Armed guards protected the hospital, where the wounded surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect was in serious condition Saturday and unable to be questioned to determine the motives behind the worst terrorist attack in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001.
The U.S. officials said a special interrogation team for high-value suspects was waiting to question 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose older brother and alleged accomplice was killed on Friday morning in a wild shootout in suburban Boston.
The team planned to question Tsarnaev without reading him his Miranda rights the statement read by police to suspects stating their right to remain silent and have an attorney. The capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev lifted days of anxiety for Boston and Americans everywhere, but little was known about the motivation of the ethnic Chechen brothers.
President Barack Obama vowed investigators would solve that mystery. “The families of those killed so senselessly deserve answers,” said Mr. Obama, who branded the suspects “terrorists.” Mr. Obama said the capture closed “an important chapter in this tragedy,” but he said there were many unanswered questions about the Boston bombings, including whether the two men had help from others.
“When a tragedy like this happens, with public safety at risk and the stakes so high, it’s important that we do this right,” he said. “That’s why we take care not to rush to judgment not about the motivations of these individuals, certainly not about entire groups of people.”
Late Friday, less than an hour after authorities said the search for the 19”-year-old college student had proved fruitless and lifted a day-long order that had kept Boston area residents in their homes, a man emerged from his Watertown home and noticed blood on the pleasure boat parked in his backyard. He lifted the tarp and found the wounded Tsarnaev, known the world over as Suspect No. 2. Boston police announced via Twitter that Tsarnaev was in custody. They later wrote — “Captured” The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody.”
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s capture touched off raucous celebrations in and around Boston, with chants of “USA, USA.” , after four tense days since twin explosions ripped through the marathon’s crowd at the finish line on Monday, killing three people and wounding more than 180.
Dzhokhar and his brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, were identified by authorities and relatives as ethnic Chechens from southern Russia who had been in the U.S. for about a decade and were believed to be living in Cambridge, just outside Boston. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died early in the day of gunshot wounds and a possible blast injury. He was run over by his younger brother in a car as he lay wounded, according to investigators.
