Suspect #1 - DEAD 3/18/13
Suspect #1 - CAPTURED 3/19/13
1-800-CALL-FBI
These are the main two suspects that the FBI has identified as the main players in the Boston Marathon bombing.
They are to be considered ARMED and DANGEROUS and should not be approached under any circumstances.
Please use the contact information at the bottom of this post if you can contribute any information.
| Resources |
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To Provide Tips in the Investigation If you have visual images, video, and/or details regarding the explosions along the Boston Marathon route and elsewhere, submit them on https://bostonmarathontips.fbi.gov/. No piece of information or detail is too small. You can also call 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324), prompt #3, with information. All media inquiries should be directed to the FBI’s National Press Office at (202) 324-3691. - Boston FBI |
WATERTOWN, Mass. (AP) - Lifting days of anxiety for a city
and a nation on edge, police captured the surviving Boston Marathon bombing
suspect, found bloodied in a backyard boat Friday night less than 24 hours
after a wild car chase and gun battle that left his older brother dead and
Boston and its suburbs sealed in an extraordinary dragnet.
"We got him," Boston Mayor Tom Menino tweeted. A
cheer erupted from a crowd gathered near the scene.
"CAPTURED!!!" police added later. "The hunt
is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect
in custody."
During a long night of violence Thursday and into Friday,
brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev killed an MIT police officer, severely
wounded another lawman and hurled explosives at police in a desperate getaway
attempt, authorities said.
Late Friday, less than an hour after authorities said the
search for Dzhokhar had proved fruitless, they tracked down the 19-year-old
college student holed up in the boat, weakened by a gunshot wound after fleeing
on foot from the overnight shootout with police that left 200 spent rounds
behind.
He was hospitalized in serious condition, unable to be
questioned about his motives.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died in the shootout early in the
day. At one point, he was run over by his younger brother in a car as he lay
wounded, according to investigators.
The violent endgame unfolded four days after the bombing and
just a day after the FBI released surveillance-camera images of two young men
suspected of planting the pressure-cooker explosives that ripped through the
crowd at the marathon finish line, killing three people and wounding more than
180.
The two men were identified by authorities and relatives as
ethnic Chechens from southern Russia who had been in the U.S. for about a
decade and were believed to be living in Cambridge, Mass. But investigators
gave no details on the motive for the attack.
President Barack Obama said the nation owes a debt of
gratitude to law enforcement officials and the people of Boston for their help
in the search. But he said there are many unanswered questions about the Boston
bombings, including whether the two men had help from others. He urged people
not to rush judgment about their motivations.
The breakthrough came when a man in a Watertown neighborhood
saw blood on a boat parked in a yard and pulled back the tarp to see a man
covered in blood, authorities said. The resident called 911 and when police
arrived, they tried to talk the suspect into getting out of the boat, said
Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis.
"He was not communicative," Davis said.
Instead, he said, there was an exchange of gunfire - the
final volley of one of the biggest manhunts in American history.
Watertown residents who had been told in the morning to stay
inside behind locked doors poured out of their homes and lined the streets to
cheer police vehicles as they rolled away from the scene.
Celebratory bells rang from a church tower. Teenagers waved
American flags. Drivers honked. Every time an emergency vehicle went by, people
cheered loudly.
"They finally caught the jerk," said nurse Cindy
Boyle. "It was scary. It was tense."
Police said three other people were taken into custody for
questioning at an off-campus housing complex at the University of the
Massachusetts at Dartmouth where the younger man may have lived.
"Tonight, our family applauds the entire law
enforcement community for a job well done, and trust that our justice system
will now do its job," said the family of 8-year-old Martin Richard, who
died in the bombing.
The FBI was swamped with tips - 300,000 per minute - after
the release of the surveillance-camera photos, but what role those played in
the overnight clash was unclear. State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said
police realized they were dealing with the bombing suspects based on what the
two men told a carjacking victim during their night of crime.
