BOSTON, April 16 (RIA Novosti) – Police have detained a barefoot man who dropped a suspicious backpack at the finish line of the Boston marathon, hours after the city paused for a minute of silence to commemorate the first anniversary of the tragedy, local media reports said.
The male suspect dropped the backpack Tuesday just as he was stopped by an officer, who saw him acting suspiciously. According to Fox News, the man was wearing a long black veil and appeared to be "not of sound mind," as he screamed "Boston Strong!"
The man told the officer the backpack contained a rice cooker, the report said. He will be charged with disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace, the report said.
Police also found a second backpack, but its content and owner remained unclear. Both backpacks were later remotely detonated by a bomb squad as a precautionary measure.
A witness who saw the man being detained described the scene for MyFoxBoston.com.
"All of a sudden you hear this guy go, 'Boston Strong, Boston Strong.' So I turned around, he's right next to me walking by and there's two Boston cops standing on the corner over there so they turn around, they caught wind of it and they go 'Hey, you come here' and he goes 'Get away from me.' So another cop came around him, grabbed him, started struggling with him over the backpack, they pulled the bag off him and then they tackled him and took him down," the witness said.
The bomb scare came as thousands gathered in a Boston convention center to mark the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, which killed three people and wounded over 260 near the finish line a year ago.
The suspects in that blast, brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were quickly identified following the release of surveillance camera footage. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a gunfight with police in the days following the bomb attack. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, tried to flee the city, but was wounded and later arrested. Tsarnaev faces 30 federal charges, and so far has pleaded not guilty.
