Is it strange that I feel bad for the Boston Marathon Bomber?

[Emily]

I live only 45 minutes away from Boston & I visit up there all the time. So when the bombs went off during the Marathon I was very upset & scared cause alot of people I knew were also up there that day. But anyways I have been watching the news for the last few days. I watched it for 5 hours on Friday. I saw it live when they caught the bomber. But I feel like he didn't do this.. Me and my friend creeped on his whole life. We went on his twitter & looked at all his tweets even on his friends twitter and creeped on them also. This 19 year old boy looks like he lives a pretty normal life. It just seems like he didn't do this. When I was watching the new the other night I was really scared but for him! I didn't want him to die I wanted him to be captured. I feel bad for all those people that were hurt on Monday but I just don't know.. I feel crazy for feeling bad for him & I feel like if I tell my parents or any of my friends they'll think I'm weird but I'm just not sure...

[C W]

You might feel bad for him because he looks like someone who would be in your school or like a friend. But, the way people look on the outside, as well as the face that they project, is often not the way that they truly are.

[Green]

Then it's not that you feel bad for the bomber. You feel bad for the suspect because you think he's innocent. In which case, I don't think that's strange at all.

[Lone Wolf McQuade]

You don't have to look like a killer to be a killer. He and his brother were radicalized. That's the way it happens - they find young, pious muslims to carry out jihad attacks against the west. These kind of attacks will be a lot more common in the coming days. I was skeptical at first, but not anymore. They have overwhelming evidence against him. He's a murderer and a terrorist. He's pure evil.

Would you still feel the same about him if that were your little brother or your sister that were killed?

[Paige]

Oh my God, thank you for asking this. I feel the same way, but I don't want to tell my mom or friends because of the same reason. I live like 4 hours from Boston, and also knew people down at the race, so I also had that first-hand worry. I feel like he was really influenced by his brother. I also went way down on his twitter, VK page, and even his youtube. Not many people have discovered his youtube yet, but I did through lots of web stalking. Here's one of his videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS75zbO59lk
It looks so innocent. I have a lot of sympathy for him, and have been praying for him not to get the death sentence. I feel he was brain-washed by his brother

[Jessica]

I have been feeling the same way. Sadness just comes over me when I see or hear people demanding his head. He is a young kid and he wasn't even old enough to make decisions like this. Anyone who knows boys his age know they don't make the smartest decisions. This is someone's son. He is a person. People make mistakes. He deserves to go to trial and be held responsible for what he's done. I also feel like the got the short end of the stick. His brother is dead and more than likely was behind all of it. So now he has to take responsibility for everything when it should have been shared with his brother who was the extremist.

[*~TiFFaNY~*]

Your feelings are perfectly normal and understandable. Obviously no one wants someone to be punished for a crime they didn't do, especially such a young person. In the beginning I was worried too that they actually got the wrong person, but as I continue to read about and see more evidence I feel more confident that he is in fact the person who committed the crime. He is going to be able to get a fair trial just as any other American citizen would have the right to get, so take comfort in that fact.

[Wolfpak]

i feel bad because it seems that he was brainwashed by his bigger brother i dont think he would of done this it seems his brother is the one who made him do it but even still he didnt hafto do it and he still did so u shouldnt.

[jon_mac_usa_007]

YES is strange & weird, even sad too. If these crazy terrorist didn't look like normal regular people these would have discovered years ago. Being a murdering terrorist is NOT normal.