This is interesting. The media is reporting that the FBI questioned the older brother a few years ago because of his Chechen background and they were trying to assess whether he had any terrorist ties. They came up with nothing. Also they claim he was questioned because of his radical Islamic beliefs. But apparently they said it was just routine and that they have to keep the streets of Boston safe, etc. He probably did this for no other reason than to say **** you to the FBI and to Americans for stereotyping or generalizing Islamic people. Or maybe he really did have some terrorist ties but they couldn't figure them out and he just strengthened them when he left the country for 6 months last year. Still, it's disturbing that he was on the FBI's radar and still managed to do this.
they bombed innocent civilians, some of whom were relatives of some of my friends, and yall feel sorry for them because they are "cute" and "young"? Yall need to stop thinking with the dick and think with the brain for a second, if it was you and someone close to you, and you were in the random area of the bombing (think of it this way, it could have been anyone), and you lost limbs, legs and arms, would you still feel bad for them while lying in the IV room of a hospital? Sometimes you guys say some idiotic things.
the city of Boston lost so much money because of this kid, all that money spent on police, and all the money lost since all businesses, including mine, were closed down for an entire kid. **** him, he probably gave my school a bad name and a black mark now,because now Im associated with a terrorist.
With that being said, I do think he was brainwashed and set up. He seemed like a chill kid, why the random personality switch? Something aint right with this story, we arent getting the whole picture. How did he miraculously run from cops when they had his brother and him surrounded? Wouldn't the cops have just chased him down? It just doesnt make any sense.
they bombed innocent civilians, some of whom were relatives of some of my friends, and yall feel sorry for them because they are "cute" and "young"? Yall need to stop thinking with the dick and think with the brain for a second, if it was you and someone close to you, and you were in the random area of the bombing (think of it this way, it could have been anyone), and you lost limbs, legs and arms, would you still feel bad for them while lying in the IV room of a hospital? Sometimes you guys say some idiotic things.
the city of Boston lost so much money because of this kid, all that money spent on police, and all the money lost since all businesses, including mine, were closed down for an entire kid. **** him, he probably gave my school a bad name and a black mark now,because now Im associated with a terrorist.
Agree 100%. There's no reason to feel sorry for either of them. They killed and dismembered many innocent people and sent an entire city on a wild goose chase to catch them. Whether their views were corrupted by other people has nothing to do with it imo and certainly isn't any reason to feel sorry for them. None of y'all would be pitying the kid if you'd lost friends in the marathon bombings.
they bombed innocent civilians, some of whom were relatives of some of my friends, and yall feel sorry for them because they are "cute" and "young"? Yall need to stop thinking with the dick and think with the brain for a second, if it was you and someone close to you, and you were in the random area of the bombing (think of it this way, it could have been anyone), and you lost limbs, legs and arms, would you still feel bad for them while lying in the IV room of a hospital? Sometimes you guys say some idiotic things.
the city of Boston lost so much money because of this kid, all that money spent on police, and all the money lost since all businesses, including mine, were closed down for an entire kid. **** him, he probably gave my school a bad name and a black mark now,because now Im associated with a terrorist.
With that being said, I do think he was brainwashed and set up. He seemed like a chill kid, why the random personality switch? Something aint right with this story, we arent getting the whole picture. How did he miraculously run from cops when they had his brother and him surrounded? Wouldn't the cops have just chased him down? It just doesnt make any sense.
Youth is not an excuse. They didn't make a naive decision or act out in the heat of a moment. They calculated and they plotted, they knew exactly what they were doing and what would be the result. They wanted to kill people. Their goal was to blow innocent people to bits who were simply watching some running. They didn't target the government, protestors, religion, military or corporate America. It wasn't even a building. Just normal people watching other normal people do something normal.
He/they may have been brainwashed or pressured, but there is ALWAYS a choice.
Relatives of Marathon bombing suspects worried that older brother was corrupting ‘sweet’ younger sibling
A relative of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects said he repeatedly warned the 19-year-old fugitive Dzhokhar Tsarnaev about the bad influence of his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed overnight in a shootout with police.
A picture has begun to emerge of 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev as an aggressive, possibly radicalized immigrant who may have ensnared his younger brother Dzhokhar -- described almost universally as a smart and sweet kid -- into an act of terror that killed three people and injured more than at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday.
