Boston Marathon blasts kills at least 3

Boston: Two powerful bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday afternoon, killing three people, maiming dozens and transforming one of this city's most cherished rites of spring from a scene of cheers and sweaty triumph to one of screams, bloody carnage and death. Some three-quarters of the 23,000 runners who participated in the race had already crossed the finish line when a bomb that had apparently been placed in a garbage can exploded in a haze of smoke amid a crowd of spectators on Boylston Street, just off Copley Square in the heart of the city. It was around 2:50 p.m., more than four hours after the race had started, officials said. Within seconds, another bomb exploded several hundred yards away. Pandemonium erupted as panicked runners and spectators scattered, and rescue workers rushed in to care for the injured, some of whom lost their legs in the blast, witnesses said. The reverberations were felt far outside the city, with officials in Washington heightening security on public transit and shutting down streets near the White House, including Pennsylvania Avenue, which the Secret Service cordoned off out of what one official described as "an abundance of caution." In New York, the Police Department said it was stepping up security at hotels and other prominent locations in the city until more is learned about the explosion. "The first one went off, I thought it was a big celebratory thing, and I just kept going," recalled Jarrett Sylvester, 26, a marathon runner from East Boston, who said it sounded like a cannon blast. "And then the second one went off, and I saw debris fly in the air. And I realized it was a bomb at that point. And I just took off and ran in the complete opposite direction." In the chaotic hours after the explosions, there were reports of at least two other devices found nearby. Police officials said that at least one was blown up in a controlled explosion. It was unclear Monday evening who might be responsible for the blast. Although investigators confirmed that they were speaking to a Saudi citizen, several law enforcement officials took pains to note that no one was being held in custody. And some law enforcement officials noted that the blasts came at the start of a week that has sometimes been seen as significant for radical American anti-government groups: it was the April 15 deadline for filing taxes, and Patriots' Day, a week that has seen attacks in the past. April 19 is the anniversary of the deadly 1993 fire near Waco, Texas, that ended a 51-day standoff and left 80 members of a religious group called the Branch Davidians dead. April 19 is also the anniversary of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which prosecutors said was conceived in part a response to the Waco raid. President Barack Obama, speaking at the White House, referred to the Patriots' Day holiday in his condemnation of the attack, calling it "a day that celebrates the free and fiercely independent spirit that this great American city of Boston has reflected from the earliest days of our nation." He vowed to bring those responsible for the blast to justice. "We will get to the bottom of this," the president said. "We will find who did this, and we will find out why they did this. Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups will feel the full weight of justice." Investigators interviewed an injured man at Brigham and Women's Hospital who had been seen running from the scene of the first explosion, a person briefed on preliminary developments in the investigation said on Monday afternoon. A senior law enforcement official said early Monday evening that the man was a Saudi citizen, about 20 years old, who, according to witnesses, was acting suspiciously before the blast. The official said he was being questioned by the FBI and Boston police. The man has not been charged and is among several people who have been or were being questioned by investigators. Police officials closed down a 15-block radius around the blast site; some transit stops were closed; landings were briefly halted at Boston Logan International Airport and the Boston Symphony Orchestra canceled its Monday night concert. A Boston Celtics game scheduled for Tuesday was canceled. Boston's police commissioner, Ed Davis, urged people to stay off the streets. "We're recommending to people that they stay home, that if they're in hotels in the area that they return to their rooms, and that they don't go any place and congregate in large crowds," he said at a news conference. It had begun as a perfect day for the Boston Marathon, one of running's most storied events, with blue skies and temperatures just shy of 50 degrees. More than 23,000 runners started the race, which typically draws half a million spectators. And long after the world-class runners had finished - the men's race was won by Lelisa Desisa Benti of Ethiopia, who finished it in 2 hours, 10 minutes and 22 seconds; Rita Jeptoo of Kenya won the women's race in 2:26:25 - the sidewalks of Boston's Back Bay were still thick with spectators cheering on friends and relatives as they loped, exhausted, toward the finish line. Stephanie Grammel, a 26-year-old from nearby Medford, was among them, there to watch her little sister run her first marathon. "All of a sudden there was a loud boom - you felt the boom," she said, estimating that she had stood 10 or 15 feet away from the smoky blast, which she said caused bloody injuries throughout the crowd. "There was, at one point, a man with no legs - an image I never want to see again." The blast was so powerful that it damaged a window on the third flood of the Boston Public Library's Central Library in Copley Square, which was closed to the public today for Patriots' Day. Dozens of people were injured in the back-to-back explosions, and 22 were taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, said Dr. Alasdair Conn, the hospital's chief of emergency services - and several had lost their legs. "This is like a bomb explosion we hear about in Baghdad or Israel or other tragic points in the world," Conn said, adding that he had never seen such carnage in Boston. Runners, just finishing the grueling race, could not believe the scene. Nico Enriquez, 19, who was running in his first Boston Marathon, had just turned onto the final straightaway on Boylston Street and was looking at the ground when he looked up and saw people running toward him. "Their faces were just freaked out," he said. "I thought I was hallucinating." Ed Frontino, 26, from Boston was standing near the doorway at a bar near the finish when the explosion knocked him to the ground, sending shattered glass into his leg. He said the noise was so loud that his ears were ringing. The police faced another problem as they tried to secure the blast scene: many spectators dropped their backpacks and bags as they scattered to safety, and investigators had to treat every abandoned bag as a potential bomb. There were bomb scares at area hotels. At one point in the afternoon, Boston police officials said that they feared that a fire at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum could have been related to the marathon bombs, but later they seemed to suggest it was not related after all. As Davis, the city's police commissioner, urged people to stay indoors on Monday afternoon, he stressed the uncertainty of the situation. "We want to make sure we completely stabilize the situation," he said.