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After Exchanging Gunfire, Boston Bomb Suspect Captured From Boat
By
Ben Yakas
Published Apr 20, 2013
Modified Apr 20, 2013
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Apr 20, 2013
Modified Apr 20, 2013
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The remaining suspect in the deadly Boston marathon bombings was finally caught last night after a two hour stand-off and shootout with police in a backyard in suburban Watertown. Police had put the entire area on lockdown to focus on the massive manhunt after 19-year-old suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had escaped following a shootout at MIT around 1 a.m. Friday morning. And he was only spotted after the curfew was lifted at 6 p.m., when Watertown resident David Henneberry went to go check on his beloved boat. “He lifted it up and saw a pool of blood. And then he saw what he thought was a body,” said his stepson Robert Duffy.
Henneberry was smoking a cigarette when he noticed the tarp covering his 22-foot cruiser, which was located at a house just outside the area where police were searching for the suspect, was askew. “He went over and saw the tarp was dislodged and then he saw that one of the straps was hanging loose. He picked it up and saw it had been cut. He found it incredibly odd,” said Duffy. After he saw the blood, he immediately called police, who swarmed the house. There was a confrontation between police and the suspect soon after in which cops fired upon the boat.
“I just heard they wound up shooting a couple of rounds through his boat,” said Duffy. “He’s not going to like that, he’s real anal about it.” Boston police commissioner, Edward Davis summarized what happened next in a news conference: “Over the course of the next hour or so we exchanged gunfire with the suspect, who was inside the boat, and ultimately the hostage rescue team of the F.B.I. made an entry into the boat and removed the suspect, who was still alive,” Davis said. Dzhokhar had apparently been wounded in the earlier gunfight that left his brother dead.
Brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was fatally shot during that prior gunfight early Friday morning. The Washington Post has a good round up of the series of events that led to that confrontation. After police released photos of the two suspects on Thursday evening, the brothers "gathered guns and homemade explosives."
In less than 15 minutes late Thursday, authorities said, the brothers fatally shot a campus police officer as he sat in his car, then carjacked a Mercedes-Benz sport-utility vehicle at gunpoint. They held the driver hostage for 30 minutes as they scoured Boston’s western suburbs for bank machines from which to take the man’s cash.
Finally discovered, the Tsarnaevs led police on a chase through residential streets, hurling grenades and makeshift bombs as they drove. When cornered, they battled police with guns and more homemade explosives, wounding a transit officer and trading more than 200 rounds until the officers ran out of ammunition.
The drama ended for the elder brother, Tamerlan, 26, when police shot him and then he apparently was run over by his brother in a melee witnessed by scores of frightened residents of Watertown, Mass., a residential community about five miles from the apartment where the pair lived.
After they "assassinated" MIT campus cop Sean Collier, they allegedly told the unidentified man they carjacked to “Tell the police that we did the bombing." Dzhokhar ultimately escaped on foot after the gunfight, prompting the all-day search for him on Friday.
In addition to Collier, three people were killed at the marathon—8-year-old Martin Richard, 29-year-old Krystle Campbell and 23-year-old Lu Lingzi—and more than 200 were injured due to the bombings.
Altogether, three other people were taken into custody yesterday in New Bedford “on the assumption there is an affiliation with suspect Number 2,” said Lt. Robert Richard of the New Bedford Police.
Dzhokhar is currently listed in serious condition at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston. He was not read his “Miranda” rights when he was arrested because federal officials invoked a "public safety exception," which Slate says raises some serious questions: " No matter how unsympathetic accused terrorists are, the precedents the government sets for them matter outside the easy context of questioning them. When the law gets bent out of shape for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, it’s easier to bend out of shape for the rest of us."
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boston marathon
boston marathon bombing
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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