Speaker 1: It's Nights with Dan Ray.
Speaker 2: I'm doell you easy Boston's new video. All right, welcome
Speaker 2: back everyone. Well where were you twelve years ago tonight?
Speaker 2: I know exactly where I was twelve years ago tonight.
Speaker 2: It would have been the night of April fifteenth, two
Speaker 2: thy and thirteen. That was the day of the Boston
Speaker 2: Marathon bombing. And I remember that night very clearly being
Speaker 2: on the air, and I even remember more clearly four
Speaker 2: nights later when the wild chase down Memorial Drive into
Speaker 2: Watertown occurred. But let's just go back to the bombing.
Speaker 2: And it's amazing to think that twelve years have passed,
Speaker 2: always stunned by the passage of time. And once again
Speaker 2: we need to remember and recall those who died, those
Speaker 2: who were killed, and those who were injured, who did
Speaker 2: nothing wrong that day. All they did was go to
Speaker 2: either run a race or watch the finish of a race.
Speaker 2: And you know, before I take your phone calls about
Speaker 2: your memory from that day in that week, I just
Speaker 2: want to again, you know, mention the names of Martin Richard,
Speaker 2: who was at the little eight year old boy from Dorchester,
Speaker 2: Lindsay lou the graduate student at Boston University, twenty three
Speaker 2: years of age. You think of it, you know, Martin
Speaker 2: Richard would be twenty today, he'd be a young man,
Speaker 2: probably finishing up his college, his time in college. Lindsay
Speaker 2: Lou who knows where she would be thirty five and
Speaker 2: could be you know, who knows where her career path
Speaker 2: would have taken her. Crystal Campbell was twenty nine, she
Speaker 2: grew up in Medford, was from Medford, and she would
Speaker 2: be forty one. And of course it was four days
Speaker 2: later when Mit Police officer Sean Collier was assassinated by
Speaker 2: these animals, the Boston bombers. He was twenty seven, so
Speaker 2: he would be now thirty nine years of age if
Speaker 2: he had survived. And then a Boston police officer, Dennis
Speaker 2: DJ Simons died a year later from injuries sustained during
Speaker 2: the manhunt for the bombers, and there were the appropriate
Speaker 2: services today memorializing this event. There was the one hundred
Speaker 2: and seventeenth running of the Boston Marathon in twenty and thirteen.
Speaker 2: It certainly brought our city together like it's never been
Speaker 2: brought together before. Boston strong and all that. The they were,
Speaker 2: they were upwards of I don't know how many hundreds
Speaker 2: of people injured. I've seen one statistic that says five
Speaker 2: hundred were injured. Obviously, five lost their lives, a dozen
Speaker 2: at least lost limbs in these two explosions, which were
Speaker 2: crimes against humanity is what they were. They were. They
Speaker 2: were labeled terrorism, and there was plenty of evidence why
Speaker 2: it was terrorism. And one of the bombers, Uh, the
Speaker 2: older brother, he was killed during a shootout in Watertown
Speaker 2: four nights later, and and then his younger brother actually
Speaker 2: drove over him, I believe, and as he was trying
Speaker 2: to escape and he was he wasn't found until the
Speaker 2: next morning. I think it was well, it was, it was.
Speaker 2: It was later that night found in the in the
Speaker 2: boat in the backyard in Watertown. But it was a
Speaker 2: horrific time in Boston that week. Mayor Menino, Police Commissioner
Speaker 2: Ed Davis, they they were extraordinary in their leadership of
Speaker 2: the city. There was so much about this. I don't
Speaker 2: want to revisit my my experiences. I'd like to know
Speaker 2: your experiences. I do remember even more vividly, I guess.
Speaker 2: Four nights later, it was Thursday night after President Obama
Speaker 2: had spoken in Boston at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross,
Speaker 2: and I was in the old studios at WBZ on
Speaker 2: soldiers Field Road. Little did I think twelve years later
Speaker 2: COVID would have basically compel me to do my shows remotely.
Speaker 2: For now, it's been five years, but not five years. No,
Speaker 2: might say four years, two thousand and one to three,
Speaker 2: two thousand and one, two thousand and two, three, four
Speaker 2: or five five years. I've done five years of remote
Speaker 2: remote broadcasts. But I remember the night on Thursday night
Speaker 2: that around I guess it was maybe ten o'clock or so,
Speaker 2: there was there was a story about a police officer
Speaker 2: who had been wounded on the campus of MIT, and
Speaker 2: the first reports were that he had been shot in
Speaker 2: the hand. And I never connected it with the Marathon bombers,
Speaker 2: but at that point Sean Collier was probably dead, uh,
Speaker 2: And I remembered that we had remembered the the shelter
Speaker 2: in place order for Friday.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The brother wasn't caught until the next day, well
Speaker 2: into the next day when he was caught in Watertown.
