After an officer shooting late Thursday night, Boston Police announced on Twitter and Facebook that one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings was apprehended and has died. The second suspect — wearing a white hat in video released Thursday — is reportedly at large, and police have released a new photo of him.
At a press conference, authorities called the suspect “armed and dangerous” and advised people in Watertown, Mass., to stay in their homes and call 911 about anything suspicious while the manhunt is underway. They have also asked people in several neighboring towns to stay indoors, including Newton, Waltham, Belmont and Cambridge, as well as two Boston neighborhoods, Allston and Brighton.
“There is a massive manhunt underway,” Mass Gov. Deval Patrick said at a brief press conference in Watertown. “Suspect 1 is dead, suspect 2 is on the run.” He said to help the manhunt, they’ve suspended all service on the MBTA — until they think it’s safe, and are asking people in “all of Boston” to stay at home with doors locked and not to open unless its a police officer.
“This is a serious situation,” he said. “Weve got every asset that we can possibly muster on the ground right now…but we are going to need the public to help us help them stay safe.”
Boston police commissioner Ed Davis said that “within the last half hour they got information” that led them to expand the shelter in place recommendation to the entire city.
“There’s a lot of information coming in,” he said, adding that the task force is working closely with federal officials n Washington. “We are examining all data bases, all potential leads and there are officers moving around the city right now”
He called for patience from a jittery public, saying, “Work with us, if you see anything suspicious, let us know. We are trying to make this safe as quickly as possible but this is an ongoing situation.”
Col. Timothy Alban of the Massachusetts State Police, thanked the press for getting the message out to stay at home
“Our number one priority right now is with these neighborhoods here in Watertown and making them safe and finding this individual. That’s what we’re committed to. We need more time, we’re making significant progress up there, but it may take hours to do this. so please bear with us.”
Boston police have announced that all taxi service in the city has been suspended, “pending further notice”
An MBTA officer was seriously wounded and is in surgery and an MIT security officer was killed
He called the situation “very rapidly developing.”and ssid he’d been briefed through the night.
All public transportation in and out of Boston through MBTA has been shut down, police said. Local businesses in Watertown were asked to remain closed.
Police confirmed that they believe the two suspects are responsible for the Marathon bombings and for the death of an MIT police officer killed Thursday night.
One resident of Laurel Street said police and the suspects traded as many as 80 gunshots. The suspects, he said, were firing handguns. Then one threw an explosive device toward the officers, the resident said on MSNBC. The device fell short, but one of the suspects ran toward the officers and was shot, he said. The second suspect then jumped into the SUV and escaped.
MIT and Harvard University have cancelled classes for Friday. Emerson College, where the president had gone to residence halls after the blast to comfort students and cancelled classes the day after the explosion, told students Friday via Twitter that the school would be closed “until further notice while the search for the bomber continues.”
The White House says the President was briefed overnight by Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco about developments in the investigation as well as the events in Boston and Watertown.
Federal officials on Thursday unveiled photographs of the two people they considered suspects in connection with Monday’s bombing at the Boston Marathon and asked the public for help identifying them.
“Somebody out there knows these individuals as friends, neighbors, co-workers or family members,” Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston field office, said during an eight-minute briefing at 5:20 p.m. “Though it may be difficult, the nation is counting on those with information to come forward and provide it to us.”
The 11 photos on the FBI’s website show two young-looking men – “Suspect One” wearing a dark hat, “Suspect Two” wearing a white hat. They appear to be associated. They strolled through the marathon crowds near the finish line, and Suspect Two sets down a backpack at the site of the second of two explosions, DesLauriers said.
He said the only photos that should be relied on were the ones the FBI released Thursday at its news briefing at the Sheraton Boston Hotel and on the bureau’s website, fbi.gov.
More than 1,000 federal, state and local law enforcement officials have taken part in the massive investigation and manhunt. The FBI Boston’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is coordinating the 30 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
Together, they have combed through more than 3,000 images. Asked about whether the suspects had gone through the FBI’s facial recognition system, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jason Pack said the government was using “every available technology the government has.”
“It’s a long, tedious process, but they’re doing it as fast as they can,” he said.
Even so, DesLauriers stressed that the task force needed the public’s help.
“No bit of information, no matter how small or seemingly inconsequential, is too small for us to see,” he said. “Each piece moves us forward toward justice.”
He added, “As I said two days ago, we are working methodically and with a sense of urgency to identify those responsible for the bombings.”
Investigators continued working Thursday, picking through videotape and explosive fragments with an expertise honed on foreign wars and terrorist attacks, and sifting through thousands of tips.
The briefing came after a back-and-forth day Wednesday when some media outlets wrongly reported that there had been an arrest in the bombings, and were forced to retract those reports. A scheduled briefing for Wednesday afternoon never materialized.
Thursday’s press conference took place in a crowded hotel ballroom not far from the site of the bombings in Boston’s Copley Square.
The briefing came several hours after President Barack Obama attended an interfaith service in Boston for the bombing victims and then visited many of them in the hospitals where they’re being treated.
The two bombs went off in short succession around 2:50 p.m. Monday near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The blasts killed three people, including 8-year-old Martin Richard, and wounded nearly 200. Physicians have performed multiple amputations on victims, whose ages range from as young as 2 to as old as 78.
The dual blasts sent fragments of glass, plastic, metal and other materials rocketing into victims’ bodies, physicians said, with some evidence that the shrapnel included nails and BB-like pellets that might have been deliberately placed inside the weapons to boost their lethality.
At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, officials said Thursday afternoon that they’d treated a total of 35 patients related to Monday’s explosions. Ten patients remain in the hospital, with three listed in critical condition.
There was good news on the recovery front. Boston Children’s Hospital sent an injured 3-year-old home to his family. The Woolfenden family, who withheld the boy’s first name, released a statement thanking emergency responders, volunteers and runners “who selflessly rushed in to help” after the explosion.
Mark Seibel contributed to this report.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy