Public safetyPublic safety officials implement Boston bombing's lessons

Dr. Alexander Garza, associate dean at St. Louis University’s College of Public Health and Social Justice and a former anti-terrorism expert with DHS, watched the aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing on television and noticed the use of improvised and medical tourniquets. The use of old-fashion tourniquets was once considered damaging to body tissue and potentially doing more harm than good, but Garza’s firsthand experience in the Iraq War proved that tourniquets could save lives. “The tourniquet now is back in the mainstream,” Garza said, and “so you saw that translating to civilians at the Boston Marathon.”

Security and public safety officials have used lessons learned from the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing to prepare for this year’s event, including providing police officers with tourniquets. DHS and local law enforcement increased the number of security officials on the ground. More plainclothes officers patrolled streets along the marathon route, bomb-detonation teams and armed National Guard troops were noticeable.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that some security measures were less obvious, including the idea to limit cell phone usage. “I am guessing at various times you will have trouble using your cellphone” because of “jamming” measures developed in Iraq to disrupt potential bomb detonation, said Steve Bucci, an Iraq War veteran and head of the Heritage Foundation’s “Protect America” initiative.

Bucci considers the Boston Marathon bombing to be a reawakening of the idea “that we still have to be cautious, that we still are under the threat of terrorists. The war on terror is not over, because the other side has not given up yet,” he said. Bucci believes that businesses and civic leaders are more aware of the threat level than average citizens. At a March 2014 cybersecurity conference in St. Louis, business leaders were eager to understand cybersecurity measures and risks. “There is a level of interest out there that they realize that, as one of the major cities of the Midwest … they are potentially targetable, and they want to minimize the disruption to their city.”

Henry Willis, director of the RAND Corporation’s Homeland Security and Defense Center, said that the 2013 bombing provided lessons to other cities hosting major events. One lesson was “the value of awareness and surveillance” before and after the bombing, Willis said. Thousands of photographs and videos helped law enforcement officers assess areas of interest and eventually identify the two suspects, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Security officials did note that the volume of photos and videos from the public also created misinformation. “There was so much information, not only from the public but from the media, that was wrong, that you really had to drill it down because you didn’t want to send your resources in the wrong direction,” said Terrence Cunningham, the police chief of Wellesley, Massachusetts. Cunningham suggests that future event organizers should set up a central clearing house with people and technology committed to filtering good information from bad.

Willis commends the Boston Marathon for exhibiting the “value of medical surge preparedness,” improved due to the city’s experience in hosting several major events. After the bombing, authorities were able to direct victims to the appropriate medical facilities and medical personnel and hospitals were prepared for the race itself. “The medical response aspect to a marathon event, even without a terrorist attack, is very robust,” he said.