The Saudi Marathon Man : The New Yorker
A twenty-year-old man who had been watching the Boston Marathon had his body torn into by the force of a bomb. He wasnât alone; a hundred and seventy-six people were injured and three were killed. But he was the only one who, while in the hospital being treated for his wounds, had his apartment searched in âa startling show of force,â as his fellow-tenants described it to the Boston Herald, with a âphalanxâ of officers and agents and two K9 units. He was the one whose belongings were carried out in paper bags as his neighbors watched; whose roommate, also a student, was questioned for five hours (âI was scaredâ) before coming out to say that he didnât think his friend was someone whoâd plant a bombâthat he was a nice guy who liked sports. âLet me go to school, dude,â the roommate said later in the day, covering his face with his hands and almost crying, as a Fox News producer followed him and asked him, again and again, if he was sure he hadnât been living with a killer.
Why the search, the interrogation, the dogs, the bomb squad, and the injured manâs name tweeted out, attached to the word âsuspectâ? After the bombs went off, people were running in every directionâso was the young man. Many, like him, were hurt badly; many of them were saved by the unflinching kindness of strangers, who carried them or stopped the bleeding with their own hands and improvised tourniquets. âExhausted runners who kept running to the nearest hospital to give blood,â President Obama said. âThey helped one another, consoled one another,â Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, said. In the midst of that, according to a CBS News report, a bystander saw the young man running, badly hurt, rushed to him, and then âtackledâ him, bringing him down. People thought he looked suspicious.
What made them suspect him? He was runningâso was everyone. The police reportedly thought he smelled like explosives; his wounds might have suggested why. He said something about thinking there would be a second bombâas there was, and often is, to target responders. If that was the reason he gave for running, it was a sensible one. He asked if anyone was deadâa question people were screaming. And he was from Saudi Arabia, which is around where the logic stops. Was it just the way he looked, or did he, in the chaos, maybe call for God with a name that someone found strange?
What happened next didnât take long. âInvestigators have a suspectâa Saudi Arabian nationalâin the horrific Boston Marathon bombings, The Post has learned.â Thatâs the New York Post, which went on to cite Fox News. The âSaudi suspectââstill facelessâsuddenly gave anxieties a form. He was said to be in custody; or maybe his hospital bed was being guarded. The Boston police, who werenât saying much of anything, disputed the reportâsort of. âHonestly, I donât know where theyâre getting their information from, but it didnât come from us,â a police spokesman told TPM. But were they talking to someone? Maybe. âPerson of interestâ became a phrase of both avoidance and insinuation. On the Atlas Shrugs Web site, there was a note that his name in Arabic meant âsword.â At an evening press conference, Ed Davis, the police commissioner, said that no suspect was in custody. But that was about when the dogs were in the apartment building in Revereâan inquiry that was seized on by some as, if not an indictment, at least a vindication of their suspicions.
âThere must be enough evidence to keep him there,â Andrew Napolitano said on âFox and Friendsâââthereâ being the hospital. âThey must be learning information which is of a suspicious nature,â Steve Doocy interjected. âIf he was clearly innocent, would they have been able to search his house?â Napolitano thought that a judge would take any reason at a moment like this, but there had to be âsomethingââmaybe he appeared âdeceitful.â As Mediaite pointed out, Megyn Kelly put a slight break on it (as she has been known to do) by asking if there might have been some âracial profiling,â but then, after a round of speculation about his visa (Napolitano: âWas he a real student, or was that a front?â), she asked, âWhatâs the story on his ability to lawyer up?â
By Tuesday afternoon, the fever had broken. Report after report said that he was a witness, not a suspect. âHe was just at the wrong place at the wrong time,â a âU.S. officialâ told CNN. (So were a lot of people at the marathon.) Even Fox News reported that heâd been âruled out.â At a press conference, Governor Deval Patrick spoke, not so obliquely, about being careful not to treat âcategories of people in uncharitable ways.â
We donât know yet who did this. âThe range of suspects and motives remains wide open,â Richard Deslauriers of the F.B.I. said early Tuesday evening. In a minute, with a claim of responsibility, our expectations could be scrambled. The bombing could, for all we know, be the work of a Saudi manâor an American or an Icelandic or a person from any nation you can think of. It still wonât mean that this Saudi man can be treated the way he was, or that people who love him might have had to find out that a bomb had hit him when his name popped up on the Web as a suspect in custody. It is at these moments that we need to be most careful, not least.
It might be comforting to think of this as a blip, an aberration, something that will be forgotten tomorrowâif not by this young man. There are people at GuanĂĄtanmo who have also been cleared by our own government, and are still there. A new report on the legacy of torture after 9/11, released Tuesday, is a well-timed admonition. The F.B.I. said that they would âgo to the ends of the earthâ to get the Boston perpetrators. One wants them to be able to go with their heads held high.
âIf you want to know who we are, what America is, how we respond to evilâthatâs it. Selflessly. Compassionately. Unafraid,â President Obama said. That was mostly true on Monday; a terrible day, when an eight-year-old boy was killed, his sister maimed, two others dead, and many more in critical condition. And yet, when there was so much to fear that we were so brave about, there was panic about a wounded man barely out of his teens who needed help. We get so close to all that Obama described. Whatâs missing? Is it humility?
Read more of our coverage of the Boston Marathon explosions.
Photograph, from April 16th, by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty.
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