April 19th, 2013, 4:46 pm
A few details on the brothers.The older one, Tamerlan, seems possibly to have been the leader. They had both lived here for about ten years and he got his citizenship oddly enough, on 9/11/12; the younger brother, Dzhokhar, was "legalized" in 2007, one source said. Tamerlan spent a few semesters at Bunker Hill Community College, studying engineering, but left school to train in boxing - he won the Golden Gloves award twice. It is not clear if he had a job and he was arrested on charges of domestic violence in 2009. I wonder if this is what caused the breach in the family - his uncle speaking from Maryland indicated that there was a rift in 2009, but did not specify why. He was articulate and ferocious in his long interview outside his house. I can see zerdna's point about the strong Chechen nature. The younger brother, Dzhokhar, was in a good high school here - Cambridge Ringe and Latin and graduated in 2011. By all accounts he was a good student and athlete, well-liked by teachers and classmates. He was currently enrolled at UMass Dartmouth, possibly interested in becoming a doctor.They lived together in Cambridge for some years and Dzhokhar also had a dorm room at UM Dartmouth. That is currently cordoned off and there is a large police presence there now. A neighbor who was interviewed said that the older brother may have gone deeper into Islam about a year ago - growing a long beard, wearing traditional clothing and talking more about religion. The neighbor said that behavior had stopped recently; he went clean shaven and started wearing European/American style clothing again.Quite a bit of hearsay and extrapolation, but it looks like Tamerlan was having a hard time with his post high school direction in life and might have become radicalized, even while living here. Then he drew his brother in.I wonder if Dzhokhar may not just turn himself in, if the opportunity presents itself. He is probably not well-trained for this and is most likely making decisions alone now. However, there may be other suspects or more of a network than has been disclosed to the media. There is no information flowing on that at all.Several cars have been searched, including a silver Honda CRV, the black Mercedes and a green Honda (possibly Civic or Accord). At least one other car, a red Accord-like vehicle has been towed away in Cambridge. The two hottest spots are still Watertown and Cambridge. There will be a controlled blast at the apartment in Cambridge later today. Black Hawk helicopters, hundreds if not thousands of law enforcement around those areas. The T is still closed, Logan is very tight and they may have shut down the Amtrak train service between Boston and Providence.Anyway, much of this you can get on the wires, but that is a collection of the best information available over the past few hours.**Correction - Dzhokhar got his US citizenship on 9/11/12. Tamerlan was not naturalized.
Last edited by
trackstar on April 18th, 2013, 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.