Tsarnaev Boston bombing trial live: Father of 8-year-old killed in blast delivers emotional testimony
The second day of testimony in the case against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has begun in Boston. Updates from the courtroom and elsewhere:
Emotional testimony from bombing victim's father ends second day of trial
He took to heart the peace-loving messages of his second-grade teacher, who participated in marches and assigned art projects to help her students comprehend the cause. Last year, he made a poster that read: “No more hurting people. Peace.”
Along with his family, Martin was cheering friends running in the Boston Marathon in April. The second bomb took his life and seriously injured his sister, mother and father.
A friend of Martin’s teacher told an interviewer: “His message resonates powerfully today. My prayer is that we all live by Martin’s words, paying tribute to his too-brief but immeasurably valuable life by following his example.”
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via AP
William Richard, the father of Martin Richard, above, the 8-year-old boy killed on Boylston Street, testified they were at the race with other family members: his wife Denise, their other son Henry and their daughter Jane.
In another new photo, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is seen standing behind the Richard family as they watch the race from a barricade.
William Richard said the family thought about fleeing the area after they heard the first explosion.
“You knew it wasn't good,” he said.
He told his wife they would leave, but they were caught up in the second blast, which Richard said threw him into the street.
Another new photo shows that Richard made it back to the sidewalk, where he lifted a barricade off his wife and children.
Jane, 6, remained on the ground. She tried to get up, but fell.
Her legs “were blown off at the site,” Richard said.
“Martin wasn't going to make it," he said. "I saw my son alive, but barely, for the last time. I saw a little boy who had his body severely damaged by an explosion and I just knew from what I saw there was no chance. The color of his skin.”
Denise lost her sight in one eye, and Richard said he still suffers from hearing loss.
“But I can still hear you,” he told the prosecutor. “I can still hear music. And I can hear the beautiful voices of my family.”
The court adjourned early, around 3:30 p.m. local time, after Richard's testimony. The trial will remain in recess until 9 a.m. Monday.
Father of 8-year-old boy killed in bomb blast takes stand
William Richard, the father of 8-year-old bombing victim Martin Richard, took the stand for the first time on Thursday afternoon.
Prosecutors show jurors new video of finish line explosion
In a new video played for the jury but never seen before publicly, a figure in a white baseball cap resembling Dzhokhar Tsarnaev walks up to the crowd, then leaves the area.
The first explosion goes off down the street, where Tamerlan Tsarnaev had bumped into witness Jeff Bauman. People in the video are seen craning their necks to the left, wondering what had just happened.
Moments later, right where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had been standing, the second bomb explodes and the scene in the video is covered in white and pink smoke.
Boston police Officer Thomas Barrett is seen rushing to the injured. In testimony, he told the jury he tried to help a woman whose intestines appeared to have been blown out.
“But there was nothing I could do for her,” the officer said.
He next finds a boy, and is seen carrying him to safety.
Prosecutors show possible video of Tsarnaev near finish line
The second day of testimony at the trial of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has resumed in Boston.
Sketches from the courtroom
Associated Press
Victim Jeff Bauman is shown on the witness stand this morning.
Associated Press
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is shown listening to testimony in the courtroom this morning.
'I didn't have a leg. I couldn't get up.'
Roseann Sdoia was waiting to see a friend run past in the race. She stood next to a mailbox.
“There was a loud explosion down to my left,” she said. “It's amazing how quickly 10, 11, 12 seconds go ... I saw two flashes of white light exploding at my feet. Before I hit the ground it registered I probably lost my leg. Blood was pouring out of where my knee should have been. In front of me was a foot, with a sock on it. I had to stop myself and think, 'Did I wear a sock that day?' No, I hadn't."
"It was somebody else's foot in front of me.”
But she quickly realized, “I didn't have a leg. I couldn't get up. In my mind I thought, I didn't want to live as an amputee. I knew I was bleeding out. I needed to stay calm. If I didn't, I knew I would die.”
On the witness stand, she fought tears, and she lost. She wrung her hands, clung to tissues, wiped her right eye. She told the jury of her struggle to stay conscious, to keep alive. They stretched her leg out, “and it was excruciating,” she said.
Boston officer describes trying to save victim Lu Lingzi
Handout photo
Boston police Officer Lauren Woods ran to Boylston Street and found people trying to save Lu Lingzi, above, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student: “She was vomiting profusely. I tried to clear her mouth and airways.”
