Officials: Boston suspect had no firearm when barrage of bullets hit hiding
place
By Sari Horwitz and Peter Finn, Updated: Wednesday, April 24, 4:08 PM
a0-ad18-11e2-a8b9-2a63d75b5459_print.html
Although police feared he was heavily armed, the suspect in the Boston
Marathon bombings had no firearms when he came under a barrage of police
gunfire that struck the boat where he was hiding, according to multiple
federal law enforcement officials.
Authorities said they were desperate to capture Dzhokhar Tsarnaev so he
could be questioned. The FBI, however, declined to discuss what triggered
the gunfire.
Other law enforcement officials said the shooting may have been prompted by
the chaos of the moment and some action that led the officers present to
believe Tsarnaev had fired a weapon or was about to detonate explosives.
These new details emerged as investigators continued their examination of
the movements and motives of Tsarnaev, 19, and his brother, Tamerlan, in
last week's coordinated bombing, which killed three people and wounded more
than 250.
Law enforcement officials said they do not believe the brothers were
connected with a terrorist organization, but they cautioned that the inquiry
is at an early stage.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a confrontation with police in the
early morning hours Friday, four days after the marathon bombings. A transit
police officer was seriously wounded in the exchange, in which more than 200
rounds were fired and the suspects lobbed homemade explosives at police.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev escaped and was the subject of a massive manhunt. He was
cornered hiding in a boat in the driveway of a house in Watertown, Mass., on
Friday evening.
Law enforcement officials described the 30 minutes before the arrest of
Tsarnaev as chaotic. One characterized it as "the fog of war" and said that
in a highly charged atmosphere, one accidental shot could have caused what
police call "contagious fire."
Officers from several agencies gathered around the Watertown house as
darkness fell. The FBI was in charge of the scene, but there also were
officers from the Massachusetts State Police, local police and transit
police.
"They probably didn't know whether he had a gun," said one law enforcement
official, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the
condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. "Hours earlier
he and his brother had killed a police officer, shot another officer and
thrown explosives out of their cars as the police were chasing them. They
couldn't assume that he did not have a gun and more explosives."
The FBI declined to discuss the exact sequence of events that led officers
to open fire on Tsarnaev's hiding place and whether the dozens of bullets
that struck the boat caused any of his gunshot wounds.
A spokesman for the FBI said law enforcement agents were tracking an
extremely dangerous suspect who had used guns and explosives on a public
street to avoid arrest.
"Law enforcement was placed in an extraordinarily dangerous situation," said
FBI spokesman Paul Bresson. "They were dealing with an individual who is
alleged to have been involved in the bombings at the Boston Marathon. As if
that's not enough, there were indications of a carjacking, gunfire, an
ambushed police officer and bombs thrown earlier. In spite of these
extraordinary factors, they were able to capture this individual alive with
no further harm to law enforcement. It was a tremendously effective outcome
under dire circumstances."
Early Friday in Watertown, the brothers engaged in a firefight with police.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot and fell to the ground, according to police and
photos, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev climbed back in a Mercedes SUV carjacked
earlier. He drove at police and struck his wounded brother on the street.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was dragged a distance by the car, was declared dead
on arrival at a Boston hospital.
A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Massachusetts on Monday to
support charges against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said police recovered a single
firearm and half a dozen explosives and homemade bombs from the scene of the
shootout.
In the ensuing chaos, Tsarnaev accelerated away, abandoned the car and
eventually made it on foot just beyond a cordon quickly set up by police.
Around 6 p.m. Friday, Tsarnaev was detected hiding beneath a plastic cover
on a boat by its owner, who called in police. A thermal imaging unit in a
police helicopter confirmed a presence in the boat.
"You can't second-guess what they were doing on that scene," said a second
law enforcement official. "Their own lives were in danger."
In the immediate aftermath of Tsarnaev's capture, police officials said he
had fired from the boat and he was reported to have been captured with
several weapons. There were also reports that the gunshot wound he suffered
to the throat might have been an attempt to kill himself as police moved in.
Tsarnaev continues to be treated in a Boston hospital, where his condition
has been upgraded from critical to fair. He began communicating in writing
and some speech with a special team of FBI interrogators Saturday night and
was officially charged Monday.
On Wednesday, Vice President Biden eulogized Sean Collier, the slain MIT
police officer, and denounced Tsarnaev and his dead brother as "two twisted,
perverted, cowardly knock-off jihadis."
Thousands of MIT students and police officers from across the United States
attended a memorial service on the grounds of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology to remember the 27-year-old police officer.
Jenna Johnson in Boston and David Montgomery and Julie Tate in Washington
contributed to this report.
==========================================
(F)AIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this
message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to
these copyrighted items are reserved. Articles and graphics have been placed
within for educational and discussion purposes only, in compliance with
"Fair Use" criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976.
The principle of "Fair Use" was established as law by Section 107 of The
Copyright Act of 1976. "Fair Use" legally eliminates the need to obtain
permission or pay royalties for the use of previously copyrighted materials
if the purposes of display include "criticism, comment, news reporting,
teaching, scholarship, and research." Section 107 establishes four criteria
for determining whether the use of a work in any particular case qualifies
as a "fair use". A work used does not necessarily have to satisfy all four
criteria to qualify as an instance of "fair use". Rather, "fair use" is
determined by the overall extent to which the cited work does or does not
substantially satisfy the criteria in their totality. If you wish to use
copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you
must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
THIS DOCUMENT MAY CONTAIN COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. COPYING AND DISSEMINATION IS
PROHIBITED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment