If the objective is terror, that means psychological impact. When the leaders pass through with no problems, it underscores normalcy, and that means greater disorientation (psychological impact) later when all hell breaks loose.
The more the act seems senseless, the more terror it generates. If it made perfect sense to the average person, they'd know how to better their odds to avoid it and it would not have the same impact as a seemingly random event.
As an added attraction for terrorists, there will be more victims in the fat part of the bell curve for finishing runners than in the thin end of that curve which finishes first.
It's all sick. But if the timing was planned that way, that would likely be why--to maximize impact.
Swear I just heard the Boston police mentioning ‘Elizabeth Warren’ on the scanner. Then it all went silent. Weird.
Seems to me if they wanted to make a profound statement they would have planted the bombs under the grandstands rather than on the street...where the dignitaries and VIPS sat.
However I tend to think if this is terrorism...possible they hired some of our kids to try to pull this off....they do recruit for such a thing...and kids don't think much about what they're doing...they act and run!