10 years later, Boston Marathon bombings leave indelible mark for Schuylkill Haven attorney

Apr. 14—SCHUYLKILL HAVEN — In the aftermath of the tragic Boston Marathon bombing, Matt Rossi says an otherworldly aura enveloped the area around Boylston Street in the city's nerve center.

"It was more eerie than anything," Rossi recalled Friday in his law office on St. John Street. "It was surreal, like you were watching it happen in a movie rather than real life."

Rossi was a student at the New England Law school when, 10 years ago today, the world was shocked when two bombs were detonated during the iconic marathon.

At 2:49 p.m. April 15, 2013, the first bomb exploded about 200 yards from the finish line on Boylston Street, near Copley Square. About 14 seconds later, a second bomb exploded a block away.

The explosions killed three people and injured 281 others in what, at the time, was the second largest domestic terrorist attack in America since the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, were eventually identified as having planted the homemade pressure cooker bombs.

Four days after the bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was taken into custody by the FBI in Watertown, Massachusetts. He is currently under a death penalty sentence in United States Penitentiary Florence, a super maximum security prison in Colorado.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died of injuries when he was run over by his brother during an attempted escape from police in Watertown.

At the time, Rossi was working at the Rattlesnake Bar & Grill, about 300 yards down Boylston Street from the blast site, while studying for his law school finals.

There was initial confusion about exactly what had occurred, he recalls, but the seriousness of the situation began to sink in when police locked down the restaurant for about an hour-and-a-half.

Uncertain about what was going on, the people in the restaurant were visibly nervous, as was Rossi.

"There was no panic," he said, "but there was an air of paranoia about it."

The seriousness of the situation began to hit home when police ushered the 170 or so people out the back door when a bomb-sniffing dog detected a suspicious scent in a backpack in front of the restaurant.

"Boylston Street was covered with thousands of bags," Rossi recalls. "People just dropped everything and ran."

Streets were closed, cellphones were not working and public transportation was shut down immediately following the bombings. It took Rossi hours to get back to the law school, about seven blocks from the blast site.

The bombings occurred on the 117th running of the iconic marathon on Patriots' Day, a holiday commemorating the battles of Lexington and Concord during the Revolutionary War.

In Boston, Rossi said, Marathon Monday is the biggest party day next to St. Patrick's Day.

"The city is absolutely electric, it's a life-long positive achievement for so many people, and there's a palpable positive buzz," Rossi said. "It's amazing how fast that turned into something so unbelievably horrible."

Even now, a decade later, the impact of that fateful day lingers.

When he's in a large crowd, Rossi confided, he's often uncomfortable. Given what occurred in Boston, he's amazed at how little security there is in many places where large crowds gather.

The Rattlesnake, a Tex-Mex restaurant, would be closed for about a week following the bombings.

"When we got back in," Rossi said, "the hamburgers and french fries were still on the tables where they'd been left on the day of the bombings."

Remarkably, he said, some customers returned to pay their tabs.

Rossi, who was 25 at the time, graduated from New England Law school a month after the bombings.

His first jury trial as a staff member of the Suffolk County District Attorney's office in Massachusetts was canceled because of the bombings.

He would go on to clerk for Judge M. Theresa Johnson in the Berks County Court of Common Pleas and was on the staff of Berks County District Attorney John Adams.

Since September 2016, Rossi has been a practicing attorney with Zane, Rossi, Conville & Harley law firm in Schuylkill Haven. His father, Atty. David J. Rossi, is a partner in the firm as well as a district judge in Tremont.

Contact the writer: rdevlin@republicanherald.com; 570-628-6007