Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev. Courtesy/FBI
Staff report
Police captured the 19-year-old suspected Boston Marathon bomber after a day-long manhunt that shut down the city of Boston and several suburbs and left one police officer dead.
Residents flooded into the streets cheered following the arrest of the Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev to celebrate the end to five days horrendous days since the bombs wounded more than 175 people and killed three.
Tsarnaev’s older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died in an overnight police chase and shootout.
Reports indicate that Tsarnaev was found in a boat this evening in the yard of a home in Watertown, close to where he and his older brother engaged in a shootout with police nearly 24 hours earlier.
The homeowner saw blood on the outside of his boat and lifted the tarp to find Tsarnaev covered in blood inside, according to multiple news reports. Police used a heat-detecting device on a helicopter to find out that he was still inside, and exchanged gun fire with the suspect for the next hour, before he was apprehended.
President Barack Obama said in brief remarks from the White House a few moments ago that there were still many unanswered questions about the Tsarnaevs’ actions.
“We’ve closed an important chapter in this tragedy. Whatever they thought they could ultimately achieve, they failed,” Obama said. “Americans refuse to be terrorized.”
Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is dead. Courtesy/FBI
Thousands of law enforcement officers conducted a nearly 24-hour door-to-door manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is suspected of helping his brother plant two bombs near the finish line at Monday’s Boston Marathon.
Federal investigators had released photos and videos of the two men hours earlier, showing them in the vicinity of the marathon finish line before the explosions. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was seen placing a backpack on the ground minutes before the blast, investigators said.
One MIT police officer was killed and another transit police officer seriously wounded during the violent spree. The city of Boston and its surrounding areas ground to a standstill for hours as police went door to door searching for the suspect in the suburb of Watertown.
Police said they had uncovered several improvised explosive devices in Watertown and in the brother’s home in Cambridge.
The Tsarnaev family is originally from Chechnya, in the southern Russian republic. The family fled to Kyrgyzstan and eventually immigrated to the United States as refugees about 10 years ago. Tsarnaev is a student at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.
Authorities gave no indication of what they might believe the brothers’ motivations could have been in the crime.
