Salem State was honored to welcome former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis and Richard DesLauriers, former FBI agent in charge of Boston Marathon bombing investigation, for the 2016 Salem State Series. Together, they gave WBZ news anchor Lisa Hughes a harrowing account of the hours and days following the attack.
Proceeds from the event supported the . The scholarship honors the memory of MIT patrol officer Sean Collier, a 2009 Salem State graduate who was killed in the days following the bombings.
In the moments following the bombing, commissioner Davis said he know the attacks were intentional. "When I stepped on the ground, I could feel shrapnel under my feet," he said. "I knew this was a terrorist attack."
Davis and DesLauriers recalled the chaotic days the followed, from deciding when and how to release footage of suspects, officers descending on the UMass Dartmouth campus, and the final moments when Dzhokar Tsarnaev was taken into custody.
DesLauriers, whose priority was taking the suspect alive to gain information on terrorist activity, remembers his capture as "one of the greatest moments of my life."
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