Police have pinned down a suspect in the Boston suburb of Watertown Friday night, the Boston Globe reported. Multiple shots were fired in the area, and police have told residents to stay inside and shelter in place.
Just an hour earlier, police announced that the 19-year-old suspected bomber had so far eluded capture after fleeing from police on foot early Friday morning.
Thousands of law enforcement officers conducted a nearly 24-hour door-to-door manhunt for Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who is believed to have planted two bombs at Monday's Boston Marathon that wounded more than 170 people and left three dead. Officials announced at 6:00 p.m. news conference that they had been unable to apprehend the suspect, despite combing through a 20-block area of the Boston suburb of Watertown and shutting down the city's entire public transportation system in an effort to prevent him from fleeing. They said they did not know if he has a car, or if he is still on foot.
Gov. Deval Patrick lifted his previous "shelter in place," or lockdown, order for the city of Boston and many surrounding areas of the city. But Patrick urged Bostonians to continue to be "vigilant" as the "very dangerous" armed suspect has not been apprehended.
"We cannot continue to lock down an entire city or an entire state," Massachusetts State Police Col. Timothy Alben told reporters. He added that he believes the suspect is still in the state, but would not elaborate.
An overnight police chase and shootout left Dzhokhar's —26-year-old brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev—dead and Dzhokhar on the lam.
Federal investigators had released photos and videos of the two men hours earlier, showing them in the vicinity of the marathon finish line before the twin explosions. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was seen placing a backpack on the ground minutes before the blast, investigators said.
One police officer was killed and another seriously wounded during the violent spree. The city of Boston and its surrounding areas ground to a standstill for hours as police went door to door searching for the suspect in the suburb of Watertown.
Police said they had uncovered several improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Watertown and in the brothers' home in Cambridge.
The suspect on the run is a student at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. The Tsarnaev family is originally from Chechnya, a volatile and once war-torn southern Russian republic. The family fled to Kyrgyzstan and eventually immigrated to the United States as refugees about 10 years ago.
Marathon bombing suspect Tsarnaev (FBI)
Tamerlan Tsarnaev studied at a local community college and was a Golden Gloves boxer. He also reportedly had a wife and young child.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was remembered by former classmates as bright and personable, posted links to pro-Chechnyan independence sites on his social media page, and listed his world view as "Islam." It's unclear if either the separatist politics of Chechnya or their religion had anything to do with the suspects' motivations.
Tsarnaev appeared to be posting to his Twitter account even after the marathon attacks, writing in his last post on Wednesday, "I'm a stress free kind of guy." His posts covered everything from cute photos of his cat to rap lyrics.
In an interview with The New York Times, the suspects' father said Tamerlan had been unable to become a U.S. citizen because he was arrested for hitting his girlfriend, and that he traveled to Russia last year to live for six months and renew his passport. Dzhokhar is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
The suspects' uncle, when told that one of his nephews was killed by the local CBS News station, replied that he deserved it.
“He deserved his. He absolutely deserved his,” Ruslan Tsarni said. “They do not deserve to live on this earth.”
Later, in an emotional press conference outside his home in Maryland, Tsarni said his nephews had brought shame upon his family, and called them "losers." He speculated that they were not "able to settle themselves" and were "angry at everyone who was able to." He said he did not believe they were motivated by radical politics in Chechnya or their Muslim religion.
"Dzhokhar, If you're alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness from the victims [and] the injured," he said. "He put a shame on our family. He put a shame on the entire Chechnyan ethnicity. Turn yourself in."
He added that he hadn't been in touch with the family for several years but would not say why.
"I'm ready to kneel in front of them and ask their forgiveness," Tsarni said of the victims of his nephews' crime. "I respect this country; I love this country ... this country that gives everybody chance to be treated like human being." Other family members, including an aunt and the brothers' father, said they did not believe the brothers could have planted bombs.
The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth announced shortly after 10:30
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