Posts
A
couple of curious stories
.
UM
Coach: Bomb Sniffing Dogs, Spotters on Roofs Before Explosions
15
April, 2013
University
of Mobile’s Cross Country Coach, who was near the finish line of
the Boston Marathon when a series of explosions went off, said he
thought it was odd there were bomb sniffing dogs at the start and
finish lines.
"They
kept making announcements to the participants do not worry, it's just
a training exercise," Coach Ali Stevenson told Local 15.
Stevenson
said he saw law enforcement spotters on the roofs at the start of the
race. He's been in plenty of marathons in Chicago, D.C., Chicago,
London and other major metropolitan areas but has never seen that
level of security before.
"Evidently,
I don't believe they were just having a training exercise,"
Stevenson said. "I think they must have had some sort of threat
or suspicion called in."
Stevenson
had just finished the marathon before the explosions. Stevenson said
his wife had been sitting in one of the seating sections where an
explosion went off, but thankfully she left her seat and was walking
to meet up with him.
"We
are just so thankful right now," Stevenson said.
Boston
runners were warned: Squamish man
Heiliger
'stunned' by explosions, but escapes injury in marathon finish-line
blasts
15
April, 2013
Runners
getting set to take part in the Boston Marathon were warned
beforehand that they were going to die, said a Squamish resident who
took part in the race.
Two
people were killed and more than 130 were injured when two explosions
rocked the finish-line area of the famed, 42.2-kilometre running
event on Monday (April 15).
Mike
Heiliger, 59, said a woman holding several bags was telling runners
who were picking up their pre-race packages in downtown Boston on
Saturday (April 13) that they were going to die if they participated
in the event.
“I
was downtown on Saturday and you know, you see these people on the
street and think it's just some nutbar,” he told The Chief from his
Boston hotel on Monday. “It was a little creepy because you can
identify who the runners are and I heard her say to this runner two
feet away from me that, 'If you run tomorrow you're going to die.'”
At
the time, Heiliger said he thought about telling the woman that the
race was Monday, but decided not to correct her.
Heiliger
was in the process of calling the police after his conversation with
The Chief.
“I
thought it was just a nut and maybe she was a nut but she was holding
a couple of bags like she just got off a plane and was accosting
runners on Saturday,” he said.
The
Squamish resident was one of a group of about 15 runners from the
North Shore and he said they're all fine.
“We
all run in a run club and as far as I know all of our people are OK,”
he said. “Some of them didn't get to finish, unfortunately, because
when the bomb went off — that was it. They [race officials] stopped
everybody.”
Heiliger
finished the race in 3:29:51 and was making his way back to his hotel
when the explosions went off.
“I
was just coming to the hotel and I heard all these sirens,” he
said. “But you're in a big city and when you hear sirens you think
nothing of it.”
It
was the fourth time Heiliger had raced in Boston and said the scene
was disturbing.
“I'm
just stunned right now,” he said. “It's a terrible situation.
Boston has really embraced this race, they really get up for this
thing and they're so friendly. For something like this to happen it's
mind boggling.”
He
said whoever set up the explosions had put some thought into it.
“Whoever
did this knew what they were doing,” he said. “They knew where to
put it where the most people were.”
Despite
the disastrous day, Heiliger said the tragedy will not dampen his
enthusiasm for the race.
“I
think I would still come back to Boston,” he said. “I bet
security will be insane from here on in but I take the attitude that
if you stay away, you let the crazies win. Time will tell what comes
of this. This is huge. They [locals] want to hang someone out on the
streets.”
Boston
Marathon Bombing Facebook Page Created 2 Days PRIOR?
Here
is the page before it is taken down
Another
drill gone live. Now they will take away the rest of our rights to
keep us safe.
How
soon will this witness statement below be pulled? Marathon runner
Suzanne Taylor said she noticed more of a military presence when the
race with 27,000 runners started. "We noticed that they had
military upon the buildings watching," Taylor said. "I
wonder if they had had some...that was kind of peculiar to me. That's
kind of weird to have military people up there with binoculars before
a running event at the start. "It just didn't look normal. It
just didn't
look
normal."
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.