Friday, April 19, 2013

One Boston Bombing Suspect Dead, Other Still On The Loose

Law enforcement officials believe that one suspect in Monday’s bombing of the Boston Marathon was killed Friday morning after a shootout and car chase with police, while the other is still on the loose. NBC’s Pete Williams reports that the two are brothers, age 19 and 20, and are legal permanent residents of the United States, living in Cambridge. The first suspect was taken into custody by police and was pronounced dead at Beth Israel Hospital at 1:35 AM. As many as nine thousand police officers are now conducting a door-to-door search for the second individual, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev according to NBC, and are asking residents to stay in their homes.

The two robbed a 7/11, killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus police officer in his car after 10 PM on Thursday night and later carjacked a Mercedes SUV. Pete Williams of NBC News reports that the suspects told the man that they killed a police officer and were the marathon bombers. The owner of the car was held at gunpoint for 30 minutes and later released near a gas station in Cambridge.

The men then led police on a chase to Watertown, where they exchanged gunfire and threw bombs out of the vehicle window at law enforcement, including one made from a pressure cooker. They stopped the car in Watertown, where the first suspect got out, was shot and likely detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) strapped to his chest. The second suspect drives on and later abandons the car.

The second suspect — who was seen in a white hat in pictures released by the FBI on Thursday — is wearing a grey hoodie, armed, and dangerous. “We believe this to be a terrorist. We believe this to be a person who came here to kill people,” Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said in a press briefing Friday morning. A picture of suspect two from the Boston PD:


 At least one police officer was injured and is in critical condition. There may be several undetonated explosive devices on the streets of Watertown and buses are now evacuating residents. Police have shut down the public transportation system and have asked all businesses in the area to remain closed until further notice. Local schools, colleges, and universities are also closed.


There may be several un-detonated explosive devices on the streets of Watertown and buses are now evacuating neighborhoods. Because of those risks, and in order to find the suspect, Police have shut down the public transportation system — including Amtrak rail service — and have asked all businesses in the area to remain closed until further notice. Police have also suspended taxi service in the city and surrounding suburbs.

On Friday just before 9:00 am, police brought in for questioning two other people, found near the brothers’ house. NBC’s Pete Williams also warns of a potential third suspect. The search has been rapidly expanding. A passenger on an Acela train traveling from Boston to New York City before the rails were shut down alerted authorities that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev might be on the train. Police stopped the train at the Westport, CT station, then searched and cleared it.

One of the Tsarnaevs was a registered student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, according to a release from the school this morning. That campus, along with all other Universities, schools, and businesses in the area, remain closed.

Update:

On Friday afternoon, an official from the Boston Police Department told the press that there had been “no apprehension” yet, but that there will be a “controlled explosion” conducted at a house on Norfolk Street in Watertown — believed to be the suspects’ home — “out of an abundance of caution.” Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino also reiterated the request for citizens in the Boston area to stay indoors. 

 

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