By Shelley Murphy, Milton J. Valencia, Wesley Lowery, Akilah Johnson, Eric Moskowitz, Lisa Wangsness and John R. Ellement
Globe Staff April 19, 2013WATERTOWN — A massive manhunt is underway this morning in Boston and several surrounding communities for one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon terror bombing attacks. A second suspect has died in a confrontation with police, while one police officer has been killed and another has been seriously wounded.
Governor Deval Patrick asked people who live in the entire city of Boston, as well as the nearby communities of Watertown, Waltham, Newton, Belmont, Cambridge, to “shelter in place” — stay inside and not open their doors to anyone, except police with proper identification.
The search has also led to the sudden shutdown of the MBTA’s entire network of commuter rail, bus, and subway services. Taxi service was shut down. And officials requested businesses across the area not to open this morning.
“This is a serious situation. We’re taking it seriously,” Patrick said at an 8 a.m. media briefing in Watertown.
Colonel Timothy Alben, commander of the State
Police, said law enforcement’s focus this morning is on neighborhoods in
Watertown, where police are hoping to find the individual.
Authorities are searching for the man they dubbed Suspect No. 2 — the
man wearing a white baseball cap. Suspect No. 1 — the man wearing the
black cap — is dead.The night of chaos began just hours after law enforcement released images Thursday afternoon of two suspects in the bombings at the Boston Marathon finish line Monday afternoon that left three people dead and more than 170 wounded.
The Associated Press reported this morning that the suspects came from the Russian region near Chechnya, which has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency. A law enforcement intelligence bulletin obtained by the AP identified the surviving bomb suspect as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old who had been living in Cambridge. The Globe has learned that the dead suspect is Tsarnaev’s brother.
An MIT police officer was killed and an MBTA Transit Police officer, Richard H. Donahue Jr., was wounded. Ten police officers were being evaluated at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton early this morning, according to a source, who said the officers said they were hurt from grenades being thrown from the window of a car during a car chase. The source did not have information about where the officers were from or the nature of their injuries.
FBI
A combination of closeups of the two suspects in the Marathon bombings.The MBTA’s announcement that it was suspending service left people stranded at T stops and stations across Eastern Massachusetts. Highways were jammed with commuters.
“People at bus or subway stations, we are asking them to go home,’’ Schwartz said. “We do not want people congregating and waiting for the system to come back on.’’
It was not known when the MBTA service would resume.
“We believe these are the same individuals that were responsible for the bombing Monday at the Marathon,’’ Colonel Timothy Alben, commander of the State Police, said today. “We believe that they are responsible for the death of an MIT police officer and the shooting of an MBTA police officer. This is a very serious situation that we are dealing with.’’
Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis this morning said Suspect No. 2 is the person being sought by a massive collection of federal, state, and municipal police. He is believed to be the suspect who actually dropped the bombs at the race finish line.
“We believe this to be a terrorist,’’ Davis told reporters about 4:30 a.m. today. “We believe this to be a man here to kill people.”
Police warned residents in East Watertown to stay in their homes, and not to answer the door unless they see a uniformed police officer outside. They said drivers should not stop in the area roughly bounded by Dexter, Laurel, and Arsenal streets.
According to Alben, the night’s outbreak of violence began when police received reports of a robbery of a convenience store in Kendall Square near MIT. A few minutes later, an MIT police officer, who has not been identified, was shot multiple times while in his cruiser at Main and Vassar streets, near Building 32, better known as the renowned Stata Center on the MIT campus.
The officer was pronounced dead at Massachusetts General Hospital. A short time later, two men carjacked a Mercedes SUV at gunpoint, and the owner of that car was able to flee at a gas station on Memorial Drive.
The SUV proceeded out Memorial Drive toward Watertown followed by a long train of police vehicles in pursuit. At one point during the pursuit, the two suspects opened fire on Watertown police and Donahue, the Transit Police officer, was shot. He remains in stable condition at Mt. Auburn Hospital, the hospital said this morning.
During the gunfight, Suspect No. 1 was wounded and was taken into custody. This morning, Dr. Richard Wolfe said the man was brought to the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center emergency room about 1:10 a.m. with multiple traumatic injuries.
“It was more than gunshot wounds,’’ Wolfe told reporters about 5:30 a.m. today. “It was a combination of injuries. We believe a combination of of blasts, multiple gunshot wounds.”
Wolfe said it looked like the man had been hurt by an “explosive device’’ and that the man was struck by “shrapnel.’’ The man was pronounced dead at 1:35 a.m. The hospital officials said they did not know his name.
In Watertown, gunfire and explosions cut through the night air. Police warned that spectators were in danger. At Arsenal Court and Arsenal Street in Watertown, an officer bellowed: “Ya gotta get outta here. There’s an active shooter here with an active explosive. Go!”
Peter Jennings, 33, said he was sleeping just before 1 a.m. in his home on Prentiss Street when he was awakened by a huge boom.
“It sounded like a stick of dynamite went off,” he said. “I looked out the window, and it was like nothing I’ve ever seen -- blue light after blue light after blue light.”
He said more than three dozen emergency vehicles were heading down Route 16 West. He went to the end of his street, where some neighbors were gathering. The air, he said, smelled like “at the end of a fireworks show, like a wick smell.”
“I had a bad feeling because of what happened on Monday,” he said.
Adam Healy, 31, said he stepped outside for a cigarette near one of the shooting scenes in Watertown, when he heard gunfire.
“I just heard tons of gunshots,” he said. “Gunshot, gunshot, gunshot, gunshot. Then I saw an explosion and saw a burst of light in the sky.”
Imran Saif, a cab driver, was parking his car for the night near Dexter and School streets and was preparing to bike home to Cambridge when he heard a series of loud noises that he said “sounded like fireworks.”
He said he biked toward the sounds, thinking they were fireworks, when people in nearby houses began waving him back, telling him it was gunfire.
“It just sounded like there was automatic weapons going off, and I heard a few explosions,” he said. “They sounded like fireworks, mostly, big fireworks going off -- tons, I’d say. I’m really scared. When I found out it was gunshots, that just knocked the wind out of me.”
Dan MacDonald, who lives on Bigelow Avenue and Mount Auburn Street, near Watertown Square, said he was watching TV and talking with his girlfriend when they began hearing sirens -- just a few at first, then more -- “maybe five or seven, racing at this point.”
Then in the distance they heard gunshots, about 15, he said, within 10 seconds. “I kind of ran downstairs and came outside,” he said. “They were coming from the Arsenal Street area up Bigelow Avenue. There were about 10 cop cars, they took a left on Mount Auburn Street heading toward Galen Street.”
At Mass. General, family members of the MIT police who was fatall shot declined to comment. About a dozen gathered outside the hospital’s emergency room, hugging and consoling one another through the night.
Early today, MIT issued a statement about the death of the officer. “MIT is heartbroken by the news that an MIT Police officer was shot and killed in the line of duty on Thursday night on campus. Our thoughts are now with the family.”
Marcella Bombardieri, Brian MacQuarrie, Martine Powers, and Maria Sacchetti of the Globe staff and Globe correspondents Jeremy C. Fox, Haven Orecchio-Egresitz, Jaclyn Reiss, and Gal Tziperman Lotan contributed to this report.
No comments:
Post a Comment