Speaker 2: But that Friday night, I was going to pick my
Speaker 2: daughter up at Harvard. She had some sort of a
Speaker 2: doctor's appointment the next day, and I picked her up
Speaker 2: and this now was after midnight, and as I picked
Speaker 2: her up, I knew that there was a police chase
Speaker 2: going on down Memorial Drive, and that was the police
Speaker 2: chase in which they was going to terminate in Watertown.
Speaker 2: I remember my daughter jumped in the car. She had
Speaker 2: on her cell phone, she had a police scanner, and
Speaker 2: she said, let's follow, let's follow the police chase. And
Speaker 2: I said, are you crazy. You know, we're only going
Speaker 2: to get in the way. And so I just we
Speaker 2: went home. And then Friday, people sheltered in place on
Speaker 2: Friday morning. No one knew where this other madman was.
Speaker 2: He's now been convicted and is awaiting the death penalty
Speaker 2: out in Colorado. President Biden had suspended the death penalty.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump said the death penalty will be reinstated. I
Speaker 2: can't think of any any individual more deserving of a
Speaker 2: federal death penalty than Boston bomber number two. So what
Speaker 2: I'd like to do is just spend a little bit
Speaker 2: of time here. If you were a friend of someone
Speaker 2: who who was killed, who were killed, of any of
Speaker 2: the people who were killed, and you'd like to talk
Speaker 2: about them, fine, if you'd like to talk about what
Speaker 2: your experience was the day of the bombing, or maybe
Speaker 2: as I just talked about my experience the night that
Speaker 2: they were well, that one was killed and the other
Speaker 2: took shelter inside of a boat and actually scrawled inside
Speaker 2: the boat and basically admitted with he wrote in with
Speaker 2: his I guess his blood inside the boat, what they
Speaker 2: were doing, and why they did it. I just think
Speaker 2: it's important not to forget these things. You know, in
Speaker 2: the normal course of a year, none of us probably
Speaker 2: give it a second thought unless we're a family member
Speaker 2: of someone who was killed. So this is an opportunity
Speaker 2: just to rekindle that spirit, if you will. Boston Strong,
Speaker 2: which sounded very much like a slogan at the time,
Speaker 2: but I wish that slogan came back. I don't feel
Speaker 2: like it's Boston Strong anymore. I feel like, yeah, we're
Speaker 2: Boston and all of that, and we're approaching the two
Speaker 2: hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Revolution, and there will
Speaker 2: be of the American Revolution, the beginning of the American Revolution,
Speaker 2: the Battle of Lexington Concert and all of that. But
Speaker 2: I don't feel there's We're such a divided country, and
Speaker 2: obviously it's politics that divides us. I get it, but
Speaker 2: maybe for the balance of this hour, we could just
Speaker 2: talk as fellow Americans and celebrate what we have and
Speaker 2: celebrate what some successfully we stopped people from taking away
Speaker 2: from us. We celebrate our police officers, our firefighters are
Speaker 2: EMTs uh and and the leadership that we had the
Speaker 2: late Great Tominino and former Boston Police Commissioner At Davis.
Speaker 2: Sometimes the right people are in the right place for
Speaker 2: all the right reasons, and I think that's what happened
Speaker 2: on April fifteenth, twenty and thirteen. I don't want to
Speaker 2: be somber about this, but I want to be respectful.
Speaker 2: So we'll open up the phone line six one seven,
Speaker 2: four ten thirty, six nine, three, ten thirty. This is
Speaker 2: an event, just like nine to eleven, we can never forget.
Speaker 2: We can never forget from nine to eleven to twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: That's twelve years now, twelve years later, where we're remembering
Speaker 2: as we move into this weekend, not only the two
Speaker 2: HU fifty, the anniversary of the start of the Revolutionary War,
Speaker 2: but we're remembering another attack upon our freedom, our way
Speaker 2: of life, our democracy, and we need, we need to
Speaker 2: understand how lucky we are to be living here at
Speaker 2: this time and to have been born into this country.
Speaker 2: I'll be back on nightside and we'll get as many
Speaker 2: phone calls if you want to go a couple of
Speaker 2: hours we can. Let's get it going right after this.
Speaker 1: You're on night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: All right, let's grow. Let's go to Mark and Austin.
Speaker 2: Mark's going to start us off. Hey Mark, how are
Speaker 2: you tonight?
