SURVIVING MARATHON BOMBING SUSPECT TAKEN INTO CUSTODY AFTER MASSIVE MANHUNT

A man stepping outside of his Watertown, MA home for a cigarette on Friday afternoon provided the pivotal lead for authorities in the largest-ever manhunt in the city of Boston.

The city of Boston was under lockdown on Friday morning after a chaotic police chase from Cambridge to Watertown, MA and shootout where two men identified as suspects in the Patriot's Day bombing of the Boston marathon opened fire on police and lobbed grenades at them as they were pursued.

The chaos began on Thursday night when an MIT Campus police officer responding to reports of a disturbance was shot and killed and a motorist in Cambridge was carjacked by two men.

Tarek Ahmed, 45, told Fox News that the victim, whose Mercedes-Benz was reportedly stolen by Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a young Caucasian man between 20 and 25 years old. Ahmed claimed that he was working at gas station on Memorial Drive, when the man ran into his store screaming, “Call the police! Call the police! These people are trying to kill me!”

"I thought he was drunk. I didn't believe him when he came in, it just sounded very crazy," Ahmed said. Despite his skepticism, Ahmed let the man, who has not been identified, inside to use his phone.

"He came very fast and was nervous and was afraid of the guy. He said they pushed him out of car," he said. "He went inside and closed the door. He was shaking and very nervous. I only believe him when the cops came."

Ahmed said that police collected surveillance videos from the station when they arrived, and also took photos from another store across the street where the suspects might have gone inside to purchase something. Police later released photographs of Dzhokar Tsarnaev exiting a Bank of America ATM in Watertown, Mass., at 11:18 p.m., where he withdrew $800, according to the NY Times.

Ahmed, who told reporters that he believed that the suspects had shoved the man out of the car after stopping to withdraw the money, said he was very shaken up after the encounter.

The gunmen were chased by police into a residential area of nearby Watertown- the FBI later claimed that at least five explosive devices were thrown at pursuing officers and the suspects and officers exchanged more than 200 rounds. One suspect, identified as 27 year old Tamerlan Tsarnaev was hit and later pronounced dead at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The other, known as Suspect 2 since Thursday Afternoon's FBI Press Conference, was identified as 19 year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger brother of Tamerlan. During the firefight, MBTA Police officer Richard Donahue is struck and wounded- he remains in critical-but-stable condition as of Friday night.

Police immediately set up a perimiter around the Laurel Street area in Watertown and began searching for the subject. Gov Deval Patrick ordered MBTA buses, subways and commuter rail service closed down and area residents were warned to stay inside. Schools in the area- both public schools and the numerous colleges- were shut down as a precaution and a number of events scheduled for Friday night, including both the Bruins and Red Sox home games, are postponed.

By early Friday evening the lockout was lifted and the Massachusetts State Police hold a press conference where they infer that Dzhokhar has likely escaped the dragnet, but was likely still in the state of Massachusetts. That's when Dave Henneberry stepped out for a smoke in the backyard of his Franklin Street home and noticed that one of the straps covering the tarp on his boat was askew and went in for a closer look. That's when he noticed blood streaked along the side of the boat that was parked on a trailer in his backyard. After grabbing a stepladder, Henneberry grabbed the tarp and peered inside, spotting more bloodstains and reportedly seeing a body crumpled inside.

That's when Henneberry retreated back into his house and dialed 911. Not only had Dzhokhar been wounded in the shootout with police, but the 19 year old reportedly ran over his wounded brother in an attempt to get away.

By 8:58 PM ET, the following message was sent over the Boston Police Department's twitter account:

CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody.
— Boston Police Dept. (@Boston_Police) April 20, 2013

The announcement led to widespread spontaneous celebrations throughout a city that had been on edge since Monday.


The two brothers were identified as ethnic Chechens from southern Russia. According to the FBI, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was interviewed by the FBI at the behest of a foreign agency in 2011- many speculate Russia owing to the longstanding conflict between Moscow and the breakaway, predominantly muslim Chehcen republic in the south. Tamerlan had reportedly returned to the area 10 years ago using a passport from the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzistan while Dzhokhar was sworn in as a US citizen on September 11, 2012. The brothers had reportedly been in the country since 2003.

