Thread: Boston police: Marathon bombings suspect 'in custody'

Boston police: Marathon bombings suspect 'in custody'

By Chelsea J. Carter and Michael Pearson, CNN
updated 8:50 PM EDT, Fri April 19, 2013



Uncle: 'Loser' should turn himself in

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: The bombing suspect is in custody, police say
• Authorities have "engaged" a possible suspect, an official says.
• Investigators find ''significant amount of homemade explosives,'' a police official says
• Slain suspect was wearing explosives when he died, source tells CNN

(CNN) -- [Breaking news update 8:48 p.m. ET]
The suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings is in custody, Boston police tweeted.
[Original story published at 8:46 p.m. ET]
Police have cornered a man believed to be the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings on a boat in a yard in a suburb of the Massachusetts capital, law enforcement officials told CNN.
Authorities "engaged" the man, according to one of the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, just minutes after authorities indicated a massive manhunt for a suspect in Watertown appeared to come up empty.
A CNN crew near the scene heard about two dozen gunshots fired, but it was not clear if the shots were fired by the suspect, authorities or both. A number of small explosions, believed to be stun grenades, also were heard.
Authorities, using a bullhorn, called on the suspect to surrender: "Come out with your hands up.
The development came after authorities cast a wide net for the suspect that virtually shut down the Massachusetts capital amid warnings the man was possibly armed with explosives.
Authorities say Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19, escaped an overnight shootout with police in suburban Watertown that left his older brother 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev -- the other man wanted in the bombings -- dead.
Bob Sakowitch was among a number of people who fled as shots were fired.
"It was unbelievable the amount of gunshots. I was scared. I was across the street. We all ran for cover," he said. "... I wouldn't ever want to see this again. It was bad."
More than 22 hours after the search focused on the younger brother, police officers in full body armor, carrying automatic weapons wrapped up their door-to-door search of the area, Col. Timothy Alben of the Massachusetts State Police said.
Gov. Deval Patrick, meanwhile, lifted an order that confined an estimated one million residents to their homes, urging people to "remain vigilant."
Bombing connection
The violence and subsequent manhunt began late Thursday just hours after the FBI released photos of the two suspects in the marathon bombings.
"Investigators are recovering a significant amount of homemade explosives" from the scene of the shootout, Massachusetts State Police spokesman David Procopio told CNN.
It was not immediately clear what explosives were recovered, but the discovery followed a tense night in which authorities say the brothers allegedly hurled explosives at pursuers after killing an officer and hijacking a car.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was wearing explosives and a triggering device when he died, a source briefed on the investigation told CNN on condition of anonymity.
The search followed a violent night in which authorities say the two men allegedly hurled explosives at pursuers after killing Massachusetts Institute of Technology police Officer Sean Collier and hijacked a car.
With more than 200 rounds of ammunition and a number of explosives thrown during the chase and gunbattle, Patrick said the lockdown was necessary.
The manhunt brought Boston and its surrounds to a near standstill. The Boston Red Sox announced they were postponing Friday night's game against the Kansas City Royals "to support efforts of law enforcement officers." NHL's Boston Bruins also postponed its game against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The city's subway, bus, Amtrak train and Greyhound and regional Bolt Bus services were shut down. Taxi service across the city also was suspended for a time during the manhunt. Every Boston area school was closed.
Boston's public transit authority sent city buses to Watertown to evacuate residents while bomb experts combed the surroundings for possible explosives.
Initially, authorities said the brothers started their rampage by robbing a convenience store. By late Friday, the Middlesex District Attorney's office backtracked on the allegation, saying an investigation determined that the robbery at a 7-Eleven was unrelated.
Officer killed
In Cambridge, across the Charles River from Boston, MIT officer Collier was shot and killed while he sat in his car, the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office said in a statement.
