Surviving Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (19) sent a chill down the spine of New Yorkers this week when he came close to admitting to interrogators that he and his brother Tamerlan, killed in a gunfight with police, planned bomb attacks in NYC’s Times Square after hitting the Boston Marathon.
Though Dzhokhar went silent after he was read his Miranda rights, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who was briefed by federal officials, said at a news conference that the younger Tsarnaev had hinted at plans to use a pressure-cooker bomb similar to the one detonated in Boston, along with five pipe bombs in New York.
Mr. Kelly said, “They discussed this while driving around in a Mercedes SUV that they hijacked after they shot and killed the officer at MIT... That plan, however, fell apart when they realised that the vehicle they hijacked was low on gas and ordered the driver to stop at a nearby gas station.”
However, some reports said no clear indication was received of New York City being targeted but suggested Dzhokhar had said they were planning to head to New York City after the attack in order “to party”. Mr. Kelly also admitted that the information suggested that the Tsarnaevs planned to come to a party in New York on Thursday night “to celebrate the attacks”, which killed three and injured nearly 180.
The mention of NYC in the suspects’ plans came even as officials confirmed Dzhokhar had been moved from a civilian hospital to a federal medical detention centre in central Massachusetts.
U.S. Marshals said on Friday that Dzhokhar had been shifted from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre overnight and taken to the Federal Medical Centre Devens nearly 64 km west of Boston, which specialises in treating federal detainees requiring “long-term medical or mental health care”.
After the violent shootout following the bombing on April 15, Dzhokhar was said to be recovering from a gunshot wound to the throat and other injuries suffered during his attempted getaway. He was discovered in a boat near a house located in the Watertown suburb of Boston.