“I used to warn Dzhokhar that Tamerlan was up to no good,” Zaur Tsarnaev, who identified himself as a 26-year-old cousin, said in a phone interview on Friday from Makhachkala. “[Tamerlan] was always getting into trouble. He was never happy, never cheering, never smiling. He used to strike his girlfriend. He hurt her a few times. He was not a nice man. I don’t like to speak about him. He caused problems for my family.”
Zaur Tsarnaev said he most recently expressed his concerns about Tamerlan -- the alleged bomber pictured in a dark hat in FBI videos released Thursday -- to Dzhokhar when Dzhokar visited last summer. He added that Dzhokhar went to mosque sometimes but he was “never an extremist.”
“Dzhokhar is a sweet boy, innocent. He was always smiling, friendly and happy,” Zaur Tsarnaev said. “I don’t know how he is involved in this.”
A YouTube account with Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s name includes a playlist that features a video dedicated to the prophecy of the Black Banners of Khurasan, which is apparently embraced by Islamic extremists, including Al Qaeda. It could not be confirmed whether the user is the same person as the dead bombing suspect.
Dzhokar and Tamarlan Tsarnaev came from southern Russia, near war-torn Chechnya, more than five years ago, and assimilated through school and sports into the Greater Boston community and culture.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspect seen in FBI photos in a white cap, is a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, the school confirmed. He was an all-star wrestler and a member of the class of 2011 at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, and won a Cambridge City Scholarship that year. He was on the run Friday morning and the target of an unprecedented manhunt in Greater Boston.
But within the brothers’ ordinariness, there were also subtle signs of alienation.
“I don’t have a single American friend,” Tamerlan said in a photo essay about his love of boxing. “I don’t understand them.”
But Tsarnaev hadn’t been to the Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts center in years, instead going to another nearby boxing gym. Until this month. Allan, who is currently traveling in Thailand, got an e-mail within the past week saying Tsarnaev showed up at the gym acting rude and disrespectful, using other people’s equipment, walking on the mats with his shoes.
“It was a clear indication that something was up,” Allan said, noting that Tsarnaev hadn’t even been to his gym before the incident in years. “He was becoming a complete [expletive].
“It was completely out of place of place for him,” said Allan, who was also contacted by the FBI about Tamerlan.
People who knew the suspects struggled today morning to reconcile the young men they knew, who lived on Norfolk Street in Cambridge, with the acts of terrorism they are accused of committing.
“He was normal,” said Lulu Emmons, who went to Rindge & Latin, the city’s public high school, with Dzhokhar.
“He kind of fit in with everyone. Not really close with anyone, but he was friendly.
“I am just a little shocked. I sat next to this guy. I joked with him. I laughed with him. I had class with him. It is a little crazy,” she said.
Former teacher and school photographer at Rindge, Larry Aaronson, said he knew Dzhokhar.
“If someone were to ask me what the kid was like, I would say he had a heart of gold,” he said. “He was as gracious as possible.”
Aaronson knew Dzhokhar came from near a war zone and they had conversations about this. “All of this is just freaking me out.”
Pamala Rolon, a senior at UMass Dartmouth and a resident assistant at the Pine Dale dorms on campus, said she knew Dzhokhar for the past year and finds it incredible that he could have played any role in the bombs at the Boston marathon.
“He studied. He hung out with me and my friends,” she said in a telephone interview Friday. “I’m in shock.”Rolon, 22, said the 300 or so students at the dorm were evacuated this morning by school authorities as the campus was shut down.
Rolon said when she returned from class Thursday afternoon, she and her friends watched the television news broadcast showing the images of the suspects, including one that she did think looked faintly like the student she knew on campus.
“We made a joke like – that could be Dzhokhar,” she said. “But then we thought it just couldn’t be him. Dzhokhar? Never.”
Rolon said the 19-year-old studied marine biology, and was quite studious. He was not seen on campus over the past two weeks, though she didn’t think much about it because everyone was busy with tests and studying, she said.
Rolon said the finds it impossible to believe he was involved in any zealous religious or political cause, or would turn to violence.
“I think he’s Muslim, but not so religious,” she said. “He’s a normal city kid. He never said anything about Russia versus the United States.”
Peter Payack, the assistant wrestling coach at Cambridge Rindge and Latin, said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrestled on the team for three years and was captain for two years and a Greater Boston League all-star. Though he graduated from Rindge, he came back to wrestle with the team in February, he said.