With one suspect dead and the other in custody, police in New Bedford took three people into custody for questioning and searched off-campus housing at UMass-Dartmouth on Friday on reports that the younger Tsarnaev brother may have resided there at one time.

Monday's bombing killed 29 year old Krystle Campbell, 29, of Arlington, MA, Eight year old Martin Martin Richard of Dorchester, MA and a 23 year old BU grad student from China named Lu Lingzi.

BREAKING- POLICE COMB WATERTOWN, MA NEIGHBORHOOD FOR GUNMEN AFTER MIT CAMPUS POLICE OFFICER SHOT AND KILLED- UPDATE: CHECHEN BROTHERS SAME INDIVIDUALS IDENTIFIED BY FBI AS SUSPECTS IN MARATHON BOMBING

AP Photo

Hours after an FBI press conference in which they showed photos and video of the two individuals considered suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, a MIT police officer was shot and killed by assailants on campus. The shooting was followed by a robbery, carjacking and cross-town pursuit where the gunmen opened fire on police with guns and grenades before crashing their stolen vehicle in nearby Watertown, MA.

WCBV-TV said the suspects threw and detonated explosives during a car chase with police.

Police were working to apprehend a young male with a hat on who was reportedly pulling on vehicle doors, according to police scanner traffic.

An FBI official told Fox News early Friday that one person was in custody and an officer was down but said it was too early to tell if the police activity in Watertown or the MIT shooting were related to the Boston Marathon bombing.

Dozens of officers and National Guard members descended on Watertown shortly after the shooting outside a building on MIT's campus in Cambridge, according to the Associated Press.

Authorities were calling for somebody to get on the ground and put their hands up and a loud thud was heard after someone shouted "fire in the hole," the news agency reported.

Witnesses told The Associated Press they heard multiple gunshots and explosions at about 1 a.m. Friday. Dozens of police officers and FBI agents were in the neighborhood and a helicopter circled overhead.

State police spokesman David Procopio told news agency, "The incident in Watertown did involve what we believe to be explosive devices possibly, potentially, being used against the police officers."

Fox News reporters on the scene cannot yet confirm these reports.

Earlier Friday, Cambridge police and the Middlesex District Attorney's office said the MIT officer was responding to a report of a disturbance when he was shot multiple times late Thursday. He later died at a hospital. His name was not immediately released.

Procopio said the shooting took place about 10:30 p.m. outside an MIT building. The area was cordoned off and surrounded by responding law enforcement agencies, according to a posting on the university's website.

Procopio said authorities were searching for a suspect or suspects. No arrests have been made.

The university described the situation late Thursday as "active and extremely dangerous." People were urged to stay away from the Stata Building, a mixed use building with faculty offices, classrooms and a common area.

Officers from numerous agencies and reportedly exchanged gunfire and pursued the two suspects on foot- one of them was wounded and taken into custody while the other was still at large in the overnight hours. Police from Boston, Watertown, Cambridge, the MBTA, Boston College and the Massachusetts State Police quickly set up a perimeter and began an intensive search for the remaining suspect, with federal agents quickly arriving to aid in the search for the suspect and additional explosive devices he may have left in the area.

WFXT-TV and Boston Police commissioner Edward Davis had confirmed that the suspect in custody died at Boston's Beth Israel after the confrontation.

One suspect dead. One at large. Armed and dangerous. White hat suspect at large.
— Edward Davis (@EdDavis3) April 19, 2013

It is unclear whether or not the deceased suspect died from a gunshot wound or from one of the detonated explosive devices- an MBTA police officer is hospitalized after exchanging gunfire with the suspects after carjacking an SUV at a gas station adjacent to the MIT Campus in Cambridge.



The identities of the two bombers remain something of a mystery after conflicting reports overnight. Various social media users speculated that one of the bombing suspects is bore an uncanny resemblance to a Brown University student who has been missing for about a month, but NBC News indicated that the suspected bombers had unspecified foreign military experience.

FBI Photo

Police are urging area residents to remain indoors and only answer the door if they see a uniformed police officer knocking. Authorities have also made a decision to shut down MBTA service in the area to prevent the remaining suspect from fleeing or detonating any remaining explosives as people were waiting for trains or bus service.

4/19 UPDATE - FOX News and the AP have identified the fugitive bombing suspect as a 19 year old Chechen named Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev who apparently entered the country legally and has been residing in Cambridge, MA for the last year. The slain suspect is reportedly his older brother.

