Massachusetts Governor Got Hammered After Catching the Boston Bomber
In a new interview with the Boston Herald, Governor Deval Patrick offers some interesting behind-the-scenes details of the Boston Marathon manhunt, including his day-after attempt to unwind when it was all over. Patrick says that on the Saturday after Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was apprehended, he went out the Berkshires (the popular vacation area in Western Massachusetts) alone. He went to a local restaurant, asked for a table where no one would bother him, and then proceded to get "quite drunk, by myself."
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The restaurant's owner was also kind enough to let Patrick skip out on the bill after he realized he forgot his wallet. (Patrick came back the next day to settle up.)
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Patrick also recounted what we imagine was tense conversation with Barack Obama, when the Friday lockdown had essentially closed Boston for a full day.
"(Then) the phone rang. It was the president. ... And he said, “Deval, I’m briefed. ... What are you going to do about the city? You can’t keep it locked down indefinitely.’
“I said, ‘Mr. President, I know that. ... I’m trying to sort that out now.’ ... Basically the state police had said we should end this ... when we finish the door-to-door in Watertown. So if we haven’t found him, we should say to people, ‘Look, live your lives, but please be careful because he’s still at large.’”
Patrick defended the decision to temporarily lock down the city, but admitted that the outcome made a big difference in the post-game analysis: "Look, the reason why it worked out in the end is because we found him. If we didn’t find him then people would be bitching and moaning about how we kept them indoors all day."
