They Got Him! Police Nab Second Muslim Terrorist, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, in Watertown, Following Another Gunfight

 

 

Posted by Nicholas Stix

Boston Police: Second marathon suspect in custody
Published April 19, 2013
FoxNews.com

BREAKING: Applause broke out in a residential area near Boston, after a tense police standoff - sparked when the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing was discovered hiding in a boat in a backyard - ended with the subject of a day-long dragnet in custody.

Police moved in on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Friday evening after tip led them to the home on Franklin Street, where he apparently had been hiding in the back yard. Neighbors said they heard more than 30 shots one likened to "a roll of firecrackers shooting off." Police swarmed the scene, and several explosions, possibly police concussion grenades, were heard after a robot moved in on the boat.

"All hell broke loose," the neighbor told a MyFox Boston reporter.

Sources told Fox News the shed and the boat had been searched earlier, but a woman noticed a door to it had been opened, saw blood and called police. The gunfire broke out when police went to search it, but it was unclear if any police were injured.
The dramatic development came just after police said their hunt for Tsarnaev, one of two radical Muslim brothers suspected in Monday's attack, had gone cold and urged people to "go about your business."

Early in the day, police told residents of several city neighborhoods, especially Watertown, to stay inside. School was canceled, bus and train service suspended and people were even told not to venture out for work. But those restrictions were lifted at the news briefing Friday night about 15 minutes before the gunshots were heard.

If Tsarnaev was hiding in the boat, it means he hid all day within the tight perimeter where Black Hawk helicopters patrolled the sky and police went door-to-door hunting for him. Police say he and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev placed the deadly bombs, at least one of which was made from a pressure cooker packed with explosives and shrapnel, at the race, killing three and injuring 176. The sibling suspects are from Dagestan, a province in Russia that borders Chechnya, but have been in the U.S. for as much as a decade..

On Thursday night, hours after the radicalized Muslims were fingered by the FBI and their images circulated around the world, they killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer and carjacked an SUV from a man who later escaped. The brothers led police on a chase through city streets that included a wild shootout that saw some 200 shots fired and the suspects hurling pipe bombs from the SUV. Bizarrely, police discounted earlier reports that the brothers had robbed a 7/11, saying although it had been robbed, and they had been caught on surveillance video, they were not the robbers.

The pursuit went into Watertown, where Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was shot several times in the gunfight. But Dzhokhar Tsarnaev somehow slipped away, running over his already wounded brother as he fled by car, according to two law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was pronounced dead at Beth Israel Hospital Deaconess Medical Center Friday morning. But at some point following the shootout and car chase, the younger brother fled by foot, according to State Police, who said Friday night they don't believe he now has access to a car.

During the pursuit, a MBTA transit police officer was seriously injured and transported to the hospital, according to a news release. He was identified as Richard H. Donahue Jr., 33, and was at Mount. Auburn Hospital in critical but stable condition.

The suspects' bloody rampage claimed the life of MIT Police Officer Sean Collier, 26, who was found shot to death in his squad car at 10:20 p.m. Thursday. Moments after the shooting, the brothers carjacked the Mercedes SUV from Third Street in Cambridge and forced the driver to stop at several bank machines to withdraw money. The driver later told police that the brothers had bragged to him that they were the marathon bombers, law enforcement authorities said.

“The guy was very lucky that they let him go,” Massachusetts State Police spokesman David Procopio said.

It was when police were working to activate the tracking device on the stolen SUV, that other patrol officers spotted it in nearby Watertown, touching off the dramatic chase.

Late Friday, Procopio said police found another pressure cooker bomb and several other explosives late Friday, but did not say if they were diffused or disposed of in a controlled explosions.

Fox News' Jennifer Griffin, Jana Winter, Mike Tobin, Mike Levine, Griff Jenkins and The Associated Press contributed to this report.