Homeland Security

Hello Class!

Wow, we are a little over halfway done! This class has been awesome so far, and yet again another fantastic instructor prompt. I have decided to research an event that is fairly recent, and I am sure is still fresh in everyone’s minds: The Boston Marathon Bombing. On April 15, 2013 Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev created two bombs constructed out of two six liter pressure cookers filled with nails, ball bearings, and various metal objects. The bombs were then concealed in two black nylon bags and were placed fifty to one hundred yards apart and were detonated twelve seconds apart through the use of an electronic timer, killing three and injuring over two hundred and sixty individuals. Pressure cooker bombs are constructed from low explosive material, generally surrounded by shrapnel that has been placed inside a pressure cooker, where it then is ignited by an electrical charge. This ignition rapidly builds heat and pressure exceeding its containment vessel, causing its contains and the container to project outwards at deadly force and speed, essentially turning it into a high explosive (Atherton, 2013). This type of explosion would be classified as a mechanical explosion: pressure buildup that results in the failure of the containment vessel’s structural integrity (Houck, 2015, p 272), and/or a chemical explosion, “high-pressure gas is generated by the chemical reaction that takes place within the fuel or explosive material” (Burke, 2007, p 198); dependent upon explosive material used.

It has been determined that the two perpetrators planned and carried out the act on their own, not in “connection” with any terrorist organization. While they may not have had extrinsic backing with any particular terrorist organization, it is quite obvious to the intrinsic connection and motivation to a particular ideology and methodology employed by terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda and ISIS. An interesting tactic that was employed by investigating...