Tuesday’s marking of the one-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings was a sober event.
Probably the most poig-nant of participants was little Jane Richard, 8, whose prosthetic leg appeared through the bottom of her navy blue dress. Her other leg was lost to the bombings. Beside her were her parents, Denise and Bill, also seriously injured. Denise sustained a head injury and lost the vision of one eye. Bill suffered shrapnel wounds, burns and severe hearing loss.
Miraculously, a brother, Henry, 12, was not injured by the blasts.
But brother Martin, then 8, was killed.
Like many Bostonians, the Richard family made the marathon a family outing, reveling in the pageantry of Patriot’s Day.
In all, three were killed by the blasts, 16 lost limbs, 264 suffered lesser injuries, and thousands still bear emotional scars from the senseless violence carried out by two brothers in the throes of Islamic extremism.
A fourth fatality was a police officer caught in the crossfire in the pursuit of the two brothers.
SUNDAY afternoon, Kansas City was the scene of similar violence.
A grandfather and grandson were shot and killed while in their car in the parking lot of a Jewish community center. The boy was to audition for a musical.
The assailant then went to a nearby retirement home and shot and killed a woman who was there to visit her mother.
“Heil Hitler!” the alleged assailant shouted from the police car upon his arrest.
Grandfather and grandson were Methodists. The woman Catholic.
EVERY DAY we read of bombings around the world, mostly confined to the Middle East and Africa. Most are done in the name of some political or religious ideology. They happen with such frequency they barely make most news outlets these days.