The search by thousands of law enforcement officers all but
paralyzed the Boston area for much of the day. Officials shut down all mass
transit, including Amtrak trains to New York, advised businesses not to open,
and warned close to 1 million people in the entire city and some of its suburbs
to unlock their doors only for uniformed police.
Around midday, the suspects' uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of
Montgomery Village, Md., pleaded on television: "Dzhokhar, if you are
alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness."
Until the younger man's capture, it was looking like a grim
day for police. As night fell, they announced that they were scaling back the
hunt and lifting the stay-indoors order across Boston and some of its suburbs
because they had come up empty-handed.
But then the break came and within a couple of hours, the
four-day ordeal was over. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured about a mile from the
site of the shootout that killed his brother.
Chechnya has been the scene of two wars between Russian
forces and separatists since 1994, in which tens of thousands were killed in
heavy Russian bombing. That spawned an Islamic insurgency that has carried out
deadly bombings in Russia and the region, although not in the West.
The older brother had strong political views about the
United States, said Albrecht Ammon, 18, a downstairs-apartment neighbor in
Cambridge. Ammon quoted Tsarnaev as saying that the U.S. uses the Bible as
"an excuse for invading other countries."
Also, the FBI interviewed the older brother at the request
of a foreign government in 2011, and nothing derogatory was found, according to
a federal law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the case
publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official did not identify the foreign country or say why
it made the request.
Authorities said the man dubbed Suspect No. 1 - the one in
sunglasses and a dark baseball cap in the surveillance-camera pictures - was
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, while Suspect No. 2, the one in a white baseball cap worn
backward, was his younger brother.
Exactly how the long night of crime began was unclear. But
police said the brothers carjacked a man in a Mercedes-Benz in Cambridge, just
across the Charles River from Boston, then released him unharmed at a gas
station.
They also shot to death a Massachusetts Institute of
Technology police officer, 26-year-old Sean Collier, while he was responding to
a report of a disturbance, investigators said.
The search for the Mercedes led to a chase that ended in
Watertown, where authorities said the suspects threw explosive devices from the
car and exchanged gunfire with police. A transit police officer, 33-year-old
Richard Donohue, was shot and critically wounded, authorities said.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev somehow slipped away. He ran over his
already wounded brother as he fled, according to two law enforcement officials
who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss
the investigation. At some point, he abandoned his car and ran away.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died at a Boston hospital after suffering
what doctors said were multiple gunshot wounds and a possible blast injury.
The brothers had built an arsenal of pipe bombs, grenades
and improvised explosive devices and used some of the weapons in trying to make
their getaway, said Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., a member of the House
Intelligence Committee.
Watertown resident Kayla Dipaolo said she was woken up
overnight by gunfire and a large explosion that sounded "like it was right
next to my head ... and shook the whole house."
She said she was looking at the front door when a bullet
came through the side paneling. SWAT team officers were running all over her
yard, she said.
"It was very scary," she said. "There are two
bullet holes in the side of my house, and by the front door there is
another."
Tamerlan Tsarnaev had studied accounting as a part-time
student at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston for three semesters from
2006 to 2008, the school said.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was registered as a student at the
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Students said he was on campus this week
after the Boston Marathon bombing. The campus closed down Friday along with
colleges around the Boston area.
The men's father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said in a telephone
interview with AP from the Russian city of Makhachkala that his younger son,
Dzhokhar, is "a true angel." He said his son was studying medicine.
"He is such an intelligent boy," the father said.
"We expected him to come on holidays here."
The city of Cambridge announced two years ago that it had
awarded a $2,500 scholarship to him. At the time, he was a senior at Cambridge
Rindge & Latin School, a highly regarded public school whose alumni include
Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and NBA Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing.
Tsarni, the men's uncle, said the brothers traveled here
together from Russia. He called his nephews "losers" and said they
had struggled to settle in the U.S. and ended up "thereby just hating
everyone."
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