Speaker 4: Dan? My friends, thanks for taking my call. I have
Speaker 4: very specific memories of what happened that gosh awful day.
Speaker 2: Go right ahead.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, at that time, I was working part time
Speaker 4: eight am to one pm shift at the supermarket in Austin,
Speaker 4: very good employer, and I rushed home a little bit
Speaker 4: to see I guess there were some very high, top
Speaker 4: rated American contenders in the marathon. And I turned on
Speaker 4: the TV, and my god, it was a horror show.
Speaker 4: And the thing about law enforcement is that I remember
Speaker 4: that the FBI was pouring in every possible resource into
Speaker 4: the city. But I knew the city a lot better,
Speaker 4: having lived here most of my life, and I had
Speaker 4: a theory as to how the total jerks had escaped.
Speaker 4: Like after the bombings, my theory went that they had
Speaker 4: well escaped through the MBTA to the bus to New York.
Speaker 4: Turned down, Well, the woman has the eye agent thanked me.
Speaker 4: When they say every possible bit of information that can
Speaker 4: be helpful, they mean every possible bit of information. Of course,
Speaker 4: my theory turned out to be incorrect. They wandered to Watertown,
Speaker 4: and we'll have to agree to disagree about the death penalty.
Speaker 4: But suffice it to say that if you've never been
Speaker 4: directly involved in the criminal justice system, except I am
Speaker 4: a survivor of violent crime, and I've never ever in
Speaker 4: my adult life taken a specific criminal justice class, and
Speaker 4: just a newspaper.
Speaker 2: Man, we're kind of drifting away from the issue at hand, Mark,
Speaker 2: so you can bring it back to the marathon.
Speaker 4: Inevitably, it's a bit traumatic when all of a sudden
Speaker 4: you get suddenly involved in the criminal justice system.
Speaker 2: And it's more traumatic for the people who were adversely
Speaker 2: impacted by the involvement of these punks and what they did.
Speaker 2: So we can agree with you so far on that one. Thanks, Mark,
Speaker 2: appreciate it, as always talked to you.
Speaker 3: Soon.
Speaker 2: Let me go next to Dan and Brookline. Dan, you
Speaker 2: were next on Nisager, right, ahead, Hey.
Speaker 5: Dan, thanks for taking the call. So I on the
Speaker 5: I don't know, must have been whenever they identify the
Speaker 5: name of the bombers, something was sort of eating away
Speaker 5: at me, Like I recognized the name and I couldn't
Speaker 5: figure out why. And so after a few hours of
Speaker 5: hearing the name, I searched for it on my computer,
Speaker 5: and sure enough, dozens and dozens of documents popped up
Speaker 5: with that kid's name in it. And it turns out
Speaker 5: I was his soccer coach when he was in eighth grade.
Speaker 5: I was an administrator at the school that him and
Speaker 5: his sister went to. The sister who became sort of
Speaker 5: sort of infamous like he did. If you remember, you
Speaker 5: know the details of that she.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 5: Ultimately, the thing that strikes me of all of this
Speaker 5: is how I knew both of them very well, and
Speaker 5: you never would have suspected this, And it shows you
Speaker 5: what radicalization can do to you.
Speaker 2: You're talking not about the older brother. I assume you're
Speaker 2: talking about the younger brother. Younger brother who's a death roger.
Speaker 5: I was a soccer coach in eighth grade.
Speaker 2: And now they were going to a public school, and
Speaker 2: I assume Somerville right.
Speaker 5: So it was I don't know if I should say
Speaker 5: the name of the school, but it was a charter
Speaker 5: school in Cambridge.
Speaker 2: Okay, fine, but yeah, came but you don't have to
Speaker 2: say that, but it's a charter school. Is still a
Speaker 2: public school?
Speaker 5: Oh absolutely, charter public school percent.
Speaker 2: So they were small enough to come here, take advantage
Speaker 2: of free housing, take advantage of all sorts of benefits,
Speaker 2: take advanta of the liberty that we have in this country,
Speaker 2: and get into a charter school. I mean, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of people in this city. Strata schools are all
Speaker 2: subscribed and it's tough to get in. So you just wonder.
Speaker 2: And the sister was she was a loose cannon too.
Speaker 2: I wonder where she ended up, hopefully back in Dagistan.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I do remember. The sister wrote a paper about
Speaker 5: Kazakhstan actually, like the injustices that were going on there,
Speaker 5: and I don't remember too much about it, but that
Speaker 5: was sort of the only hint that I ever got
Speaker 5: that either of them had any kind of exposure to anything.
