Boston Bomb Suspect Captured Alive in Backyard Boat
The alleged Boston Marathon bomber who hid from authorities for more than 12 hours was captured tonight by police, sending cheers up through the Watertown neighborhood where he was found.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was found by a homeowner lying in a boat in the man's backyard around 7 p.m.
Gunfire broke out in the immediate aftermath of the discovery, but quickly stopped as police hunkered down for a standoff with Tsarnaev that lasted a little more than an hour and a half.
Around 8:45 p.m., Tsarnaev was taken into custody and transported away from the scene in an ambulance, as law enforcement officials and onlookers clapped and cheered.
Tsarnaev had been shot by police during gunfire nearly 24 hours earlier. Sources said Tsarnaev was bleeding badly.
A senior Justice Department official told ABC News that federal law enforcement officials are invoking the public safety exception to the Miranda rights, so that Tsarnaev will be questioned immediately without having Miranda rights issued to him.
The federal government's high value detainee interrogation group will be responsible for questioning him.
The Miranda exemption exists to protect the public safety from another attack, according to the official.
"We got him," Boston Mayor Tom Menino tweeted immediately after Tsarnaev was arrested. "I have never loved this city & its people more than I do today. Nothing can defeat the heart of this city .. nothing."
The Boston police department also sent out a tweet in the aftermath trumpeting, "CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody."
Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, are believed to be behind the bombing of the Boston Marathon on Monday that killed three individuals and injured more than 170.
Tamerlan was killed by gunfire Thursday night in a shoot-out with police. Dzhokhar fled the shoot-out on foot into the Watertown neighborhood, which was the subject of an intense manhunt today involving hundreds of law enforcement personnel. The entire city of Boston was placed on lockdown for the dragnet.
At a new conference around 6 p.m., Gov. Deval Patrick lifted the lockdown order, saying they had not found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Watertown.
Shortly after the order came down, Watertown homeowner David Henneberry walked into his backyard and saw something amiss with his boat, according to Henneberry's neighbor, George Pizzuto.
"He looked and noticed something was off about his boat, so he got his ladder, and he put his ladder up on the side of the boat and climbed up, and then he saw blood on it, and he thought he saw what was a body laying in the boat," Pizzuto said. "So he got out of the boat fast and called police."
He said that Henneberry was being interviewed by police about what he saw, and that power was cut to the Henneberry's house.
"That boat's his baby. He takes care of it like you wouldn't believe. And they told him it's all shot up," Pizzuto said. "He's going to be heartbroken."
Henneberry notified police, and minutes later gunfire erupted and dozens of law enforcement officers rushed to secure a perimeter around Franklin Street in Watertown, where residents were immediately warned to stay indoors and "shelter in place."
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Erik Thompson, who lives across the street from the Henneberry's home, said he heard gunshots and saw law enforcement rush to the scene.
"There was some gunfire earlier which was almost immediately stopped. People were yelling to cease fire, and it seems to be focused on some homes across the street from where I am, which I think is the western side of the street," Thompson said.
"There's still a significant presence of law enforcement there," he said. "It's like D-Day."
The governor lifted an order that kept people in Watertown, Boston and surrounding suburbs inside all day.
The officials had said at the press conference that they thoroughly searched Watertown and had not found any sign of Tsarnaev.
Earlier in the day, police in took three individuals into custody in connection with the search for Tsarnaev.
Lt. Robert Richard of New Bedford, Mass., said three "college age" individuals were taken in for questioning by the FBI. New Bedford is less than 15 miles north of Dartmouth, Mass., where Tsarnaev attends college.
Following a late-night shootout with police that involved more than 200 rounds of ammunition and explosive devices, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, abandoned his car and slipped away on foot.
His older brother and alleged accomplice in the bombings, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in the gunfire. The pair are believed to have dropped two bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon Monday, killing three and injuring more than 170.
Massachusetts State Police Superintendent Col. Timothy Alben said at a press conference this afternoon that the Tsarnaev brothers opened fire and threw explosives at cops around 10:30 p.m. Thursday as they fled from Cambridge to Watertown. But he said law enforcement were forced to choose between providing first aid to those in need and securing a perimeter to contain the suspect.
"Unfortunately we did not have enough people to provide first aid" to the injured "and establish a perimeter," the colonel said.
Gov. Deval Patrick ordered everyone in Watertown, Boston and surrounding suburbs to stay indoors, shut down public transportation and taxi service for the day as the search for Tsarnaev proceeded.
Heavily armed officers and military-style vehicles conducted a door-to-door search of Watertown, but the search turned up nothing, Alben said.
Police did find evidence of homemade pipe bombs and a pressure cook at the scene of the shootout, they said.
Shortly after 6 p.m. today, the governor lifted the "shelter in place" order and reopened the city's mass transit system. He asked residents to remain vigilant.
BOSTON - USA Today - The city and its suburbs remain in lockdown Friday afternoon as a massive manhunt combs the area for the teenaged surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.
Authorities are focusing a house-to-house sweep in Watertown for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, the brother of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who died following a dramatic early Friday morning shootout with police.
