WATERTOWN, Mass. – Americans cheered Friday as a dragnet seemingly lifted from the script of a Hollywood action movie ended with the capture of one of two Russian-born Chechen brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings after the beloved, bustling city was brought to a standstill for the day.
The suspect, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was taken into police custody after hiding in a boat in a residential backyard in suburban Watertown, the epicentre of a massive manhunt all day.
Police announced via Twitter that Tsarnaev was in custody. His brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan, was killed Friday in a furious attempt to escape police.
Police say the 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings exchanged gunfire with law enforcement for an hour while holed up in a boat before being captured.
He was taken away on a stretcher and was hospitalized in serious condition with unspecified injuries, police said.
Exclusive video from NBC affiliate WHDH of shots fired on a street in Watertown, Mass. where the second suspect was cornered by police.
U.S. President Barack Obama praised Bostonians in remarks at the White House.
“Tonight, our nation is in debt to the people of Boston and to the people of Massachusetts,” he said.
He added “there are still many unanswered questions” about the bombing, and he’s directed the FBI and other agencies to get those answers.
“We will determine what happened,” he said while also cautioning Americans not to “rush to judgment.”
Boston Mayor Tom Menino tweeted “We got him,” along with a photo of himself talking to the police commissioner.
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Police said three other people were taken into custody for questioning at an off-campus housing complex at the University of the Massachusetts at Dartmouth where the younger man may have lived.
Up until the younger man’s capture, it was looking like a grim day for police. As night fell, they announced that they were scaling back the hunt and lifting the stay-indoors order across Boston and some of its suburbs because they had come up empty-handed.
But then a break came in a Watertown neighbourhood when a homeowner saw blood on his boat, pulled back the tarp and saw the bloody suspect inside, police said.
Residents had remained indoors for most of the day, while thousands of officers with rifles and armoured vehicles swarmed the streets in and around Boston on Friday, hunting for a 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombing after his older brother was killed in a furious getaway attempt overnight.
During the long night of violence, the brothers killed an MIT police officer, severely wounded another lawman and hurled explosives at police in a car chase and gun battle.
The suspects were identified by law enforcement officials and family members as Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, brothers who had lived in Dagestan, which neighbours Chechnya in southern Russia. They had been in the U.S. for about a decade, an uncle said, and were believed to be living in Cambridge, Mass.
Meanwhile, INTERPOL issued a global security alert in connection with Boston marathon bombings at the request of US law enforcement authorities.
The “Orange Notice” details the features of the improvised explosive devices used in the bombings to help law enforcement across its 190 member countries detect any similarly configured bombs.
The alleged wife of the deceased suspected bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev is reported to be Katherine Russell.
On Friday evening, the family released a letter to reporters who were standing outside of her home in North Kingstown.
The note reads:
Our daughter has lost her husband today, the father of her child.
We cannot begin to comprehend how this horrible tragedy occurred. In the aftermath of the Patriot’s Day horror, we know that we never really knew Tamerlane Tsarnaev.
Our hearts are sickened by the knowledge of the horror he has inflicted.
Please respect our family’s privacy in this difficult time.
Watch video of Maret Tsarnaev, aunt of the two bombing suspects, who doesn’t believe her nephews could be involved because she has not seen any evidence to support the accusations:
READ MORE: Boston Marathon bombings: What is known so far
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a 26-year-old who had been known to the FBI as Suspect No. 1 and was seen in surveillance footage of the marathon in a black baseball cap, was killed overnight, officials said. His younger brother, who had been dubbed Suspect No. 2 and was seen wearing a white, backward baseball cap in the images from Monday’s deadly bombing – escaped and was on the run.
READ MORE: Who are Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev?
Their uncle in Maryland, Ruslan Tsarni, pleaded on live television: “Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness.”
Video: Uncle of Boston Marathon bombings suspects devastated
Authorities in Boston suspended all mass transit and warned close to 1 million people in the entire city and some of its suburbs to stay indoors as the hunt for Suspect No. 2 went on. Businesses were asked not to open. People waiting at bus and subway stops were told to go home.
Shortly after 3 p.m. ET, Boston Police alerted the community that the Bruins game, Red Sox game and Big Apple Circus performance scheduled for Friday night had been postponed.
READ MORE: Travel to and from Boston is shut down with the exception of Logan airport
From Watertown to Cambridge, police SWAT teams, sharpshooters and FBI agents surrounded various buildings as police helicopters buzzed overhead and armoured vehicles rumbled through the streets. Authorities also searched trains.
“We believe this man to be a terrorist,” said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis. “We believe this to be a man who’s come here to kill people.”
The endgame – at least for Suspect No. 1 – came just hours after the FBI released photos and video of the two young men at the finish line and appealed to the public for help in identifying and capturing them.
State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said police realized they were dealing with the bombing suspects based on what the two men told a carjacking victim during their getaway attempt overnight.
READ MORE: More details about Dzhokar Tsarnaev emerge online
Authorities gave no details on how Dzhokhar Tsarnaev escaped, but said he may have been in a Honda Civic that was found later in the morning in Boston.
Massachusetts State Police issued a correction later Friday after their initial alert stated that they were looking for a Honda CRV.
Police later tweeted that they were now searching for a green 1999 Honda Sedan with the licence plate 116-GC7.
