…or Massachusetts and the surrounding states? …or the whole country?
I logged into Facebook last Friday evening as I rode the train home from downtown San Diego. I was thrilled to see that the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing was apprehended. Facebook friends were posting nice tributes to the Boston PD on their status updates. I was even chastised by a progressive friend for stating on my update that “Friday was a great day in downtown San Diego but, more importantly, we funded a loan for a Navy veteran.”. He thought I should have been using Facebook to celebrate the Boston PD’s heroic police work.
I really didn’t know what had happened so I played along. I’m not immune to the need for social acceptance. I wanted to be on Facebook for the duration of my train ride so I hit some “Like” buttons on the celebratory posts– it was the online equivalent of chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!” when you’re not quite sure why you’re chanting.
Saturday morning, I learned that Governor Deval Patrick had locked down the Greater Boston area. Citizens were confined to their quarters while the police searched house-to-house, dressed in full combat gear, with their urban assault vehicles. The film maker (in the linked video) said “this is what we woke up to Friday morning“. Free citizens were literally confined to the house in which they awoke…even if it wasn’t their residence. Suddenly, the echoes of “U-S-A! U-S-A! ” in my head were haunting me. I rationalized this extreme action as a necessary act of security and settled in to enjoy my weekend…
until I found out that….
The lock down didn’t catch the suspect. An aware citizen, having a smoke AFTER the lock down was lifted did. But that’s not all…
Was every Bostonian confined to quarters? Not if you were a donut baker:
Law enforcement asked the chain to keep some restaurants open in locked-down communities to provide hot coffee and food to police and other emergency workers, including in Watertown, the focus of the search for the bombing suspect. Dunkin’ is providing its products to them for free.
“At the direction of authorities, select Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants in the Boston area are open to take care of needs of law enforcement and first responders,” spokeswoman Lindsay Harrington explained via email. “We are encouraging our guests to state home today and abide by the lockdown, per the Governor’s recommendation.”
The crisis was so serious that hundreds of millions of dollars of wealth was destroyed but coffee slingers and donut bakers were free to serve the FBI and Boston PD…so safety wasn’t really an issue. More importantly, the lock down sent a message to the world that Americans can be cowed. Read what Israeli military journalist and IDF veteran Yaakov Katz wrote:
Yes, on Friday there was a 19-year-old terrorist on the loose, but did that mean that nearly 5 million people needed to stay locked inside their homes? Did it warrant the complete suspension of public transportation, of taxis, of Amtrak trains between Boston and the rest of the East Coast? The postponement of the Red Sox-Royals game, the Bruins-Penguins game? I’m not sure.
Also, it was strange when considering that from Monday – when the bombings took place – until Friday, there were two terrorists on the loose and there was no consideration of a lockdown.
Now, with one terrorist still free there is a lockdown? Shouldn’t the opposite have happened? But even ignoring the operational considerations, there is symbolism when one of the US’s largest cities paralyzes itself in face of terrorism.
While this would be an excellent opportunity to explain how an armed citizenry would not have to go into hiding, I won’t do that. Rather I’ll ask you to calibrate the efficacy of the lock down with the results. I’ll ask you to consider just how much freedom you’re willing to sacrifice for “security” (or, in this case. the false sense thereof). Nobody was forced to leave their homes, Tuesday through Thursday, and nothing happened to those who chose to shop or work. But a large number of Bostonians were forced to stay in their homes,, all day on Friday…and it still didn’t produce the result that one aware citizen did.
Big government always grows in a crisis be it the welfare state in a recession or the security state in a manhunt. In Goldwater’s West, the sheriff called upon the citizens to join a posse. In modern day America, the sheriff calls up the National Guard, confines the citizenry to quarters, and raises their taxes.
It makes me wonder just how far big government can expand.
Comments 7
OK…but….
This is fairly ironic about 36 hours after it was announced that the LAPS just paid out $4.2 million to the newspaper delivery driver that was mistakenly shot in the early morning hours during the height of the Dorner case….or, conversely, forgetting the spectacle of false alarms during that affair that caused law enforcement to respond with overwhelming force.
We also know that there were reportedly TENS OF THOUSANDS of tips flooding into law enforcement after the pictures were released. How many false alarms do we imagine would have been flooding in (along with general chaos) that friday if a Metro area of 5 million had been going about its daily business?
If the lockdown had gone on much longer I think these criticisms would be very much on target. But it seems to me, given the tension level in Boston, it was much SAFER to impose the lock down.
I am not sure I see the “irony” in that. But I do see that the LAPD shooting over 50 times into the car of two ladies delivering papers and federal/state/local cops shutting down an entire city are both clear examples of law enforcement escalating tensions by overstepping their reaction and power.
Michael – I agree with you BUT I also think that it is “a fact on the ground”. Now long term we absolutely need to do something about that. People SHOULD be held accountable. Lots of work there. But in the meantime, and with every reason to expect similar “mistakes” – I think Gov. Patrick made the right call. Better some hassles and cabin fever than much more tragic mistakes.
Erk?
Damm fat fingers 😉
I agree with you, Erk, about this ending quick and all-in-all not a lot of horror stories, but when this stuff happens, we really need to evaluate and speak up. That’s what Brian is doing. There were armored vehicles and agents in battle dress pointing AR rifles at civilians. This needs to be questioned thoroughly.
Our country was originally not intended to have a standing army because the British standing army was a federal law enforcement agency. As a country we have amazingly codified Posse Comitatus meaning the military cannot act as law enforcement. That is something our country should be very, very proud of. It makes us leaders to other nations.
Turning around and making our law enforcement militarized kinda defeats the purpose.
I hope we never get used to what we saw in Boston, what we saw the LAPD do regarding the Dorner chase, and what we have seen our own Sheriff Gore do in the past with his LRADs at town halls, drone inquires, infringing on the right to keep and bear arms, and as a federal agent authorizing an FBI sniper to shoot an unarmed lady holding her baby.
” But it seems to me, given the tension level in Boston, it was much SAFER to impose the lock down.”
Why was the tension level so high? Had this happened in neighboring state New Hampshire, I doubt they would have had to impose a public lockdown.
This really is my point. That lockdown was extreme to me. Then again, I haven’t lived n the east coast for over twenty years,