Grim Milestone Watch: The 'Teachable Moment' and Beer Summit One Year Later

Today marks the one year anniversary of the highly contrived White House Beer Summit, a meeting where Harvard Professor Skip Gates, Cambridge MA Sgt. James Crowley and President Obama all got together at the White House for a beer to resolve whatever lingering animosity following Professor Gates' July 16, 2009 arrest for disorderly conduct at his Cambridge, MA residence and the President's ignorant and ill-advised comments basically calling the Cambridge Police officer a stupid racist.
Theoretically that argument would've flown if it was some hotheaded rookie who simply felt like throwing his weight around and being a dick, but Sgt. James Crowley's credentials were very impressive- so much so that he was selected by a black police commissioner as an instructor on avoiding racial profiling at the Lowell, MA police academy and as a campus police officer had tried unsuccessfully reviving the Celtics' Reggie Lewis after suffering a fatal heart attack on the campus of Brandeis University in 1993.

When it became clear that President Obama stepped in a big steaming cowpie by speaking up in defence of one of his Ivy-league friends before -by his own admission- he had all the facts, Obama's supporters in the media tried establishing the narrative that whoever called 911 was in fact the true racist.

As it turns out, the 911 call was placed by Lucia Whalen, who saw two men forcing their way into Gates' residence from a distance and- when prompted by the dispatcher- couldn't describe them by ethnicity or skin color, and in fact said that it could be nothing more than the homeowners having a difficult time with the keys.

According to the arrest report, when Sgt. Crowey and another officer arrived at the house told Gates that he was responding to a reported break-in Gates simply yelled back "Why? Because I'm a black man in America?" before eventually producing a Harvard ID. Despite claiming in a July 21, 2009 interview in The Root that he was incapable of yelling due to a bronchial infection. Gates is heard yelling in the background numerous times in Sgt Crowley's radio transmissions with the dispatcher. Gates the reportedly followed Crowley outside, still yelling and apparently pulling some race-baiting diva 'Do you know who I am?' crap at which point he was arrested for disorderly conduct before being released later that night.

Despite criticism from the Mayor of Cambridge, Gov. Patrick and President Obama, Crowley refused to apologize. Sgt. Leon Lashley, a black Cambridge police officer who was on the scene, said he supported Crowley's actions '100%' and felt the encounter would've gone differently if he was the one to show up first and ask Gates for his ID. Many of Cambridge's officers publicly came out in support of Crowley immediately after Obama's 'acted stupidly' comment, including several black patrolmen and detectives on the force.

In an attempt to spin his gaffe as a 'teachable moment', Obama offered to 'mediate' the dispute by inviting both Gates and Sgt. Crowley to the White House for some beers. The meeting- known as the 'Beer Summit' took place on July 30th 2009.

And from that day forward, there was no more racial division in America. That one moment healed centuries of tensions and ill-will in this land of ours, and 'Civil Rights' groups and liberal journalists no longer used racism as a club with which they would beat over the heads of political foes. Nosiree....the days of baseless accusations of racism being hurled about by various groups had long since passed. And we all have the beer summit to thank for that, courtesy of our first-EVAH 'post-racial' president.

Or at least that's how the hacks at the MSM and Journo-list were spinning this dog and pony show one year ago. At the time, I remember thinking 'If the president got it wrong on a matter that would hardly make the police blotter of a small-town newspaper, why should I believe he'll get it right on more critical issues on national significance?'. His response to the Deepwater Horizon spill, Fort Hood shootings, attempted Christmas day bombing of the Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit, the attempted Times Square bombing and the deteriorating situation along the US/Mexican border seems to reinforce this.

To Henry Gates' credit, he penned an op-ed piece earlier this year explaining why reparations for slavery would be untenable given the considerable participation of African tribes in the slave trade.

Massachusetts Senate Race Update: Obama Campaigns for Coakley, Brown Picks up More Endorsements From Unlikely Sources

The Cape Cod Times, hardly anybody's idea of a right-wing mouthpiece, has endorsed Massachusettes GOP Senate candidate Scott Brown this weekend. Another Massachusetts newspaper, the Lowell Sun also endorsed Brown while the somewhat misleadingly-named Springfield Republican announced their support of Coakley.

