A twenty-year-old man who had been watching the Boston Marathon had his body torn into by the force of a bomb. He wasn\u2019t 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 \u201ca startling show of force,\u201d as his fellow-tenants described it to the Boston Herald, with a \u201cphalanx\u201d 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 (\u201cI was scared\u201d) before coming out to say that he didn\u2019t think his friend was someone who\u2019d plant a bomb\u2014that he was a nice guy who liked sports. \u201cLet me go to school, dude,\u201d 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 hadn\u2019t been living with a killer.<\/p>\n
Why the search, the interrogation, the dogs, the bomb squad, and the injured man\u2019s name tweeted out, attached to the word \u201csuspect\u201d? After the bombs went off, people were running in every direction\u2014so 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. \u201cExhausted runners who kept running to the nearest hospital to give blood,\u201d President Obama said. \u201cThey helped one another, consoled one another,\u201d 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 \u201ctackled\u201d him, bringing him down. People thought he looked suspicious.<\/p>\n
What made them suspect him? He was running\u2014so 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 bomb\u2014as 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 dead\u2014a 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?<\/p>\n
What happened next didn\u2019t take long. \u201cInvestigators have a suspect\u2014a Saudi Arabian national\u2014in the horrific Boston Marathon bombings, The Post has learned.\u201d That\u2019s the New York Post, which went on to cite Fox News. The \u201cSaudi suspect\u201d\u2014still faceless\u2014suddenly gave anxieties a form. He was said to be in custody; or maybe his hospital bed was being guarded. The Boston police, who weren\u2019t saying much of anything, disputed the report\u2014sort of. \u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t know where they\u2019re getting their information from, but it didn\u2019t come from us,\u201d a police spokesman said. But were they talking to someone? Maybe. \u201cPerson of interest\u201d became a phrase of both avoidance and insinuation. On the Atlas Shrugs Web site, there was a note that his name in Arabic meant \u201csword.\u201d 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 Revere\u2014an inquiry that was seized on by some as, if not an indictment, at least a vindication of their suspicions. <\/p>\n