 |
| The Boston Bombers, who happen to be Brothers |
Police killed one suspect in
the Boston Marathon bombing during a shootout and were engaged in a
house-to-house search for a second man on Friday in the Boston suburb of
Watertown after a bloody night of shooting and explosions in the city's
streets.
Authorities warned people in
Watertown not to leave their homes and not to answer the door. During the night
a university police officer was killed, a transit police officer was wounded,
and the suspects’ carjacked a vehicle before leading police on a chase that
ended with one suspect shot dead.
Police said the suspect they
were seeking was the man shown wearing a white cap in surveillance pictures
released on Thursday night which had been taken shortly before Monday's
explosions that killed three people and wounded 176 at the finish of the Boston
Marathon.
The blasts triggered
security scares across the United States and evoked memories of the September
11, 2001 attacks. On Friday the authorities effectively closed down Boston,
halting transportation systems and telling people to stay home as the hunt
continued.
Officials said as police had
closed in on the two men overnight they attacked the officers with explosives
and gunfire before one of them was shot and taken to a hospital, where he died.
"We believe this to be
a terrorist," said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis of the suspect
still at large. "We believe this to be a man who has come here to kill
people. We need to get him in custody."
The dramatic events
overnight followed the release on Thursday by the U.S. Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) of pictures and video of two suspects seen wearing
backpacks and baseball caps in the crowd minutes before the bombs exploded.
About five hours later, a
university police officer was shot and killed on the campus of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Middlesex County District Attorney
said in a statement.
A short time later, police
received reports of a carjacking by two men who kept their victim inside the
car for about half an hour before releasing him, the statement said.
Police pursued that car to
Watertown, where explosives were thrown from the car at police and shots were
exchanged, the statement said.
"During the exchange of
the gunfire, we believe that one of the suspects was struck and ultimately
taken into custody. A second suspect was able to flee from that car and there
is an active search going on at this point in time," Colonel Timothy
Alben, superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police, told a news
conference.
The wounded suspect was
taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he died, said Dr. Richard
Wolfe, chief of emergency medicine.
"This was a trauma
arrest, multiple injuries, probably, we believe, a combination of blast,
potentially gunshot wounds," Wolfe told a news conference. When asked how
many gunshot wounds, he said: "Unable to count."
The blast injuries may have
been caused by "an explosive device, possibly shrapnel, thermal injury. It
was pretty much throughout the trunk. It was multiple wounds," he said.
Inside the 20-block search
area, police performed street-by-street checks of yards with full tactical
gear, long rifles and full armor, a Reuters photographer witnessed.
Massachusetts Governor Deval
Patrick suspended all public transportation service on the Boston-area subway,
bus and rail system as a precaution.
"People that are at
subway stations or at bus stops we are asking them to go home, we do not want
people congregating and waiting for the system to come back on," said Kurt
Schwartz, director of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
Schwartz also asked people
in the Boston-area communities of Newton, Waltham, Belmont, Cambridge and the
Allston-Brighton to stay indoors and asked businesses in those areas to remain
closed pending further notice.
MIT said it canceled all
classes on Friday after one of its police officers was killed.
U.S. President Barack Obama
was briefed overnight by a counterterrorism aide on the Boston bombing
investigation and manhunt, a White House official said.
No comments:
Post a Comment