The two suspects, according to authorities, then hijacked a vehicle at gunpoint in Cambridge, telling the driver that they were the marathon bombers, a law enforcement source told CNN on condition of anonymity.
At some point, apparently at a gas station, that source said, the driver escaped.
Police, who were tracking the vehicle using its built-in GPS system, picked up the chase in Watertown. The pursuit went into a residential neighborhood, with the suspects throwing explosives at police.
A shootout erupted and ultimately one bomber -- later identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev -- got out of the car. Police shot him, and his brother ran over him as he drove away, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Richard H. Donohue Jr., 33, a three-year veteran of the transit system police force, was shot and wounded in the incident and taken to a hospital, a transit police spokesman said Friday. The officer's condition was not immediately known.
Another 15 police officers were treated for minor injuries sustained during the explosions and shootout, Jennifer Kovalich, a spokeswoman for St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, said.
Suspects background
Police believe the brothers are the same men pictured in images released Thursday by the FBI as suspects in the marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded dozens on Monday.
The men are shown in the images walking together near the marathon finish line.
The first suspect -- apparently Tamerlan Tsarnaev, according to authorities -- appears in the images wearing a dark hat, sunglasses and a backpack. The second suspect, wearing a white cap, is the one who remains at large, police said.
But the mother of the Tsarnaev brothers refused to believe they were involved in the marathon bombings and subsequent shootout.
"It's impossible for them to do such things. I am really telling you that this is a setup," Zubeidat Tsarnaeva told state-run Russia Today from Dagestan.
"My son would never keep it in secret. ...If there is anyone who would know it would be me. He wouldn't hide it. But there was never a word."
The brothers came from the Russian Caucasus region and moved to Kazakhstan at a young age before coming to the United States several years ago.
"My youngest was raised from 8 years in America. My oldest was really properly raised in our house. Nobody talked about terrorism," their mother said.
The suspects' parents recently returned to Dagestan in the Caucasus region after living in the United States for about 10 years because they were "nostalgic," the father, Anzor Tsarnaev, told Russian state-run Zvezda TV.
He accused someone of framing his sons. "I don't know who exactly did it. But someone did."
A federal officialtold CNN that Dzhokar Tsarnaev came to the U.S. as a tourist with his family in the early 2000s and later asked for asylum. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2012. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was not a naturalized citizen, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He came "a few years later" and was lawfully in the United States as a green-card holder.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev had studied at Bunker Hill Community College and wanted to become an engineer, according to those who knew him. He then took a year off to train as a boxer.
'I don't understand them'
The official said that a posting on a social media site in the elder brother's name included the comments: "I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them."
Dzhokar Tsarnaev attended Cambridge Rindge & Latin, a public high school, said Eric Mercado, who graduated a year behind the suspect. Mercado said Tsarnaev had worked at Harvard University as a lifeguard.
"We hung out; we partied; we were good high school friends," Mercado told CNN.
"We're all, like, in shock. We don't really understand. There were no telltale signs of any kind of malicious behavior from Dzhokar. It's all coming as a shock, really."
Mercado said he lived a block away from the suspect and did not know his older brother.
Dzhokar Tsarnaev is currently registered as a student at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, which ordered its campus evacuated on Friday. The school is located 65 miles south of Cambridge, just west of New Bedford.
Larry Aaronson, Dzhokar Tsarnaev's neighbor and a former teacher at the high school Tsarnaev attended, called him a "wonderful kid."
"He was so grateful to be here, he was compassionate, he was caring, he was jovial," Aaronson told CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/19/us/boston-area-violence/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

