By Sean Philip Cotter
Boston Herald
BOSTON — There’s no “credible threat” to the upcoming Boston Marathon, authorities say as they nonetheless call up all available Boston cops and continue to talk to New York City authorities following the terrifying attack there.
“Every available officer will be working,” Superintendent-in-Chief Greg Long, the Boston Police Department’s acting commissioner, said in a Tuesday pre-marathon press conference in which he announced a “whole-department call-up.” The department has “a robust and comprehensive security plan” that will involve a heavy presence for Marathon Monday near the route and the finish line and normal levels in the rest of the city’s neighborhoods.
Long and MBTA Transit Police Chief Kenneth Green sought to reassure residents as they appeared with Mayor Michelle Wu in a press conference about safety for the upcoming marathon — just hours after a shooter left more than 10 injured on NYC’s subway system in Brooklyn.
Long said there’s no “credible threat” to the marathon at this point, though he said the BPD will continue to communicate with federal, state and other local law-enforcement entities and look at intelligence reports.
Green noted that his department has taken several major steps since the marathon bombings nearly a decade ago, including beefing up explosives-detection teams and creating a serious and high-tech training facility in Southie to help officers be ready for anything that might get thrown their way. For example, he said, they do train for situations like in New York City where there’s smoke and possible improvised weapons.
Green added that much like there’s “no evidence” that the marathon is a target, the same is the case for the MBTA system.
The press conference was announced on Monday, before the NYC attack had happened. It’s normal for city officials to show out for a press conference the week before the marathon, a race that’s one of the most prestigious in the world and has a deep significance locally.
But the events in New York, where a now-identified gunman shot at least 10 people in the subway during morning commute in Brooklyn, quickly took center stage in the press conference, which the city pushed back by about a half an hour so it wouldn’t step on a televised update from NYC authorities.
“Our thoughts and our prayers and every bit of well wishes are with New York,” Wu said.
The mayor was flanked by Long and Green plus Emergency Management Chief Shumeane Benford, Fire Chief Jack Dempsey, EMS Chief Jim Hooley, Chief of Streets Jascha Franklin-Hodge and Boston Athletics Association head Tom Grilk.
Each of the city chiefs stressed that the various emergency services were all primed and ready to go, with comprehensive plans for any occasion.
This marks the nine-year anniversary of the marathon bombing, when the Tsarnaev brothers detonated explosives made of pressure cookers near the finish line of the race on April 15, 2013. They killed three and injured hundreds more in the initial bombing, and then killed an MIT campus police officer during the subsequent weeklong manhunt, during which a Boston Police officer also suffered ultimately fatal injuries.
The elder brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died in a clash with police, ultimately run over by his escaping young brother, Dzhokhar. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was ultimately captured in Watertown and now a convict on death row in the “Alcatraz of the Rockies” in Florence, Colorado, for the murders.
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