The search for a Boston Marathon bombing suspect has shut down communities in the Boston area, leaving many residents tethered to their homes under the insistence of local police.
Interviews with many who live in the Boston area say they don’t feel particularly burdened by remaining in their homes, adding that they understand the need for precautions to prevent lives from being in potentially harmful situations.
“It’s a really surreal experience,” said Jill Oliver, a project coordinator for a software company who lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in an interview with BET.com. “I don’t think I have ever heard this many helicopters and sirens in my entire life. It’s a difficult feeling to articulate. I can’t wrap my brain around this.”
Oliver said she was telephoned at 6 a.m. Friday by Cambridge police officials asking her to remain in her home while the suspect in the bombing is being pursued. She said that many in the Boston area feel deeply connected to the events following the bombing at the Boston Marathon because of the relationships between people in the city and its suburbs.
“One of the bombers went to my high school, and he lived on the same street as my high school social studies teacher,” she said. “Boston is really a small town where people tend to know each other. When people were killed during the marathon, it was hard to find people who didn’t know someone who knew them or who knew people who knew them. This is a city that’s not six degrees of separation, but more like three.”
Residents of the Boston area are dealing with an unprecedented level of disruption because of the search for a second suspect. Also, all mass transit in Boston and its suburbs was suspended and a no-fly zone was established in the area.
Interviews with people who were left homebound by the events in the Boston area made clear that people don’t resent having to remain in their homes and that they appreciate the work police officers are undertaking.
“I feel that this situation is for a purpose and I appreciate what the police are doing,” said Jermaine Myrie, a salesman for an insurance company who lives in Milton, Massachusetts. “It’s important to look after the safety of the people. This is a potentially dangerous situation.”
He added that his wife narrowly escaped being at the finish line of the Boston Marathon during the Monday bombings because she had walked away moments before the explosions.
“She works right by the place where the race was finishing,” Myrie said. “But she walked away from the site because she was frustrated because there were spectators who got in the way and prevented her from seeing the runners. It turned out to be a good thing.”

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(Photo: AP Photo/Charles Krupa)