More info on Dzhokar Tsarnaev, Suspect #2, who remains at large, from his page on a Russian social media site (via the AP): He graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge, Mass., in 2011.
Here’s a helpful timeline to catch you up on overnight events in the Boston Marathon bombing manhunt.
If you’re just waking up, it’s a been a surreal night of chaos and violence north of Boston which, according to latest reports, has ended with one of the two Boston marathon suspects dead and another (apparently the so-called suspect number two with the white cap) still at large.
It began with the murder of a MIT police officer at the edge of the MIT campus just before 11 PM Thursday night. That led to a carjacking which took police on a chase into the neighboring town of Watertown. For hours it was unclear just what was happening and whether it had anything to do with the bombing investigation, though as events proceeded it became increasingly difficult to imagine they were not.
Listening to police scanners from midnight until roughly 1 AM was a surreal experience and certainly a terrifying one for those involved as law enforcement officers struggled to make sense of a chaotic situation, engaged in shootouts and were targeted with explosives by fleeing suspects. Soon scores of police from different departments and federal agencies were converging on Watertown. Dynamite, hand grenades, pipe bombs were the phrases tossed out live over police scanners as the events unfolded, though all that seems certain is that there were explosives of some sort. Police held a press conference a short time ago, the details of which are here.
Police seemed to be waiting for daybreak to intensify the search for the so-called suspect number two.
Continue to treat everything as tentative. But local TV station WCVB is reporting that the two suspects in tonight’s fire fight are the marathon bomb suspects, that one has been killed (suspect #1) and that the other remains at large (suspect #2). (Other news sources say only that the first suspect is in custody.) Federal authorities are still not confirming this identification. But they seem to be edging closer toward doing so.
A lot has happened in the last half hour. As noted before, the Globe reported that one of the two marathon suspects has been taken into custody in the Watertown shoot out. The FBI was not ready to confirm the connection. But reports are starting to come out of local TV reports that suggest that police at least believe that they are pursuing the marathon bombing suspects. WCVB.com is saying there’s a “strong link” between the shoot out tonight and the bombing.
Stepping back for a moment, what’s clear is that law enforcement in many cases is speaking with the press in the context of a massive and frequently violent manhunt. So there’s a mix of operational assumptions and what anyone can confirm in any meaningful sense. But it does seem increasingly clear that law enforcement is treating this as all part of the same story.
We’ve been down this road before. And with all the chaos outside Boston tonight, I wouldn’t be certain of anything. But the Boston Globe is reporting that police have one marathon bombing suspect in custody and are searching for a second in Watertown. Presumably this makes it official that the bombings and this situation outside Boston tonight are connected. But again, treat everything as tentative. The Globe also reported the non-arrest on Wednesday.
Late Update – 2:37 PM: The Globe is obviously an august paper. But their certainty on this seems well out in front of what others seem to know. I’d remain cautious about this point.
Late Update – 2:42 PM: Here’s the Globe’s piece saying a marathon suspect is in custody. Same caution.
Late Update – 2:47 PM: We’ve spoken to the FBI. They won’t confirm that these are marathon bombing suspects.
As I said a few times earlier this evening, we have no direct evidence that the situation unfolding north of Boston is related to the Boston marathon bombings. However, as the situation has escalated over the last half hour, there’ve been running gun fights and explosions at least in Watertown, the town immediately west of Cambridge.
Given that and the massive police deployment, it seems hard to believe that these are not connected in some way to Monday’s bombing. But again all we seem to know is that this grows out of the shooting incident at MIT that happened late Thursday night.
Late Update – 1:32 AM: As of this moment, little is certain about what’s happening north of Boston with any certainty. So treat this all as tentative. But I’ll try to give you as clear a read as I can.
Things seem to have started with a shooting of an MIT police office. He later died. There was a big police mobilization. And then things seemed to move to the town next door, Watertown. A carjacking may have been what brought the situation from Cambridge to Watertown. Once the commotion moved to Watertown there were numerous reports of gunfire and explosions. At this moment, two suspects have reportedly been apprehended in Watertown, though there are conflicting reports that a second person has been taken into custody. More shortly.
I’m going to try to update this as carefully as I can. Going from scattered reports, the situation that began at MIT appears to have expanded toward Watertown. Seems to be a very complicated situation involving police from multiple police municipalities. There’s too much ‘fog of war’ uncertainty to say more with any certainty. Would recommended following the Twitter feed of The Tech (MIT student paper). Wesley Lowery (Globe). Eric Moskowitz (Globe).
Late Update – 1:06 AM: Chaotic surreal situation unfolding north of Boston. Gunfire and explosions in Watertown, the town just west of Cambridge.
At one point police officers screamed that they feared IEDs, no explosions where I am but officers here were horrified. #MITShooting
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) April 19, 2013
Horrifying silence right now. Cops have largely left this area and run further toward alleged explosions/shootout
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) April 19, 2013