Elsewhere in the Bay State, the 212 member Cambridge Police Patrol Officers Association has endorsed Scott Brown. The announcement was made despite the fact that Martha Coakley's husband was a veteran Cambridge Police officer and a member of the same union. [No word from the President on whether or not he thought the Cambridge Police acted stupidly- NANESB!]

Meanwhile, President Obama showed up at Northeastern University over the weekend to support that candidate who thinks Curt Schilling is a Yankees fan, was standing not three feet away from a reporter getting roughed up by her aides after meeting with union, insurance and pharma lobbyists in DC yet saw nothing, can't spell Massachusetts correctly, thinks that Catholics have no place in the ER and who's name apparently isn't worth remembering for one member of the Kennedy clan. An estimated 2000 people showed up for the President's appearance while only 1500 were let in- others were redirected to a student center where they could watch a live feed of the event.

The same day, Brown held a competing rally in Worcester that drew roughly 3200 supporters and featured Curt Schilling, former BC and Patriots quarterback Doug Flutie and actor John Ratzenberger, best known for his role as know-it-all mailman Cliff Clavin on Cheers and host of Made in America on the Travel Channel.

Polls in the Bay State open in less than 24 hours.

SEIU Spends $685,000 on TV Ad Attacking Scott Brown; SEIU-Affiliated Worcester Local Endorses Brown

The same day TV ads bankrolled by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to the tune of $685,000 slamming Scott Brown were set to air throughout the Bay State, the Republican State Representative and challenger for the Senate seat formerly held by the late Ted Kennedy picked up endorsements from two of Worcester's police unions:

Local 911, New England Police Benevolent Association, and Local 504, International Brotherhood of Police Officers, handed their endorsement to the state senator. The endorsement comes one day after a debate in which Mr. Brown and his main opponent, Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakley, squared off.

Feel free to visit the International Brotherhood of Police Officers homepage linked here. You might see a logo in the upper left-hand corner that looks something like this:

So the same day one of their affiliated locals endorsed Scott Brown, TV stations in Massachusetts air anti-Brown ads paid for by the national SEIU honchos. This comes about a month after the SEIU paid $214,000 to air radio ads for Martha Coakley at the end of the primary, bringing the total Bay State Coakley campaign-related expenditures by the SEIU alone to just under $900,000. Sounds like union dues well spent, Andy.

Of course, the New England Police Benevolent Association is an AFL-CIO affiliated union. The two Worcester Police unions announcements come on the heels of the State Police Association of Massachusetts endorsement of Brown on Monday.

At face value, the endorsement of a Republican by any labor organization in the bluest of blue states comes off as more than a little unusual. However, there may be one glaringly obvious reason as to why some of the unions haven't backed Coakley (who said she would cast the deciding vote for 0bamacare).

Another likely reason the police unions have kept themselves at arm's length from Deval Patrick's AG is because they're still waiting for an apology from the governor. You know- the governor with the approval rating in the 20 percentile who basically called Cambridge PD Sgt James Crowley racist and hasn't backtracked since. Turns out cops have a memory that lasts longer than one beer, and I suspect they have damned little incentive to throw their support behind Gov. Patrick's Attorney General.

Of course, that's all just speculation on my part. But the fact remains that what was supposed to be an uncontested cakewalk for Martha Coakley in the bluest of blue states is now approaching a dead heat with Scott Brown, draining resources and funds from the national DNC and their labor allies- even with their own in-state Locals backing Coakley's GOP challenger.

Rushing to Judgement

July 22nd 2009- from the White House:

Obama: Cambridge police acted stupidly

"Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof he was in own home," Obama said during a prime-time news conference that otherwise focused on the health care debate.
"What I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately," Obama said. "That's just a fact."

November 6th, 2009- from the White House:

Obama says don't jump to conclusions on shooting

"We don't know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts," Obama said in a Rose Garden statement otherwise devoted to the economy.


Hmm....What a difference a couple of months makes, eh? I guess there's a lesson to be learned in all of this.

Jumping to conclusions when a muslim officer in the United States Army murders 13 of his unarmed fellow soldiers and wounds 31 more on an army base is wrong.

But there's nothing wrong with jumping to conclusions about a whole police department after an officer arrests one of your race-baiting academic buddies.

Do I have that about right?