Police sent out another tweet Friday afternoon indicated they were no longer seeking the ’99 Honda Civic.
The bombings on Monday killed three people and wounded more than 180 others, tearing off limbs in a spray of shrapnel and instantly raising the spectre of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
READ MORE: Boston bombing motive unclear says expert
Authorities have shed no light on the motive for the attack and have said it is unclear whether it was the work of domestic or international terrorists or someone else entirely with an unknown agenda.
Uncle urges suspect to turn himself in
The men’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., told The Associated Press that the brothers travelled here together from the Russian region near Chechnya.
In front of a throng of reporters outside of his home in Montgomery Village, Md. Tsarni said his nephews brought shame to the family and the entire Chechnyan ethnicity.
“Yes, we’re ashamed. They’re the children of my brother,” Tsarni told media.
“Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness,” he said.
Video: Uncle of suspects ashamed by nephew’s actions
Aunt of Boston bombings’ suspects not convinced they were involved
The Toronto aunt of the two suspects in the deadly Boston Marathon bombings says she does not believe her nephews were behind the attacks.
Maret Tsarnaeva says she has yet to see evidence that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his younger brother Dzhokhar, 19, – both from a Russian region near Chechnya – were involved in the bombings.
“How could this do this, for what? For the sake of what? What beliefs? What prompted them to this?” Tsarnaev said.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev had studied accounting as a part-time student at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston for three semesters from 2006 to 2008, the school said. U.S. government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk about an investigation in progress, said that he Tsarnaev travelled to Russia last year and returned to the U.S. six months later.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was registered as a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and lived in a dormitory there, according to other students. Students there said he was on campus this week after the bombings. The university closed down along with colleges around the Boston area as the search unfolded.
Their father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from the Russian city of Makhachkala that his younger son, Dzhokhar, is “a true angel.” He said his son was studying medicine.
READ MORE: Father of Boston blasts’ suspects says his son is ‘a true angel’
He said his son was studying medicine. “He is such an intelligent boy. We expected him to come on holidays here,” the father said.
The city of Cambridge announced two years ago that it had awarded a $2,500 scholarship to Dzhokar Tsarnaev, who was listed as a senior at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, a highly regarded public school whose alumni include Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and NBA star Patrick Ewing.
The images released by the FBI depict the two young men walking one behind the other near the marathon’s finish line. Richard DesLauriers, FBI agent in charge in Boston, said Suspect No. 2 in the white hat was seen setting down a bag at the site of the second of two deadly explosions.
READ MORE: FBI releases photos of Boston Marathon bombing suspects
Exactly how the long night of crime began is unclear. Police said they had conflicting reports on whether the brothers robbed a 7-Eleven in Cambridge, near the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on Thursday night.
They then shot to death an MIT police officer, 26-year-old Sean Collier, while he was responding to a report of a disturbance, investigators said.
Boston Police expressed their condolences on Twitter.
From there, authorities said, the two men carjacked a man in a Mercedes-Benz, keeping him with them in the car for half an hour before releasing him at a gas station in Cambridge. The man was not injured.
Massachusetts State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said police figured out the carjackers were the marathon bombing suspects in part because of what they said to the carjacking victim. Procopio did not elaborate.
The search for the vehicle led to a chase that ended in Watertown, where authorities said the suspects threw explosive devices from the car and exchanged gunfire with police. A transit police officer was severely wounded, authorities said.
Video: Boston virtually shutdown as intensive manhunt continues. Jay Gray reports.
Doctors at a Boston hospital where Tamerlan Tsarnaev died said they treated a man with a possible blast injury and multiple gunshot wounds.
Watertown resident Kayla Dipaolo, 25, was waiting for a bus that was to evacuate her and others from their neighbourhood.
She said she was woken up overnight by gunfire and a large explosion that sounded “like it was right next to my head … and shook the whole house.” She was looking at the front door when a bullet came through the side paneling. SWAT team officers were running all over her yard, she said.
Timeline of the search for Boston bombing suspects
“It was very scary,” she said. “There are two bullet holes in the side of my house and by the front door there is another.”
Christine Yajko said she heard two loud explosions and gunfire. She said a police officer later knocked on her door and told her there was an undetonated improvised explosive device in the street and warned her to stay away from the windows.
“It was on the street, right near our kitchen window,” she said.
As officers fanned out across the Boston area, Bryce Acosta came out of his Cambridge home with his hands up.
“I had like 30 FBI guys come storm my house with assault rifles,” he said. They yelled, “Is anybody in there?” and began searching his house and an adjacent shed, leaving after about 10 minutes.
BELOW: An interactive timeline of the Boston Marathon investigation
A history of violent unrest in the Caucasus region
Insurgents from Chechnya and neighbouring restive provinces in the Caucasus have been involved in terror attacks in Moscow and other places in Russia.
In 2002, a group of Chechen militants took 800 people hostage in Moscow and held them for two days before special forces stormed the building, killing all 41 captors. Also killed were 129 hostages, mostly from the effects of the gas Russian forces used to subdue the attackers.
Chechen insurgents also launched a 2004 raid in the southern Russian town of Beslan and took hundreds of hostages. The siege ended in a bloodbath two days later, with more than 330 people, about half of them children, killed.
Sullivan and Associated Press writer Stephen Braun reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Pat Eaton-Robb in Boston and Jeff Donn in Cambridge, Mass., contributed to this report.
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