Speaker 5: But the bottom line is that if you knew them
Speaker 5: like I did, which was pretty well, every day I
Speaker 5: was in that school, I was an administrator at the
Speaker 5: school and the soccer coach, and they were just he
Speaker 5: was super quiet and always had a smile on a face,
Speaker 5: and she was a little sassy and I kind of
Speaker 5: liked her. She had a personality. And in a million years,
Speaker 5: I never would have thought this would have been they
Speaker 5: would have gone down this road. But again, what it
Speaker 5: shows you is the strength of this radicalization that can
Speaker 5: happen and does happen, you know, and it's frightening.
Speaker 2: Well, I got to tell you, I was reading some
Speaker 2: materials tonight in preparation for the show, and it's it's
Speaker 2: pretty clear that the brother was a big influence in
Speaker 2: this kid's life. Yeah, but the kid, you know.
Speaker 3: He.
Speaker 2: You know, I just it's frustrating to me that he
Speaker 2: still is amongst the living and that that I don't
Speaker 2: want it to be made a martyr of But it's
Speaker 2: twelve years on. I mean, how how much longer is
Speaker 2: he going to have to be in the criminal justice system?
Speaker 2: And yeah, and basically, yeah.
Speaker 5: He's been convicted and and there's this beyond any shadow
Speaker 5: of a doubt that he did it.
Speaker 2: I have a different I have a difference for it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I have a very simple standard, and we discussed this
Speaker 2: the other night, and I came to uh, you know
Speaker 2: point where we can do we can agree to disagree.
Speaker 2: Their guilt inness is beyond a scintilla of doubt. Right,
Speaker 2: that's the legal standard. There's no question, there's no possible question,
Speaker 2: and there are horrifically aggravating circumstances, right, and that for me,
Speaker 2: basically clinches the case. I would be very limited in
Speaker 2: the use of the death penalty. I know that there
Speaker 2: were those like Mark from Alston who were opposed to it,
Speaker 2: you know, for whatever reason, philosophically, religiously, morally, spiritually, whatever.
Speaker 2: I can't disagree with those folks. They have a higher standard,
Speaker 2: I guess than I do. But I would make an
Speaker 2: exception for this guy. There's a few others out there
Speaker 2: who are who who I just want to see gone.
Speaker 5: And I mean again, ultimately, if the law provides for
Speaker 5: which it does, and they were convicted, which they were,
Speaker 5: which she was, and then again what you're saying, you know,
Speaker 5: there's simply no question that he did it. And so
Speaker 5: how do you defend not carrying out the sentence? I'm
Speaker 5: not sure.
Speaker 2: Well, there can be no question, you know, beyond a
Speaker 2: since hill or a doubt. Okay, there's no there's no
Speaker 2: real question about it. But when you add in the
Speaker 2: aggravating circumstances, you know, this is not a guy who
Speaker 2: robs a bank and panics and shoots a police officer.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe he get he qualifies too, but because
Speaker 2: it's a police officer, but this is aggriva. He Basically,
Speaker 2: they bombed innocent civilians, maimed people, killed people. That's the point.
Speaker 5: Intentionally, right, yeah, intentionally, and the bomb was designed to
Speaker 5: cause horrific outcomes.
Speaker 2: Right, exactly, exactly exactly, Dan, I love your calls. I
Speaker 2: wish you call more often. Okay, you are, you're also
Speaker 2: a voice of reason to thank him a friend.
Speaker 5: Thanks Dan, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Good night. Okay, here comes the news. I'll be back
Speaker 2: on the other side. The only line right now is
Speaker 2: six one, seven, two, five, four tenth. It's the twelfth
Speaker 2: anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing. Look. I know you'll
Speaker 2: be at the beach this summer. I know you'll be
Speaker 2: football games this fall and you won't even think about
Speaker 2: this day. But I think tonight we need to give
Speaker 2: it a little thought. And I'd love to hear your
Speaker 2: thoughts and your recollection of that day back on night Side.
Speaker 5: Right after this, It's Night Side with.
Speaker 1: Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, let's keep rolling here. We're going to go
Speaker 2: next to Hopefully we won't keep people too long, Keith
Speaker 2: and Kate down to the Cape. Keith on Cape Card.
Speaker 2: But it was a nice day down in the Cape today, Keith,
Speaker 2: I hope. How are you?
Speaker 6: Yeah, not bad. I'm just down here on business. I'm
Speaker 6: from the North Shore originally. But hey, I've got a
Speaker 6: quick question.
Speaker 2: Roy.
