Woke to the news of the overnight craziness in Boston, was glued to Twitter and the Web and BBC News all day. Because I couldn’t not. Because I’m a news junkie. Because I have friends in Boston I was worried about. Because it really did feel, in the oddest way, as if I were there. At one point this morning, it seemed I knew more about what was happening in the manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev than did my friend Michael in Cambridge, who was mere blocks from intense police activity. And then tonight, while watching the leadup to Tsarnaev’s arrest in Watertown, I posted this to Facebook:
This Internet translocation thing is bizarre. I’m here on Facebook (and over there on Twitter) following what’s happening in Boston — while also watching BBC News, which is back with live nonstop video from Franklin Street — and when a bunch of sirens go by outside, I’m like, “Oh, something’s happening, the cops are making their move.” And then I snap back and mentally smack myself for forgetting that I’m thousands of miles away. Weird.
All day long I couldn’t shake an uncomfortable itchy awareness of the irony of the U.S. city most associated with the concept of a necessity of freedom from tyranny, as the place where the American revolution was sparked, on lockdown, in a state of near martial law, with the apparent total willing complicity of its citizenry.
All day long I saw people being idiots on Twitter, and people being amazing.
All day long I saw stuff like this weekend’s Boston Comic Con getting postponed because of the lockdown — terrorists win! — followed by stuff like fans MacGyvering an impromptu con in response.
I saw Spider-Man and Batman on their way to deal with the bad guys:
I saw many pictures of cute baby animals being shared around for the mutual comfort of all.
I don’t know how I could have looked away from any of it.
I don’t know what it all means, except that on days like today — and there have been others recently: Hurricane Sandy hitting NYC; the riots in London — the wisdom and humor of the best folks on the Web are comforting to be around on a small personal level and reassuring on a larger scale. Maybe we’ll be okay?
I love how small and intimate the world has become in so many ways.
I love that too.
I don’t know, I had the exact opposite reaction. I pretty much screened out all the news about it. Maybe I’m just desensitized, but I really don’t feel any need to know every detail of a criminal manhunt in real time.
I’ve heard this from various quarters, and I confess to just not understanding it. What would you have the citizens of Boston do, stand around gawking during a manhunt? Run around town yelling “Fuck the police”? Try to catch the men themselves?* Is it really a binary choice: either we resist authority at all times or we sheepishly submit to a police state? Take to social media to gripe, Greenwald style, that while catching the bombers would be nice, the really important thing right now is that the police asked people to do something? Couldn’t we see this as a successful partnership between the police and the citizenry?
* We’ve seen how that turns out, as some users on Reddit and fucking 4Chan anoint themselves “forensic digital image analysts”, and proceed to show themselves to rather to be a bunch of basement dwelling racist asshats.
Martial law (and the like) is scary. I think any time it occurs, it is reasonable to question its necessity, duration, etc. To note the irony of a lockdown in Boston is not necessarily a criticism of the citizens of Boston.
There may be plenty of idiotic comments being made about this situation, but, I don’t have any issue with what MaryAnn said in this post.
They could have just gone about their business as normal.
I think the most telling piece of evidence for that being the right option is that almost literally the very moment the lockdown was lifted and people started moving around again is when the bomber was discovered. How much was his ability to hide aided by the fact that no one was out and about?
Also note that Dunkin Donuts stayed open by police request. When the police had to consider their own convenience, they told the workers “hey, chances are you won’t get shot” – and they were quite right. Everyone else who had lives to lead? Tough; they weren’t the cops, they weren’t feeding the cops, they didn’t matter.
I find it very dispiriting just how ready many Americans are to praise the people who take away the freedoms they claim to care about, as long as there’s something scary to use as an excuse.
That’s one of those stories that sounds too ridiculous and cliche to be real. Dunkin Donuts? Really, guys? I have to think that the choice of chains was a deliberate attempt to help lighten the moods of Bostonians under extreme pressure. It must also be noted that stores in locations of either low police presence or high likelihood of being in the vicinity of the suspect were closed as well, and (unless I’m misreading the reports) their employees escorted home. Also: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2013/04/21/photograph-of-boston-police-officer-delivering-milk-to-family-during-lockdown-goes-viral/
If the city, or even parts of it had been left under lockdown until Tsarnaev was found, or even after, I would agree with you. But that is most emphatically not what happened. Here’s something that I and even the most delusional libertarian absolutist agree upon: The thing about people who take away your freedoms, they don’t just give them back.