RELATED http://www.alipac.us/f9/mit-campus-p...ooting-276553/

Boston Marathon bombing suspect caught after day-long manhunt


Residents applaud police after arrest of Boston bombing suspect
Aaron Pressman and Stephanie SimonReuters9:37 p.m. CDT, April 19, 2013



WATERTOWN, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Police captured a 19-year-old man suspected of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings with his older brother after a day-long manhunt on Friday that closed down the city and turned a working-class suburb into a virtual armed camp.

The break in the case sent waves of relief through the Boston suburb of Watertown where armored vehicles roamed the streets and helicopters flew overhead through the day.

Residents and police officers cheered and clapped when the suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was caught after an exchange of gunfire with police.

A Massachusetts State Police spokesman said Tsarnaev was bleeding and in serious condition in a hospital. He had been hiding in the stern of a boat parked in the backyard of a house in Watertown, police said. A resident called police after seeing blood on the boat.

President Barack Obama told reporters at the White House after the suspect's capture that questions remained from the bombings, including whether the two suspects received any help.

The Boston Police Department said in a message on Twitter: "CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody."

Boston Mayor Tom Menino said, "we got him" on Twitter.

Tsarnaev is one of two brothers believed to have set off bombs made in pressure cookers and packed with ball bearings and nails at the finish line of the world-famous event, killing three people and injuring 176.

The older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed on Thursday night in a shootout with police less than a mile from where Friday night's capture took place.

"We are so grateful to bring justice and closure to this case," Massachusetts State Police Chief Colonel Timothy Alben told a news conference. "We are exhausted folks, but we had a victory here tonight."

Monday's bombing have been described by Obama as "an act of terrorism." It was the worst such attack on U.S. soil since the plane hijackings of September 11, 2001, and set nerves on edge across the United States with a series of security scares.

Police cars and armored vehicles surrounded the house on Friday night shortly after police told a news conference that the suspect fled on foot and was still on the loose. After the capture of Tsarnaev, authorities said the investigation was still open.

Police in New Bedford, Massachusetts, 60 miles south of Boston said three other people had been taken into custody for questioning about Monday's bombings. No other details were provided.

Earlier on Friday, Alben said that officers went door-to-door in Watertown and searched houses. During the search for the men on Friday, two Black Hawk helicopters circled the area. SWAT teams moved through in formation, leaving an officer behind to ensure that searched homes remained secure, a law enforcement official said.

The normally traffic-clogged streets of Boston were empty on Friday as the city went into lockdown during the manhunt. Public transportation had been suspended and air space restricted. Famous universities, including Harvard and MIT, closed after police ordered residents to remain at home.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick said late on Friday afternoon the "stay-in-place" order for Boston had been lifted and mass transit reopened.

The brothers had not previously been on the radar as possible militants, U.S. government officials said. But the FBI in 2011 interviewed the older of the two brothers, acting at the request of an unidentified foreign government, a U.S. law enforcement source said. The matter was closed when it did not produce any derogatory information, according to the source, who declined to be identified.

'PUT A SHAME ON OUR FAMILY'

Some details emerged on Friday about the brothers, including their origins in the predominantly Muslim regions of Russia's Caucasus, which have experienced two decades of violence since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The younger brother described himself on a social network as a minority from a region that includes Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia.

A man who told reporters he was an uncle of the brothers said they came to the United States in the early 2000s and settled in the Cambridge, Massachusetts, area.

Ruslan Tsarni, who lives in suburban Washington and has not spoken to the brothers since 2009, said the bombings "put a shame on our family. It put a shame on the entire Chechen ethnicity.

In separate interviews, the parents of the Tsarnaev brothers said they believed their sons were incapable of carrying out the bombings. Others remembered the brothers as friendly and respectful youths who never stood out or caused alarm.

"Somebody clearly framed them. I don't know who exactly framed them, but they did. They framed them. And they were so cowardly that they shot the boy dead," father Anzor Tsarnaev said in an interview with Reuters in Dagestan's provincial capital, Makhachkala, clasping his head in despair.

The FBI said the twin blasts were caused by bombs in pressure cookers and carried in backpacks that were left near the marathon finish line as thousands of spectators gathered.

The mother, Zubeidat Tsaraeva, speaking in English, told CNN, "It's impossible, impossible, for both of them to do such things, so I am really, really, really telling that this is a setup."

The bombings elicited a response from Moscow condemning terrorism and from the Russian-installed leader of Chechnya, who criticized police in Boston for killing an ethnic Chechen and blamed the violence on his upbringing in the United States.

"They grew up and studied in the United States and their attitudes and beliefs were formed there," Ramzan Kadyrov said in comments posted online. "Any attempt to make a connection between Chechnya and the Tsarnaevs is in vain.

The Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, the biggest mosque in the area, said in a statement that "after the terrible and sad events of last night, the criminal of the bombings on the loose" it was shutting its doors until further notice. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-explosions-boston-shootingbre93i0gq-20130419,0,4943879.story

'THE HUNT IS OVER'

Boston suspect in serious condition

• Police cheer at scene of bombing suspect's capture in Watertown
• Dead: Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26; apprehended: Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19
• 'We have a victory here tonight,' police official says LIVE BLOG | FULL STORY

5/15/15

http://www.alipac.us/f9/boston-bombe...ombing-319529/