Now things go into the longer process.  Already conflicting information on the suspects, though the older is getting really bad press.  Already politics is entering, on how the suspect is to be prosecuted--the Obama administration is insisting on civilian courts, and I think commentators are right that Boston public will insist on it.

It turns out that these guys did live on Norfolk St. in Cambridge, very close to where I lived, though that was years before either of them was born.  Apparently it is still a predominantly a Portuguese neigbhorhood.  The buildings, the layout of the wood frames,the colors, very much like the buildings where I lived in a first floor apartment on Columbia St. 

So it adds to the strangeness for me, to feel connected and yet distant.  The people I knew in Cambridge in those years are mostly long gone, and I expect that the place is both different and familiar. 

As for how this all played out, the first such event in the era of ubiquitious cell phones and social media, there were pluses and minuses, and in his statement President Obama warned against rush to judgment against entire groups. 

But right now crowds are spontaneously gathering on Boston Common, and I expect in Harvard Square, which is itself a repudiation of the terror theory.  People not afraid to gather in public.

All in all, the resilience and ability to cooperate, both of ordinary people and public servants, has been heartening.