Funerals begin for Boston bombing victims
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E-mail China Daily via Agencies, April 23, 2013
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Friends, families and fellow students packed Metcalf Hall in Boston University's George Sherman Student Union for a memorial service in honor of graduate student Lu Lingzi in Boston, Massachusetts, April 22, 2013. Lingzi died in the Boston Marathon explosions.[Photo: China Daily via Agencies] |
'Travesty'
Chuck Walsh, a retired custodian from Medford High School, came from Ossipee, New Hampshire, for the funeral of Campbell, whom he remembered calling him "Mr Chuck" in her school days.
"It was travesty what happened," Walsh said.
Also there was Renee Arsenault, a 28-year-old hairdresser who went to middle school with Campbell.
"I am so happy this many people showed up in her honor," Arsenault said.
After the funeral, Patrick and Menino led a moment of silence at the State House at 2:50 pm (1850 GMT), to mark one week since the moment of the first bombing. The governors of nearby states including Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine also observed the moment of silence.
In the evening, Boston University held a poignant memorial service for graduate student Lu, with speakers including her father, friends and the school's president, Robert Brown, who recalled she liked blueberry pancakes and the violinst Itzhak Perlman.
Lu had been at the marathon's nearby finish line with friends to celebrate handing in a research project, Brown said.
The event drew both Chinese media representatives and Zhong Ruiming, an official from China's consulate in New York. "Today we are gathered here with a heavy heart," he said.
He said the bombing "once again brought home the importance, to all of us, the importance of peace, security and social harmony."
He said Lu was her family's only child. Her father Jun Lu recalled his daughter's energy and outgoing drive. "She was the family's Shirley Temple," Lu said, according to a translation of his remarks.
Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will visit Boston on Wednesday to attend the memorial service for Sean Collier, a police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology the bombers also are alleged to have killed, a White House official said.
Suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was in custody at a Boston hospital on Monday after being apprehended on Friday night. He was badly injured in a gun battle with police that led to the death of his older brother Tamerlan, 26.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged on Monday by federal officials with crimes including the use of a weapon of mass destruction.
