The city of Boston is on complete lockdown this morning, as police continue the search for Dzhokar Tsarnaev and an unidentified person, two of the three suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing. Tsarnaev is thought to be armed with automatic weapons and explosive devices, and the FBI and Boston Police Department have asked Boston residents to stay off the streets and stay in their homes as the search continues. The third suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed during a police shootout at MIT after a campus police officer was shot.
Two of the three suspects, who are believed to have been behind Monday’s explosions at the Boston Marathon which led to three deaths and 107 injuries, are brothers who were identified through surveillance footage. Their images were released early on Thursday, kicking off a manhunt that would begin on Thursday night and continue into Friday.
At 10:30 pm last night, the Huffington Post reports that the Tsarnaev brothers are thought to have participated in a convenience store robbery that led to the shooting of an MIT campus officer who later died. Police then pursued a stolen Mercedes Benz into Boston’s Watertown neighborhood, where it is believed that the suspects detonated several explosives before firing a weapon at the police officers. (The driver of the Mercedes later told police that he was held at gunpoint by the brothers for thirty minutes.) One of the suspects, now identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed by police in the gunfight. It is believed that Dzhokar Tsarnaev escaped, possibly with the third suspect, and police spent the rest of the morning searching for them. Dzhokar is believed to be armed and dangerous.
NBC News reported that one of the bombs set off on Thursday night in Watertown was a pressure-cooker device, similar to the ones used at the Boston Marathon. Tamerlan Tsarnaeve was found wearing an explosive device at the time of his death.
On Thursday night, the city of Boston suspended all transit and cab service, and launched a robo-call campaign asking city residents to stay in their homes and to report suspicious activity. As the search for the second suspect continued into the morning, schools have been closed, transit remains suspended, and the city officials are urging everyone to stay in their homes for the day. Police also fear that the suspects may have left explosive devices around the city, and are conducting thorough searches of both streets and homes in Watertown.
Police currently believe that the third, unidentified suspect is moving south into Connecticut, either by car or by train.
Image Credit: FBI website