Speaker 6: You mentioned that you mentioned that President Biden took the
Speaker 6: death penalty away from this guy, and Trump is going
Speaker 6: to give a death penalty back to this guy. I
Speaker 6: was just wondering what the legal mechanism is for the
Speaker 6: president to have that kind of power. I didn't realize.
Speaker 2: It is my understanding that President Biden signed an executive
Speaker 2: order which removed the death penalty for anyone who was
Speaker 2: on death row. My view is that if one president
Speaker 2: can remove it with an executive order, another president can
Speaker 2: restore it with an executive order.
Speaker 6: I never knew that. So all federal death penalty cases
Speaker 6: are off the table.
Speaker 2: Well, death penalty cases were placed off the table for
Speaker 2: the last few weeks of the Biden administration. I don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know if Joe Biden understood what
Speaker 2: he was doing or you know, there's now all sorts
Speaker 2: of questions being raised about his competency, his metal competency,
Speaker 2: particularly in the last couple of years of his term.
Speaker 2: But if he indeed did sign, and there's some question
Speaker 2: about whether or not he signed, they were signed by
Speaker 2: auto penn irrespective of that, what one president can impose
Speaker 2: by executive order, another president can reimpose it by say, I.
Speaker 6: Just I didn't realize. I didn't realize that he had
Speaker 6: rolled back federal death penalty cases. Whether he was competent
Speaker 6: or not, it wasn't really my question.
Speaker 2: My question was right right right now. Well, he basically said,
Speaker 2: as the President of the United States, I am taking
Speaker 2: away death penalty sentences. I believe that Donald Trump has
Speaker 2: the authority, and I suspect he will use it. It may
Speaker 2: end up going up to the courts that he can
Speaker 2: reimpose those those sentences, or he basically can in effect
Speaker 2: negate the executive order. It wasn't an act of Congress.
Speaker 2: When when the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional
Speaker 2: in the Furman versus Georgia case in nineteen seventy two
Speaker 2: men and if there were any women on death row nationwide,
Speaker 2: those that single decision erased the boat, erased, it cleaned
Speaker 2: because it was a US Supreme Court decision. And then
Speaker 2: eventually death penalty cases came back and they were fed.
Speaker 2: I mean Timothy McVeigh was executed, Gary Gilmour was executed.
Speaker 2: You remember all of those cases. But again that's when
Speaker 2: Congress reinstored the death.
Speaker 6: Penalty and the history of it for sure.
Speaker 2: Y yeah, yeah. So I mean, if one president says
Speaker 2: I'm doing the executive order, I believe that the subsequent
Speaker 2: president can if they want, recind the executive order, override.
Speaker 6: E get that up, all right, Dan, thanks very much,
Speaker 6: appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Keith, appreciate your call. Let's go next to
Speaker 2: Eileen in Cambridge.
Speaker 3: II.
Speaker 2: Leen, where were you the day of the marathon bombing.
Speaker 7: Well, I was at the airport and I had gotten
Speaker 7: to the airport.
Speaker 2: Early at Logan Airport.
Speaker 7: At Logan Airport. It was at Logan Airport I was,
Speaker 7: I had I was about to take off on a
Speaker 7: plane to London, England. I was headed to a conference
Speaker 7: there that I had signed up for many weeks earlier,
Speaker 7: and I was at the airport and I got a
Speaker 7: phone call from my son, who was at that time
Speaker 7: in New York City, and he told me what happened,
Speaker 7: and I mean, you know, that's how I heard about it.
Speaker 7: I didn't hear it over the news or anything. But then,
Speaker 7: of course I tried to call his brother, who had
Speaker 7: planned to go to the finish line to watch the
Speaker 7: You know, I was very very upset you were. I
Speaker 7: couldn't reach him. I I the phone went dead, and
Speaker 7: I thought, oh, oh, you know, I was really scared.
Speaker 2: How long did it take you to realize that he
Speaker 2: was okay? Because I know he was okay because we've
Speaker 2: had prior conversation. How long How long were you in
Speaker 2: that state of apprehension?
Speaker 7: I it must have been at least an hour. And
Speaker 7: then he called me and he said, I didn't want
Speaker 7: you to worry, Mom, But I was on I was
Speaker 7: on a on a Red Line train that that just
Speaker 7: he was in Cambridge or something, and they went from
Speaker 7: Cambridge all the way to Quincy Adams, the last stop
Speaker 7: because they wouldn't they weren't going to stop in the
Speaker 7: tunnel in Boston because they didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you got that situation, take all precaution. Did you
Speaker 2: get it? Did you? Actually? Then I assume got on
Speaker 2: your flight and continue on to London. It wasn't like
Speaker 2: nine to eleven where they shut the airport down.
