UPDATE: Ruslan Tsarni, the instantly famous uncle of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers, spoke at a sort of impromptu press conference, and advised his surviving nephew to turn himself in:
Good god, the amount of armor moving by the MSNBC camera throughout their entire shot. twitter.com/BuzzFeedAndrew…
— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) April 19, 2013
It has been a surreal, chaotic night and morning. After yesterday’s release of photos of the two suspected bombers things developed rapidly. One of the two suspects is dead and the FBI are currently running an enormous manhunt for the other.
The two suspects are reported to be brothers. The oldest is 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in the shootout. The younger brother is 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who is still at large. Dzhokhar was living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The brothers may possibly have ties to Chechnya.
It all started last night at around 10 p.m. when a 7/11 near the Cambridge campus of MIT was held up. An MIT police officer was shot and killed while responding to the robbery. This was followed by “reports of an armed carjacking by two males in the area of Third Street in Cambridge. The victim was carjacked at gunpoint by two males and was kept in the car with the suspects for approximately a half hour. The victim was released at a gas station on Memorial Drive in Cambridge. He was not injured.” This was followed by a pursuit of the stolen car during which the suspects threw explosives in the direction of officers and exchanged gunfire. A second officer was seriously injured.
Slate reports that this morning police are searching the town of Watertown for the younger brother, but “are now asking all Boston-area residents to stay inside, effectively leaving the entire city in lockdown. City officials have suspended all transit services while the manhunt continues.”
For a timeline of events, see this from AP. For some background on Chechnya, see this from TNR. For a slideshow of pictures from the manhunt, see this from the New Yorker.
