devastating that Martin wasn’t there. As they skimmed across the lake in the boat at sunset, Marchese’s two boys — Casey, who was the same age as Martin, and Jackson, who is Henry’s age — sat on the bow with Jane and Henry, their hair blowing in the late-afternoon wind.
Larry and Bill had seen this scene a dozen times before. But there were always five kids. In fact, the families have a favorite picture of all five children on the bow of the boat from the previous summer.
Now there were only four. Tears streamed down Bill’s face beneath his sunglasses.
On another summer night, Henry slept over at the Marcheses with his best pal Jackson, as they had done many times before. Henry wanted to watch Iron Man 2, but Jackson told his dad, “Maybe we shouldn’t. There are too many explosions.”
Larry and his wife, Nina, told the boys no and tried to get them to watch something else. But Henry, smart like his sister and late brother, knew what was going on.
“I know why you don’t want us to watch this,” he said to the couple. “But it’s OK.”
He told Larry the explosions in the movie were fake.
“That’s not what it’s really like,” he said.
Over the next several months, Heather Abbott spent countless hours in appointments with four different specialists: a surgeon who evaluated the limb and watched for infections; a physical therapist who helped her strengthen the limb and learn to walk on her new prosthetic leg; a rehabilitation therapist at Spaulding; and a prosthetic doctor in Warwick, Rhode Island, who regularly checked and adjusted fittings for the prosthetic.
In addition to her foot wound, a hole was blown in her eardrum. The hole has since healed but she never entirely regained her hearing, and she now wears hearing aids.
As the months have passed, Heather has had several different types of legs. Some cost as much as fifty thousand dollars or more, but Heather has had some donated to her. The One Fund has also helped defray costs.
In October 2013, she got a special prosthetic leg that allows her to wear a high heel. A cast was made of her leg and sent to England, to the same prosthesis company that made a cosmetic cover for Paul McCartney’s ex-wife Heather Mills, who lost her leg in a car accident.
In June 2013, she suffered a scare when she fell getting out of bed. It’s a common experience among amputees to forget at least once that they don’t have their limb. For Heather, that day came when she was lying in bed, her mom in the living room. The doorbell rang and — momentarily forgetting that she only has one leg — she jumped
out of the bed and fell down. Hard. She fell right on the limb, and it sent excruciating pain shooting through her body. She wasn’t injured, but she was sore for a few days.
She hasn’t forgotten again since that fall.
She also has a “water” leg that she can swim with. She received it in the summer of 2013 and was ecstatic to take her first shower standing up since before the bombings.
At a press conference after the bombings, Heather talked about how her injury wouldn’t stop her and that she was planning to do a yoga paddleboarding class.
In August 2013, she made good on the pledge, strapping on her new water leg to go paddleboarding for the first time since she was injured. Several of her friends went with her that day at Newport’s Third Beach.
Walking along the beach that day, Heather was self-conscious about how she looked in her bikini, with a plastic leg. She was not comfortable. The leg was also difficult to walk with, both on the sand and in the water, where the ground shifted beneath her — something she was not used to with her new prosthetic.
“Heather, it looks like you have a leg brace on. You can’t even tell,” one of her pals told her.
With her friends by her side, Heather waded out with her board, climbed on, and paddled out. She got to an area that was about shoulder deep. One of her friends held the board, and she stood up.
She was paddleboarding again. She smiled. It was exhilarating, even more so because she didn’t fall.
In October 2013, Heather got a running leg with a blade foot that fits into a running shoe, much like the blades used by Olympian Oscar Pistorius. She started running with it on the treadmill at the gym. The limb gets sore from the pounding, so she keeps her runs short. It’s frustrating for her, considering that before the bombing, it was routine for her to run three miles through the streets of Newport.
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