Speaker 7: Well they did shut the airport down, but I was
Speaker 7: on the very last plane that took off. And then
Speaker 7: the thing is people say, well, his disguise execution was
Speaker 7: postponed because the people who on the jury apparently were
Speaker 7: too close to you know, well, there.
Speaker 2: Was some question. I can summarize that for you. I
Speaker 2: lean pretty quickly. There was some question whether or not
Speaker 2: the federal judge or tried the case, George O'Toole, who's
Speaker 2: a really good judge, did an adequate var deer on
Speaker 2: the jurors in terms of their their knowledge of the case.
Speaker 2: It wasn't on the decision of guilt or innocence, or
Speaker 2: guilt or not guilty. It was a decision on the
Speaker 2: death penalty. And so you know, ense lawyers exhaust every
Speaker 2: potential appeal. I'm not exactly sure where that is at
Speaker 2: this point. I think the US Supreme Court had basically said,
Speaker 2: uh that the death penalty could be imposed and then
Speaker 2: Biden subsequent to that lifted the death pay. Matter of fact,
Speaker 2: I'm I I'd have to go back and check now.
Speaker 2: He lifted the death penalty in some cases. He did
Speaker 2: not lift the death penalty on the guy roof who
Speaker 2: would killed the who killed the black church goers uh
Speaker 2: in Charleston, South Carolina, And he may not have lifted
Speaker 2: the death penalty on Snaia. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 2: I might be wrong on that, so let me quickly
Speaker 2: during this break here double check that, because if I'm wrong,
Speaker 2: I want to correct myself. Go ahead, I just.
Speaker 7: I just want to say that I was across the
Speaker 7: Atlantic in Birmingham, England, and the Boston marathon bombing was
Speaker 7: the only thing. It was the major story on every
Speaker 7: news channel. So this was a worldwide disaster that you know,
Speaker 7: you didn't have to live in this area to know
Speaker 7: about it. Everybody knew about it. And I ended up
Speaker 7: coming home early because my poor husband was confined to
Speaker 7: the house and he was very upset, and I had
Speaker 7: planned to go sightseeing in London after the conference.
Speaker 2: But by the way, I just I need to do this,
Speaker 2: II Leen, I was incorrect. Biden. There were forty inmates
Speaker 2: on death row, and he commuted the sentences by executive
Speaker 2: order now on thirty seven of those individuals. He did
Speaker 2: not commute the death the death penalty against Sanayev, against
Speaker 2: Dylan Roof, who shot and killed nine black church goers
Speaker 2: in Charleston, South Carolina in twenty fifteen, or against Robert Bowers,
Speaker 2: he was the guy that killed eleven Jewish worshipers during
Speaker 2: a mass shooting in twenty eighteen at the Tree of
Speaker 2: Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. So those three are still eligible.
Speaker 2: And I am pretty sure that I stand committed to
Speaker 2: believe that if President Trump wanted to, he could override
Speaker 2: Biden's executive order. But at this point Zhanaf is still
Speaker 2: facing the death penalty, and let's get to it as
Speaker 2: far as I'm concerned, Okay, I agree with you.
Speaker 7: I think we don't need to talk about him anymore.
Speaker 3: Just get rid of it.
Speaker 2: Thank you for the call and the recollection, and again
Speaker 2: I apologize I had a brain cramp on that one,
Speaker 2: and I should have remembered that the president president former
Speaker 2: President Biden did have three exceptions and those were the exceptions.
Speaker 2: Thanks Eileen, appreciate you. Paul as will always talk soon.
Speaker 2: Bye by good night, six one seven, four ten thirty.
Speaker 2: One line there six one seven, nine three one ten thirty.
Speaker 2: We'll get back to more phone calls. We got one
Speaker 2: open line at six one seven, two five four to
Speaker 2: ten thirty and one at six one seven, nine three
Speaker 2: one ten thirty. Back on Night's Side after this Night
Speaker 2: Side with Dan Ray on BZ, Boston's news radio. So
Speaker 2: it looks to me as if Biden has given commutations.