“He was a dedicated kid, and all the kids loved him,” Payack said. “We only name captains who are good, but who also gain respect from his fellow wrestlers. He had to be a leader, and he had all those qualities. He was one of my guys.”
Everybody loved him,” Payack said. “He wasn’t a loner, the complete opposite. … He seemed like one of the most well-adjusted kids on the team. He seemed like he didn’t have any problems. He did his work, came out and became a captain.”
He never talked about being a Muslim. We’re in Cambridge. We have a completely diverse team. So nobody talked about religion,” Payack said. “He was just one of us.”
“We never saw his mother or father and never saw his brother,” Payack said. “He just came back to wrestle with us in February. I mean, he said, he went to UMass and he was studying some sort of engineering and he came back and wrestled, and he was joking with everyone.
“Never in a million years did [we] expect anything like this,” Payack said. “He never talked about violence or anything. Some of the kids say, ‘I’m going to beat you up or something like that.’ He just did his work and was a good student.”
Payack, who has run the Boston Marathon 24 times and often wears his blue-and-yellow Marathon jacket, said he was particularly saddened that Dzhokar would target the race.
“It was like a bomb going off in my heart this morning because he’s one of our wrestlers. I said ‘That guy looks like my guy.’ ”
Ashraful Rahman, a Rindge senior and friend of Dzhokhar, described the alleged bomber as “just a normal guy, very chillaxed, and very laid back.”
He and Dzhokhar wrestled on the Rindge team together, hung out together at Dana Park in Cambridge and attended the same mosque, the Islamic Society of Boston, in Cambridge.
“We just chilled out man, just average teenagers,” Rahman said. “He never stated that he was against the government or for anarchy or anything.”
He seemed pretty nice, pretty normal person; he was always smiling,” Chisholm said. “Everything is pretty shocking.”
Tamerlan has a domestic violence charge which was dismissed following a jury trial in 2010, according to records and was cited by state polcie for obstruction of a motor vehicle in 2008. That case was dismissed after he paid court costs.
The VKontakte page says that Dzhokhar studied at School No. 1 from 1999 to 2001 in Makhachkala. According to the profile, Tsarnayev is a member of the group “Everything About the Chechen Republic.”
Any explanations for this backpack deal? Apparently the backpack with the bomb was black but the brothers had grey and white ones. I'm not for a second buying into this conspiracy crap but it raises a red flag.
Someone here identified the guy on the left as Gaga_boy or something like that, but I just can't remember exactly... Anyway, it's not HIM! If anybody knows who the guy is, please let us know!
I am going to hope that this is everyone still being on edge and freaking out over every little thing but:
Tim Buckland @BucklandTim 3m
Another report of a suspicious package found in Boston today. This time on Newbury Street. Bomb squad has been requested.
Apparently military police are down there right now directing traffic away from the scene.
Despite my views on his undoubtedly good looks I can't at people feeling sorry for him for being apparently "brainwashed". I said it earlier in this thread and I'ma say it again: 19 is more than old enough for you to take full responsibility for your own actions. 19 is old enough to know that attempting to blow up hundreds of INNOCENT people, with (most likely) plans to do it again, then shooting up MIT, killing a police officer, jacking a car and holding someone hostage, then fleeing from the police and inciting a national crisis is probably not the best idea. Like... how impressionable and stupid do you have to be to let anyone fool you into thinking this is okay?
His brother may have been a bad influence on him (judging from family and friends' quotes), but this kid made the decision to go along with all of this on his own and he should be held responsible for it.
That said, I do agree that there seems to be a lot more to this story than what's been released to the public. I'd love to know his and his brother's real motives behind this. I also find it strange that one little boy was able to evade the FBI and BPD for a full day while NO ONE in Boston was out and all public transportation was stopped. But let's not start feeling sympathy for a terrorist just because he's young and hot.
It's not like he really evaded them all day while he was running. He was probably hiding in that boat all night and not moving because he had nowhere to go. The cops spent all day going door to door searching houses and yards but they hadn't gotten down that far yet to where he was. So.. it's not like it was any kind of genius stroke on his part.. he just had a decent hiding spot. He would have been found eventually.
You can't see the full extent of it as I got the picture late as they were leaving but I just took this now. Police officers just lined the highway for the entire 15 miles from Boston to Wilmington as the slain MIT officer's body was taken back home. It's really classy and respectful but so sad.