BOSTON, April 18 (UPI) — President Obama’s message will be of “resolve” and “commonality” when he speaks Thursday at an interfaith service for the Boston Marathon victims, an aide said.
“It will be one of resolve,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said ahead of Obama’s visit with first lady Michelle Obama to Boston for a “Healing Our City” service.
“It will be one of the commonality that we all feel as Americans with the people of Boston and those who were visiting Boston for the marathon, and who both endured this horrific event and then demonstrated their bravery in its immediate aftermath,” Carney told reporters Wednesday.
The service is dedicated to those gravely wounded or killed in Monday’s bombings near the marathon finish line.
“The way that the people of Boston and the city of Boston responded [after the bombings] reminds us and reminds the world of just who we are as a people,” Carney said, echoing remarks Obama made Tuesday.
Obama was to speak at 11 a.m. at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston’s South End neighborhood, some 15 blocks from where the two explosions occurred 10 seconds apart at 2:50 p.m. Monday.
The bombings killed Martin Richard, 8, of Dorchester, Mass.; Krystle Campbell, 29, of Arlington, Mass., and Boston University graduate student Lingzi Lu, 23, a native of Shenyang, China.
More than 175 other people were injured. Thirteen people had to have limbs amputated, hospitals said.
The FBI, leading the bombing investigation, reported no suspects as of early Thursday, but federal investigators said they were working to identify a person in a video who appeared to leave a bag in the spot where one of two bombs later exploded.
Authorities also tried to identify at least one other person seen in videos, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said Wednesday while the probe was “making some progress … it’s going to be slow, it’s going to be methodical.”
Obama Wednesday declared an emergency still existed in the Boston area from the bombings and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local responses, the White House said.
Obama authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency “to coordinate all disaster relief efforts” associated with the bombings through Monday, the White House said.
These efforts include saving lives, protecting property and averting “the threat of a catastrophe” in Suffolk County, where Boston is located, and the surrounding counties of Middlesex and Norfolk, the White House said.
Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).
