Michael Tomasky asks the fundamental question of whether MA Gov. Deval Patrick overreacted by requiring Boston area residents to "shelter-in-place" as all forces were mobilized to apprehend the one remaining suspecting in the Boston Marathon bombing.
A lone suspect succeeded in shutting-down a city for almost a day. Smart? "Now any would-be terrorist will take it as a challenge to get a city shut down", Tomasky points out.
And how long is this going to go on? Through the weekend? Seriously?
The shut-down was lifted at 6 PM Boston time. No doubt the economic costs will be tabulated, along with the actual mobilization search costs. The suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, succeeded in doing to Boston what only a hurricane could do to New York.
Simone Foxman and S. Mitra Kalita don't appear to question the decision when they write in Quartz that the governor's "decision to shut down the city of Boston and nearby suburbs—the tenth-largest metropolitan area of the US and the ninth-largest by GDP—may be scary, but Americans are growing ever-familiar with lockdown mode."
The irony is that going to such extreme efforts did not result in the suspect's capture. However, while Tsarnaev wasn't apprehended, nor did he harm anyone, and in that result the shut-down was successful as the suspect and his brother had earlier shot and killed an MIT police officer.
Foxman and S. Mitra Kalita recall when New York City was immobilized by a snow storm on Dec. 26, 2010, Mayor Michael Bloomberg was blamed. They conclude that "the decision not to shut down—for weather- or crime-related incidents—arguably produces even greater outrage."
FULL STORY: Was Shutting Down Boston Really a Good Idea?
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