Boston's terror ends as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is captured alive
Boston's week of terror came to an end on Friday as police cornered Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the second suspected Marathon bomber, and captured him alive following a sustained shoot out.
4:50AM BST 20 Apr 2013
Four days after twin bombs killed three and wounded more than a hundred at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, police announced they had arrested the 19-year-old Chechen and that "justice has won".
The news prompted emotional celebrations on the city streets, which had been empty for nearly 24 hours after authorities imposed a military-style lockdown, and a somber statement from President Barack Obama who declared the bombers "failed because as Americans we refuse to be terrorized"
As he walked out of his house, a Watertown man noticed blood on the outside of the boat. Lifting the tarpaulin, he discovered the former scholarship student huddled onboard, covered in blood from injuries presumed to have been sustained the night before.
Police quickly surrounded the house and soon an exchange of gunfire erupted. An FBI SWAT team eventually overpowered the gunman with a series of stun grenades and was able to apprehend him alive.
The end of the siege, which was followed live on television and across social media, led to an outpouring of relief, including this tweet from Boston Police Department's official account: "Captured!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody."
Dzhokhar, a naturalized US citizen who moved to America a decade ago, was taken to hospital, where authorities said he was in "serious condition".
His father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said merely "Thank God" in a interview with ABC from Russia as he learned the news that one of his sons had survived.
Prosecutors said he had not been read his Miranda Rights, informing of his right to remain silent, because of a special exception for national security cases. Unlike the accused September 11 plotters being tried at Guantanamo Bay, Dzhokhar is expected to face trial in a civilian court.
His capture brings an end to a regional manhunt for the two Chechen brothers who allegedly murdered a police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before engaging police with guns and explosives on Thursday night.
On the streets of Boston and the neighbouring cities of Watertown and Cambridge, people flooded outside, cheering police officers and waving American flags as a day of a martial law-style lockdown came to an end.
"It’s a night where I think we’re all going to rest easy," said a jubilant Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts as he addressed a press conference alongside a host of politicians and law enforcement figures.
Other Bostonians gathered at Copley Square, where the bombs went off shortly before 3pm on Monday, to pay quiet respects to the victims.
Speaking at the White House after watching the capture live on cable news, Mr Obama praised the "resolve and determination" of the people of Boston and said the terrorists had "already failed".
"They failed because the people of Boston refused to be intimidated. They failed because we as American refuse to be terrorized," he said.
But even in the hour of relief and triumph, the president acknowledged that the week of terror committed by two people raised in the US threw up "many unanswered questions".
"Among them: why did young men who grew up and studied here as part of our communities and our country resort to such violence?" he asked.
Earlier it was reported that the FBI had interviewed Tamerlan in 2011, raising questions as to whether early warning signs of extremism had been missed.
Mr Obama also cautioned against the kind of anti-Muslim of vigilantism that marred the US in the weeks after September 11 and urged the American people to stay "true to the unity and diversity that makes us strong".
"We take care not to rush to judgement - not about the motivations of these individuals and certainly not about entire groups of people," he said.
