I guess I was wrong, previously I thought the timing of the Boston Marathon bomb was timed too late and if the goal of the attack was to disrupt the running of the race that would be true.

But if the purpose was simply to kill or injure as many people as possible, then the bomb was timed right.

Did the Boston bomber meticulously time his attacks to cause maximum carnage? Analysis shows explosions coincided with when the largest crowds arrived at finish

I didn’t watch or attend the race this year, but in other years the standard practice for the end of the race is to clear the finish line for Police, media and the handful of elite runners. The early runners are generally not clumped together, there might be two or three within feet of each other and there will be gaps of many minutes before more runners approach.

If the purpose of the bomber/bombers was to disrupt the race, a bomb that exploded before the first runner closed the finish line would have stopped the race in its tracks. People would likely have been killed or maimed in that scenario but likely fewer and more likely the victims would have been police, photographers or race officials.

In past years, I recall that the area around the finish line is cleared and the public is farther back. (better sight lines for the cameras and less chance of someone interfering with a runner)and  then (after everyone who is going to medal, win a prize or a ribbon has finished) the public is allowed to get in closer.  Obviously it was the public they were after. The public includes the runners at the top of the Bell Curve in the above chart, regular people, normal citizens.

When we find out who was responsible, by then, we will know more about how they did it, who aided them, what cause they did it for. But it seems clear that they targeted the public during this local Rite of Spring, this open and internationally attended event. I think they deliberately intended to kill and maim as many of the public in the way they did to prove some kind of point, perhaps that our government couldn’t protect them.

But in a free society, we are the government. We select them. We can remove them (except we haven’t done that often enough lately).

Whatever the goal, the warped reason for the bombing, this was against all of us. And we will remember.