She added, “Her whole body was shaking, quivering. She had vomit in her hair, debris in her hair, and her eyes kept rolling in and out, facing forward and looking.” An EMT said, “She's not going to make it,” and moved on to help other victims.
“I continued chest compressions with her. I made eye contact with her. I just kept talking to her.” Someone gave her Lu's bag, which contained her school ID. “I just kept talking to her, saying 'Lingzi, stay with us. You can do this. Stay strong.' Her eyes rolled back and forth.”
First responders tried to put her on a board to take her to an ambulance, but were told, “Take her off, she's gone.” They placed a white sheet over her body, and asked someone to stay with her. “I immediately volunteered,” Woods said.
A police superior ordered Woods to start helping others, the living. She said she did not want to, but obeyed the order.
California man recalls his son's injuries
Alan Hern, a teacher and football coach from Martinez, Calif., was at the race finish line with his 11-year-old son, Aaron. His pregnant wife, Katherine, was running.
Aaron was badly injured in the bombing but survived, Hern testified.
The man took a breath and then added about his son: “They also found bone fragments from somebody else in his wound.”
FBI scientist says video evidence immediately got agents' attention
James Tyra, an FBI computer scientist attached to the bureau's cybersquad, said he helped pull images from the video that was collected. One immediately grabbed agents' attention:
“In general,” Tyra told the jury, “it showed someone setting down a backpack and then walking away. And then a bomb going off shortly after that.”
Here's the video the FBI released
FBI agents testified today about the surveillance video evidence they quickly collected after the bombing. Here's some that was released by the FBI:
Survivor wrote letter to Tsarnaev after testifying on Wednesday
Read the rest of the letter on Facebook.
How video evidence was collected
FBI Special Agent Richard Claflin arrived on Boylston Street within 45 minutes of the explosions. He began collecting video surveillance tapes.
FBI Special Agent James Marinelli testified agents found computer video equipment in the basement of nearby Forum restaurant.
Agents collected 35 to 40 pieces of video evidence by the first night. It was taken to Boston's Black Falcon Pier site, where the bureau began assessing the material.
“We knew that was an important video to review,” Marinelli said. “We said, 'This needs to be reviewed right away.'”
Video evidence ultimately led to the identification of the Tsarnaev brothers as suspects.
Survivor Jeff Bauman testifies
Associated Press
Jeff Bauman, who is the subject of one of the most famous images captured in the attacks (above), testified in shorts.
He said it was more comfortable with his prosthetics. He had gone to the marathon to watch his girlfriend, now his wife, run. He lost both his legs, above the knees, and suffered burns on his back.
Suddenly a man bumped into him. “He just looked very suspicious," Bauman said. "He was alone. He wasn't watching the race. It didn't look like he was having fun like everyone else.”
Two seconds later, he said, “I saw a flash, heard three pops and I was on the ground. I opened my eyes and I could see the sky. I thought, 'That was a big firework.' It smelled like the Fourth of July.”
Bauman has published a book about his experience.
'You couldn't tell who was alive or dead'
Frank Chiola, a Boston police officer and former Marine who served in Iraq in 2003, testified he was 20 yards from the second bomb when it exploded.
“You couldn't tell who was alive or dead,” he said. He ran to a young woman who was in her 20s and wearing blue eye shadow. He gave her CPR. “It looked liked she was in shock. She was coughing,” Chiola said. “Smoke was coming out of her mouth.”
He was describing Krystle Campbell, 29, who died in the bombing. From the waist down, "it was complete mutilation,” he said. “It's really tough to describe.”
He later went to a medical tent, where he stayed until midnight, guarding her body.
Second day about to begin
Day 1 wrap-up
Jane Flavell Collins / AP
As the long-delayed, long-awaited capital murder trial ended its first day Wednesday at a federal courthouse in downtown Boston, opening statements made clear that the trial will not focus on whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev planted one of the two bombs used in the April 2013 terror attack, but why he did it and how severely he should be punished.
Even as defense attorney Judy Clarke, sketched above, acknowledged her client's role in the attack and said he “must be held accountable for his actions,” she began laying a foundation for leniency, saying Tsarnaev became “much more vulnerable” after his parents divorced and was influenced by his older brother, Tamerlan. “He was drawn into his brother's passion and plans.” Holding up a picture of a smiling Dzhokhar as a young teenager, Clarke told the jury: “The question is why.”
