‘Cowards’ Billboard Lights Up Boston Skyline in Wake of Blasts
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Wendy Maeda/The Boston Globe via Getty Images(BOSTON) — Less than 10 miles from the finish line of the Boston Marathon, where three people were killed and more than 170 injured in dual blasts on Monday, lies a billboard with a one-word message: “Cowards.”
The billboard, located off the I-93 expressway that crosses the city, belongs to the local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union. The chapter, Local 103, usually uses the billboard for union-related and community messages but that changed Tuesday morning, less than 24 hours after the two bombs exploded.
Since then, the electronic billboard had rotated every 10 seconds between the “Cowards” sign and another that reads, “Pray for Boston.”
None of the union’s 7,500 members were directly hurt in the explosions, according to a representative, but they have another connection.
The town where the chapter’s headquarters is located, Dorchester, Mass., is the same town where the blasts’ youngest victim, Martin Richard, and his family lived. Richard, 8, died while attending the marathon festivities with his mother, father and two siblings. Both his mother and younger sister sustained “serious” injuries in the attacks.
Local 103 plans to keep the billboard devoted to the Boston Marathon survivors but is working on incorporating new messages, the representative told ABC News.
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