The Donuts MUST FLOW. – Space Guild saying.
Would you have? And if one of those going about their business as normal had been killed in a crossfire, would that have caused you no uncomfortable itchiness?
I don’t think that’s telling at all. I don’t even think it counts as evidence of anything. I think that that’s one of those coincidences that people like to attach significance to, far in excess of any actual significance it has, when it fits their personal confirmation biases.
Consider: Tsarnaev wasn’t found in a location only a citizen would go but a cop would never go, so cops would have found him had they looked in that particular location. Alternatively, if Tsarnaev had hidden somewhere else, he would not have been found by that citizen, but he might have been found by police, or some other citizen, or no one at all, and would still be at large. There is no logical reason to favor any of these scenarios any each other or the one that actually occurred.
As long as we’re wildly speculating, about as much as his ability to harm more people was impeded because everyone was behind a locked door.
There were two things I had read elsewhere: 1) the authorities needed to lockdown the metrorails to cut off possible escape routes to RI or NH, which could have gotten the two to either a boat or the Canadian border; 2) there were reports of other IEDs, and the police were afraid the two might have planted bombs in other public places to cause more death and chaos during their attempted flight.
There’s a tough balance between security and openness, between constant vigilance and blithe disconcern: in a situation like that I would feel the public was best served staying in place to reduce the risks of additional injuries and confusion. Once the second brother was captured the lockdown was immediately lifted and you saw hundreds of people celebrating in the streets: it’s not like the cops kept the city on permanent lockdown 24/7.
I have been to the US a couple of times – not enough to be an expert on anything US. Having said that there’s bound to be a “but” in there somewhere.
I sometimes wonder if your lack of trust of authority (apart from the historical and obvious rebellion against the crown) is down to a breakdown in the delivery of the law.
Have you ever heard of the Peelian Principles? These are the fundamental principles of policing as laid down by Sir Robert Peel:
Principles of policing
The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.
Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.
Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient.
Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.
The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.[2]
Now in the UK in general these are adhered to (with painful exceptions) but there’s a couple there that are badly shaken when you consider the US police model:
*The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.
*Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
To my mind it’s the breakdown of these that contribute towards your problem. Of course the first one is severely tested when confronted with an armed population – and the vicious cycle continues.
I have to think that your first highlighted point is a problem for police forces everywhere. It’s a problem for parents as well. :-)
Your second highlighted point is certainly a consequence of American libertarianism, but I wonder if it’s not also an aspect of what appears to be a human tendency to the “Othering” of their governments (of which a police force is certainly an extension).
I think here in the UK we are in the process of “Othering” our own government – This tends to happen when the Right Wing arm of our political elite get into power. The perception being that decisions are being made to benefit the rich elite rather than the hoi polloi. As we have had a rightist party in power (no matter who gets in) for the last 30 years this “othering” is becoming an acute problem.
We just buried the author of this problem – it isn’t going away soon. The trouble is that the EU is beginning to show it’s true colours and this is causing consternation across the channel.
It’s depressing
It’s nice to see you posting about this, MAJ. Really enjoy reading your Doctor Who posts, so hearing anything from you about this is somehow comforting… as if the usual community love of all things Who might break through the absurdity, stress, fear, and just plain f-ed-up-ness of this week…
Please don’t interpret the “apparent total willing complicity of the citizenry” as blind-sheep, giving-up-freedom complicity. Remember: that Friday morning, it was anybody’s guess as to who the marathon bombers really were (beyond their appearance from the photos released only the previous night), let alone their connections, or their abilities, or their current state (of mind, or of arms).
When my husband and I awoke at 5:30am to the news that the elder suspect had been killed overnight with the second one somewhere in Watertown, we *immediately* questioned whether we should send our son to preschool in a neighboring town, and whether we should go to work in Cambridge (right down the street from where the MIT officer was killed). It was only *later* that we learned our town was in lock-down (as were preschool and work towns).
I think the last things anyone wanted to do was to be caught in the second suspect’s way OR impede the manhunt in anyway. I had the sense that the citizenry was HAPPY to stay inside: “complicity” with the hope that it might help catch the nut.
With regards to Boston being the birthplace of the notion of freedom from tyranny, there’s another thought that circulated about Boston which may be worth repeating. Boston may be one of the few cities where, if you come and harm us, we WILL shut the whole town down… stop everything… and find you.
Complicity… or shared determination? :)