Police say Dzhokhar is armed and fear he is wearing an explosive vest. Authorities no longer believe there are other accomplices. The official, who is not authorized to comment publicly, said investigators have been running down leads on possible associates of the suspect bombers, all of which have produced no other suspects.
During the overnight and early-morning pursuit of the suspects, the official said authorities recovered a handful of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including one in the possession of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. All of the devices appeared to be homemade "fused'' explosives.
Police took Tamerlan Tsarnaev to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center following the gunfight with police at about 1:20 a.m. Friday. Dr. David Schoenfeld said medical personnel tried to revive him. He had multiple gunshot wounds and burn and gaping blast wounds that appeared to have come from an explosive device strapped to his body.
The brothers' acts continue to befuddle authorities, family and friends that know them. Students at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where Dzhokar was a student, say they saw him on campus following Monday's bombings.
lnvestigators have not found any formal links so far to an international terror group.
Dzhokar's escape prompted Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to order the city of Boston and its surrounding suburbs locked down and its residents to remain in their homes. The Boston Red Sox and Bruins postponed Friday night games. Businesses in Watertown, Newton, Waltham, Belmont, Cambridge and the Alston and Brighton neighborhoods of Boston were requested to remain closed and residents to remain indoors until the suspect is caught. Massachusetts shut down all mass transit, including buses and trains, in Boston and surrounding suburbs, Kurt Schwartz, director of Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency said.
The Tsarnaev family is believed to have moved to the USA in 2003. They had lived in Kazakhstan for several years after fleeing war-torn Chechnya. Tamerlan attended Bunker Hill Community College in nearby Charlestown as a part-time student for three semesters from 2006 to 2008. He studied accounting.
In an telephone interview from Russian with the Associated Press, the brothers' father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said Dzhokhar is "a true angel" and "an intelligent boy." In subsequent media interviews, he said his sons had been framed for Monday's bombings.
Ruslan Tsarni, an uncle who had not spoken to his brother's sons since December 2005, urged Dzhokhar to turn himself in to authorities. Meeting with reporters Friday outside his home in Montgomery County, MD., Tsani said he believed the brothers may have been recently "radicalized." Tsarni says he was unaware of any military or weapons training they may have received. Tsarni called the brothers "losers" and said they had brought his family shame.
Their names were not known to law enforcement officials before the bombings, which killed three people and wounded 176. Authorities are reviewing the brothers' possible ties to Chechnya - an area of Russia plagued by Islamic insurgency - a law enforcement official who is not authorized to comment publicly told USA TODAY.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is believed to have dropped a backpack laden with explosives at the site of Monday's second explosion. He was pictured wearing a white baseball cap in video images released by the FBI Thursday. His page on the Russian social networking site Vkontakte says he attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, graduating in 2011, the year he won a $2,500 college scholarship from the city of Cambridge. On the website, his world view is described as "Islam" and he says his personal goal is "career and money."
Larry Aaronson, a neighbor and retired history teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, got to know Dzhokhar while taking photos of the high school wrestling team and other school activities.
"It's completely out of his character," Aaronson said of Dzhokhar's alleged role in the bombings. "Everything about him was wonderful. He was completely outgoing, very engaged, he loved the school. He was grateful not to be in Chechnya."
Dzhokhar was not overtly political or religious, Aaronson says. "He spoke and acted like any other high school kid."
BOSTON (AP) —In May of 2011, Dzhokhar A. then a senior at a prestigious high school, was awarded a $2,500 scholarship from the city of Cambridge, Mass., to pursue higher education. Now, Tsarnaev is on the run, described as "armed and dangerous" and suspected of the Boston Marathon bombing.
Two brothers, one now dead, one alive and at large. After hours of only grainy images of two men in baseball caps to go on, a portrait gradually started emerging Friday of the men suspected in the attack.
Tsarnaev, 19, and his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed during a violent night in Cambridge, had been living together on Norfolk Street in Cambridge. An uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., told The Associated Press that the men lived together near Boston and have been in the United States for about a decade. They came from the Russian region near Chechnya, which has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency stemming from separatist wars.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's page on the Russian social networking site Vkontakte says he attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, graduating in 2011, the year he won the scholarship, which was celebrated with a reception at City Hall, according to a news release issued at the time. Before moving to the United States, he attended School No. 1 in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim republic in Russia's North Caucasus that has become an epicenter of the Islamic insurgency that spilled over from Chechnya. On the site, he describes himself as speaking Chechen as well as English and Russian. His world view is described as "Islam" and he says his personal goal is "career and money."
Tsarnaev appeared in the video released by authorities on Thursday, identified as Suspect Number 2, striding down a sidewalk, unnoticed by spectators who were absorbed in the race. He followed Tamerlan by about 10 feet. He wore what appeared to be a gray hoodie under a dark jacket and pants, and a white baseball cap facing backward and pulled down haphazardly.
Tamerlan was stockier, in khaki pants, a light T-shirt, and a dark jacket. The brim of his baseball cap faced forward, and he may have been wearing sunglasses.
According to the website spotcrime.com, Tamerlan was arrested for domestic violence in July 2009, after assaulting his girlfriend.
He was an amateur boxer, listed as a competitor in a National Golden Gloves competition in 2009.
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