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Reliving the day his son died
By adamg on Fri, 03/06/2015 - 8:13am
Associated Press reports on Bill Richard's testimony at the Tsarnaev trial about watching his son Martin die. MassLive.com reports on Jeff Bauman's testimony. The Globe recaps all the day's testimony. Peter Gelzinis has more.
The Globe analyzes the defense gambit of admitting guilt right up front, hopes it will build juror sympathy for Tsarnaev and a life sentence instead of death. That strategy apparently includes not cross-examining victims.
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Comments
Did the Globe ever apologize?
I can't imagine what the Richard family has gone through. God Bless. That said, IIRC, the Globe falsely reported from "fire department sources" that Bill had run the marathon and little Martin had ran out to the finish line to greet him when the bomb exploded. Complete fiction.
Does it matter?
Really?
Yes Swirly, facts matter.
Maybe not to the "what difference does it make" crowd, but facts matter.
Interesting
Given that you yourself seem to have a very tenuous, on-again/off-again relationship with facts, that is (cough President Obama cough Climate Change cough).
Still, why an apology? What did it matter? Correction or retraction, given the chaos at the scene, but apology? How were they possibly harmed by this error?
On-again/off-again relationship with facts
I disagree with your analysis, but let that go. I think the Boston Globe's false claim that a young son awaited his dad at the finish line, then rushed out is much different than the testimony under oath, which is horrific enough. Suit yourself though. Happy biking, Swirly.
Having been right there, Brian Williams O'Reilly
will get to the bottom of this irrelevant argument.
Who cares?
I don't remember the Globe ever saying that, but I highly doubt the Richard family really gives a shit. Either way their poor son is dead, who cares if in the immediate aftermath they had a fact incorrect.
OK...how?
Since "facts matter", just how do they matter in this case? If, indeed, things are exactly as you represent them, how does this call for an apology? What harm was done?
Its really thoughtful of you
Its really thoughtful of you to use a families pain and loss to help fulfill your anger towards the Globe.
Perhaps this is a valid query...
...but perhaps also this is not the optimal moment, sir?
I can't get through these articles
I don't personally know anyone who was injured in the bombing, but these stories are just heartbreaking.
You're not
human if you didn't have a lump in your throat reading through the description of this testimony.
Well O-FISH-L must not be
Well O-FISH-L must not be human, since his main reaction is to yell that the Globe misreported.
Shameless Boston Globe reportage
---
Complete fiction on Bill running the marathon and Martin walking out to greet him. Granted, the devastation of the Muslim terrorist attack remains, but the Globe added a false narrative that was not true and not necessary.
whrrrrrrrrr
The sound of a loud, persistent, pointless, single-note axe grinding. That's you.
re: whrrrrrrrrr
Can you validate anything in the first two sentences of the Boston Globe report? FYI, there is sworn testimony (Bill Richard) on file disputing same. Let the record show the truth for future generations, not nonsense.
again...
Who fucking cares? Does it change the results of that day?
Because if the press is
Because if the press is allowed to lie without consequence about little things they will lie about bigger things.
Integrity seems to be character trait sorely lacking from the profession of journalism these days. Be it in print, on the web, or over the airwaves.
What did they lie about, exactly?
As someone who was not in town at the time and got "news" from the event in strange bursts of eye-witness accounts told to the media and posts by friends on facebook, many of which turned out to be off or inaccurate, I seriously doubt that anyone "lied" about anything here.
The Globe was not going to reach the Richard family for the exact story, given that the mom and little girl were in intensive care and fighting for their lives. They thus relied on interviews with people who were close by, who probably saw a little boy hug his dad not long before the blast, and mistook him for the little boy who was murdered.
That isn't a lie - that is the inevitable inaccuracy which happens when eye witness accounts are mixed with trauma and chaos.
Corrections are in order. Unless the Richard family has any problem with what others mistook for their family situation, apologies are wholly unnecessary.
Our resident troll has a hard-on for the Boston Globe here - shame on him for using a tragedy to make a mountain out of a molehill, and both of you for taking offense on behalf of the Richard family. They are plenty able to speak for themselves.