Speaker 2: So I thought it was an executive order. This makes
Speaker 2: it more difficult because the the US Constitution does allow
Speaker 2: a president broad power to grant reprieve's pardons for offenses
Speaker 2: against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. So
Speaker 2: the thirty seven whom he basically gave commutations on their
Speaker 2: death penalty, they cannot be executed. However, the Boston bomber,
Speaker 2: as well as the guy down in South Carolina who
Speaker 2: killed the black parishioners and the guy that killed the
Speaker 2: eleven parishioners at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: they are still there, and let's let's do it for
Speaker 2: all of them, because I think, again no question in
Speaker 2: those three cases who they were. Back we go. I've
Speaker 2: slowed it down a little bit. I apologize. Let's go
Speaker 2: to Paul and can't and Paul you next do on
Speaker 2: a night saga? Right ahead?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well done, Dan, Auticle one, Section two, the commutation
Speaker 1: powers right there.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I thought that they were I thought that
Speaker 2: he had that he had there were so many executive
Speaker 2: orders that but that Trump has has used now. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I apologize for that. We got it right though, and
Speaker 2: that's what matters.
Speaker 1: No, absolutely, Yeah, it's a it's definitely a very esoteric area.
Speaker 1: Not everybody specializes that commutations. I'm just here to give
Speaker 1: a recollection. I had a family member running the marathon
Speaker 1: that day, and my mom, who's an air Force that
Speaker 1: was there with my nephews and nieces and was between
Speaker 1: the two bombs when they went off.
Speaker 2: So she was there at the two bombs went off
Speaker 2: about twelve seconds apart, at two in the afternoon. I mean,
Speaker 2: the winners had already passed a couple of hours before
Speaker 2: the finish line. So your mom is there with your
Speaker 2: her nephew. Is that what you said?
Speaker 1: When her grandchildren, my nephews.
Speaker 2: And what did what did they do when they heard
Speaker 2: one bomb go off on the left of them and
Speaker 2: another go off on the right of them. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it was really tough. They were really young,
Speaker 1: basically between like two and probably eight at that time,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was that they just saw a
Speaker 1: bunch of things that you know, you hope kids any
Speaker 1: kids anywhere should never see, but that you know, when
Speaker 1: it's your family, the things they saw, it was really difficulty.
Speaker 2: They saw the same things that people in war zones
Speaker 2: saw that that's what.
Speaker 1: They Iraq or Belfast or whatever, you know, And and
Speaker 1: you know, they had there was a lot of residual effect.
Speaker 1: You know, like Fourth of July they couldn't watch fireworks
Speaker 1: and things like that because of the noises and reminded
Speaker 1: them of what happened.
Speaker 2: Were they doing now, you know, twelve years later, is
Speaker 2: getting any easier or no?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they were able to interact and everything else.
Speaker 1: But like the one thing that stood out for me
Speaker 1: for that day was like, you know, I was working
Speaker 1: that day and when I heard what happened and I
Speaker 1: knew where people were, I came flying into the city
Speaker 1: and I figured everybody was going to be at you know,
Speaker 1: b I or mess general ceuth phone sales service was out.
Speaker 1: You couldn't call anybody, you could communicate with anybody, so
Speaker 1: you had no idea what was happening. And it didn't
Speaker 1: really come on until like seven or eight o'clock that night.
Speaker 1: So I went to Mass General and I went in
Speaker 1: and I was kind of sitting in the visitors room
Speaker 1: outside of the er, and there was a lot of
Speaker 1: difficult situations there and a lot of people who had
Speaker 1: a really difficult you know, waiting with either they heard
Speaker 1: or they thought or you know, people were coming in
Speaker 1: with and there was triage there at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: and usually when you go in, it's not you know,
Speaker 1: you don't see people with a kind of injuries kind
Speaker 1: of we saw that day. So it was just the
Speaker 1: communication blackout combined with you know, when I went in
Speaker 1: that day, I just thought that, you know, I just
Speaker 1: picked the hospital, and you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: hospitals in Boston just weren't known for it. But it
Speaker 1: was a really difficult day.
Speaker 2: Was really you really have encapsulated the feeling of the day.
Speaker 2: I was at home. I was in this house actually,
Speaker 2: and my then producer called me and said that they
Speaker 2: thought that it had been something happened. And this was
Speaker 2: early on at the marathon, and they said it might
Speaker 2: have been an explosion, and I figured it must have
Speaker 2: been like some sort of you know, sewer that exploded
Speaker 2: or something like that. And yeah, the producer said, I
Speaker 2: think it might be worse. I don't think he knew
Speaker 2: at the time, or he would have told me. And
Speaker 2: I just got on my horse and headed in. And
Speaker 2: for me, it was like I had to figure out
Speaker 2: how can I get across the city to get to
Speaker 2: the station. And I got there and I did my
Speaker 2: show that night. Paul rather Peter, excuse me, thanks for
Speaker 2: your call. Exceptional call, and I hope that your nephews
Speaker 2: and everyone in your family have been able to somehow,
Speaker 2: you know, get some counseling on this and and never
Speaker 2: imagine anything like that. Again. Thank you so much, thank you,
Speaker 2: Thanks well, Thanks Peter, thank you. Next up is Steven Merrimack,
Speaker 2: New Hampshire. Steve, go right ahead next on Nightside.