Federal prosecutors insisted that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother were equally responsible for the bombings that killed three people and injured more than 260 others.
“The defendant committed all 30 crimes he is charged with,” government attorney William D. Weinreb said. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev collected radical jihadist material and on the day of the race “pretended to be a spectator although he had murder in his heart. He used weapons of mass destruction to terrorize the Boston Marathon, to terrorize the country and influence American policy.”
'My bones were literally laying next to me...'
Rebekah Gregory of Houston was injured with her young son Noah. She lost her left leg.
“I remember being thrown back and hoisted into the air,” Gregory said. “I remember trying to get up and I couldn't. I couldn't really raise up too much. My first instinct as a mother was where in the world was my son. I kept moving my head to try and figure out where he was. I couldn't see my legs. My bones were literally laying next to me on the sidewalk. Shrapnel were all over the place, and people's body parts were everywhere. At that point I thought that would be the day I would die.”
In the ambulance she heard EMTs saying “This is an amputee. This is an amputee.” One EMT put his face in her's and told her, “This is really bad.”
She looked to the side and saw Krystle Campbell, a young woman, and “she was dead.”
Going peacefully, but then alive
At the hospital, Corcoran said, she woke up after surgery. She was intubated, she could not talk. Her father was there.
She wrote him a note. “Is mom alive?” Her father said, “Yes, but she doesn't have any legs anymore.”
Corcoran wrote another note. “I don't care. I just want my mom.”
'Shortly after that her hand went limp'
Bill Greene / Boston Globe
Karen McWatters of Somerville, Mass., went with friend and co-worker Kristle Campbell to watch McWatters' boyfriend (and now husband) run the race. They were near the stands, next to a row of flags. They put their picture on Facebook. Campbell was about to die.
“It was chaos. It was confusion. Screaming, yelling, smoke, and I remember my ears, difficulty hearing,” McWatters said.
“I got close to” Kristle, she said. “We put our faces together. We tried to talk. I didn't truthfully realize how bad her injures were. Very slowly she said her legs hurt. She put her hand in mine. Shortly after that her hand went limp.”
'Everything was so happy just two seconds ago'
Ken McGagh / Associated Press
Sidney Corcoran of Lowell, Mass., was at the race to watch her aunt pass the finish line. The bombs exploded. She said, “Eeveything went up in smoke.
“We're immersed in smoke. It's like leaving a concert and having this ringing in your ears and everything is muffled and you just hear stifled screams of people. You can't see. All you see is smoke. It's like everyone around me was gone. I was in shock. I didn't know that I was injured. I felt like half of my right foot was gone.
“A man put his head to mine and said I was going to be OK, I just needed to hold on. Another man told me to hang on to his shirt and squeeze it as hard as he could. He could see that I was going white and that my eyes were going white.
“I could feel my body going tingly and I was getting increasingly cold. And I knew I was dying. But how could this be real? Everything was so happy just two seconds ago.”
White shirts turning red
Colton Kilgore, on the stand now and from North Carolina, was standing with his family near the finish line capturing video when the bombs erupted.
“I was blown through the air and there was a deafening explosion,” he said. “ I remember seeing faces and bodies tumbling through the air as I hit the ground. I couldn't hear out of my left ear. There was screaming. I thought, 'This must have been a bomb.'”
'I remember seeing faces and bodies tumbling through the air...'
Witness describes smell of gunpowder, burned hair
Shane O'Hara, manager of Marathon Sports by the finish line, was fitting a customer with shoes when the blasts hit. In a store video he is seen applying a tourniquet to a woman bleeding from the knees. “One of the screams we heard was just, we need tourniquets, gauze, pressure holders,” he said.
“It was kind of controlled chaos,” O'Hara said. “After that one moment everyone is on the ground. The only ones still standing are those who were not hurt.”
The smell of gunpowder and burned hair filled the area. Choking back tears, O'Hara said the difficult decisions were “who needs help more.”
Boston, bombs and Dzhokhar
L.A. Times reporter Richard A. Serrano has summed up the morning of the first day in the long-anticipated capital murder trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. There's plenty of background here too.
Start your day right
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