It's from a Kevin Cullen piece posted the day after
and the full Globe paragraph is this:
"This is how bad this is. I went out Monday night and bumped into some firefighters I know. They said one of the dead was an 8-year-old boy from Dorchester who had gone out to hug his dad after he crossed the finish line. The dad walked on; the boy went back to the sidewalk to join his mom and his little sister...."
From a "A Perfect Day turns Evil"
So yeah, a reporter wrote a story using comments made on that day from people most likely still in shock. It went on to appear in news outlets outside Boston, as these things do.
I'm more confused by the fact the trial is going on yet the defense admits he is guilty?
Details matter
"Guilty" is specific to a variety of charges. The defense has not, to my knowledge, admitted that he is guilty of any specific charge. "He did it," is not an admission of guilt.
Consider, for example, your client threw a bottle at someone during a barroom fight; the victim fell back, hit his head on an iron radiator, and died. For some reason, the prosecution has decided to bring first degree murder charges rather than manslaughter. It's entirely reasonable that your defense strategy might, be, "Yes, he did it, we don't dispute that, but...." where the "but" is a whole bunch of exonerative stuff: it wasn't pre-meditated; there was no intention of killing anyone, etc... with the defense looking for not guilty of premeditated murder but perhaps guilty of a lesser charge.
Just imagine what could happen
The press could report planted CIA psyops falsifying evidence of WMD as if fact.
Mr. Ofish don't let three dead people
and a bunch of maimed and legless victims get in the way of your right wing tourettes.
Are you as riled up at the NY Post
putting a photo of two Moroccan-born locals on their front page falsely claiming that the FBI was looking for them? Or are you just hung up on this one detail--mistakenly reported by numerous sources--which neither accuses or defames anyone, just so you can go after the Globe?
Frankly it's just weird, ok?
What are you on about?
Newspapers get facts wrong all the time.
They publish corrections.
Is there some evidence that they deliberately lied in this case?
If so, that there was any motivation for the lie?
That their fact checking in the moment was completely absent or negligently bad?
That anyone was in any way injured, diminished, insulted, humiliated, offended etc. by the false coverage?
Did anyone suffer financial, reputational or any other loss as a result of the false coverage?
What's the issue here?
He didn't just die. He was killed.
Certainly this distinction is a non-trivial one that should not be lost in the headline (although I think I understand why Adam wrote it that way).
I reserve comment on the relative importance of the raging argument on this thread about whether the Globe should apologize.
Bill Richard is a much better man than I could ever hope to be. Having had my first child born just before the bombing, and having watched him grow for the last two years, I am quite confident that I would not be able to do what Mr. Richard did if I were similarly situated.
I am, however, quite confident that if I had endured what Mr. Richard did, I would be capable of getting from the stand to Tsarnaev and killing him with my (trained) bare hands well before anyone could stop me. Since I have mercifully not been put in that position, I will thankfully never know if I would have actually done that.
I have done my best to avoid most news of the investigation and trial. I didn't get the radio off in time yesterday to avoid some of it. After hearing an account of the testimony and looking at my son sitting in his seat in the back I had to pull over to compose myself. This is beyond horrible.
Yes, he was murdered
I wrote the headline the way I did because the thing that really hit home with me was his father's description of, well, watching his son die. It's hard enough to imagine a child dying in general, but in that specific horrible way? Just, no.
Richard's testimony was incredible
If you're not moved by reading that, you have no pulse.
I'm generally opposed to the death penalty, but in this case I'm not sure. Given what this shit stain Tsarnaev family did to people like the Richard's family, I could go either way. I wonder what his feelings on it are?
No way
I want him to suffer in a 8x10 box for the next 70 years.
^^^This.
^^^This.
A little perspective on what life imprisonment means.
If you're old enough, you'll remember where you were when you heard that former Attorney General and Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was murdered.
Think about all you've done, seen, and experienced since that time.
Meanwhile, during all that time, Sirhan Sirhan, convicted of his murder, has been sitting looking at the same four walls, knowing that he'll never, ever, relax under the open sky, touch or be touched by a woman, walk barefoot on grass, eat anything other than prison food, or do any of the things that the rest of us take for granted.
I think that life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is entirely appropriate.
what a perfect time
for a bolt of lightning to show up in that courtroom.