Speaker 3: Hey, damn, thanks for taking my call. You know, I
Speaker 3: just want to say up right up front, I love
Speaker 3: that Boston Marathon. It's it's what Boston's all about. I
Speaker 3: absolutely love it to death. So on that particular day,
Speaker 3: what I recall was at noontime. I said, wow, I'm
Speaker 3: watching Channel four, and I said, everybody's having a great time.
Speaker 3: I hope nothing bad happened. That's what I said to myself. Yeah,
Speaker 3: then I think you said it was two forty nine.
Speaker 3: I looked at my clock and said two point fifty,
Speaker 3: and they all had book was in the bonds and
Speaker 3: all I.
Speaker 2: All, Well, the reason I know was two forty nine
Speaker 2: was they ring the bells today to commemorate the moment.
Speaker 2: And I just did a little research before the show,
Speaker 2: and I didn't realize that it was only twelve seconds
Speaker 2: between the bombs. I mean, that was a nanosecond twelve seconds.
Speaker 3: Every time I go to the marathon, I go to
Speaker 3: the finish line, I'm right there. I would have been
Speaker 3: right there where the bombs went off. You know, I
Speaker 3: didn't go for personal reasons that day, but I always
Speaker 3: I've gone to one hundredth anniversary. I went every year,
Speaker 3: and I always, you know, had a great time down there.
Speaker 3: I absolutely love it to death. You know, my heart
Speaker 3: goes out. What I always remember about that marathon was
Speaker 3: Martin Richard, and you know that kid, you know, he
Speaker 3: did not deserve to get killed.
Speaker 2: And his sister also lost a leg, and you know,
Speaker 2: and I and I think the mom lost an eye.
Speaker 2: That family was was just.
Speaker 3: No more never the sign he yeld up, no more
Speaker 3: hurting people. Oh, I just want to I want to
Speaker 3: say that on that issue. You know, I love that
Speaker 3: marathon and it was the worst thing that could have
Speaker 3: ever possibly happened. The older brother. Two months before the marathon,
Speaker 3: he was up here not far from where I'm located
Speaker 3: on Brown Avenue in Manchester, at the Manchester firing line,
Speaker 3: you know, shooting. He was actually right here at Manchester,
Speaker 3: New Hampshire. So I do remember that. And I also
Speaker 3: want to mention that the following year, it was a
Speaker 3: big year twenty fourteen for the marathon. I went down there,
Speaker 3: that everybody went down there that day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of people went there that day to show,
Speaker 2: you know, resilience and we were not going to be intimidated. Absolutely.
Speaker 3: And remember the MBTA cop that lost all his blood
Speaker 3: and he had to retire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was shot. He was shot in the shootout
Speaker 2: in Watertown. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 3: And then that on the when I went down in
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen, I was on the orange line and I
Speaker 3: was right next to him talking to he and his
Speaker 3: wife there from Hayward. I believe what a nice guy.
Speaker 3: He was a really nice.
Speaker 2: I have a nephew who I have a nephew who's
Speaker 2: serving on the Harvard Police Department. He was there that night.
Speaker 2: He was standing next to the BT a officer who
Speaker 2: was you know, shot and might have been shot by
Speaker 2: friendly fire. I mean, it's you know, it was it
Speaker 2: was a wild scene at night, and you know, there
Speaker 2: was a lot of confusion, and there was that big chase,
Speaker 2: and it was it was pandemonium.
Speaker 3: So it was it was a nightmare. And you know
Speaker 3: the other thing, you know, I know you've been talking
Speaker 3: about so and I have, you know, the kid that's
Speaker 3: a supermaclaw the ground, which you know it doesn't sound
Speaker 3: very pleasant. But I want to tell you in America
Speaker 3: that if they ever allowed, you know, the firing squad,
Speaker 3: you know, put me right up front the volunteer to
Speaker 3: shoot the gun.
Speaker 2: Fair enough, fair enough, I gotta I gotta volunteer to
Speaker 2: get to the to get to the Element clock news.
Speaker 2: So Paul, thanks rather Steve, thank you very much. I
Speaker 2: appreciate you call. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3: I appreciate good night.
Speaker 2: All right, if you'd like to continue to talk about this.
Speaker 2: Keep these lines going with six one, seven, two, five,
Speaker 2: four ten thirty six one seven nine three one ten
Speaker 2: thirty back right after the news at the top of
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