Boston marathon bombing second suspect caught alive

19-year-old Boston Bomber suspect caught by police at 6:00pm, 04-19-2013
Thousands of law enforcement officers conducted a nearly 24-hour door-to-door manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is suspected of helping his brother plant two bombs near the finish line at Monday’s Boston Marathon that wounded more than 170 people and left three dead.

Officials announced at 6:00 p.m. news conference that they had been unable to apprehend the suspect, despite combing through a 20-block area of the Boston suburb of Watertown and shutting down the city’s entire public transportation system in an effort to prevent him from fleeing. They said they did not know if he had a car, or if he was still on foot. The home where Tsarnaev was eventually discovered was outside the 20-block perimeter, and had not been searched.

Gov. Deval Patrick lifted his previous “shelter in place,” or lockdown, order for the city of Boston and many surrounding areas of the city at 6:00 p.m.. But Patrick urged Bostonians to continue to be “vigilant” as the “very dangerous” armed suspect has not been apprehended.

An overnight police chase and shootout left Dzhokhar’s 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev dead and Dzhokhar on the lam.

Federal investigators had released photos and videos of the two men hours earlier, showing them in the vicinity of the marathon finish line before the twin explosions. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was seen placing a backpack on the ground minutes before the blast, investigators said.

One MIT police officer was killed and another transit police officer seriously wounded during the violent spree. The city of Boston and its surrounding areas ground to a standstill for hours as police went door to door searching for the suspect in the suburb of Watertown.

Police said they had uncovered several improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Watertown and in the brothers’ home in Cambridge.

Tsarnaev is a student at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. The Tsarnaev family is originally from Chechnya, a volatile and once war-torn southern Russian republic. The family fled to Kyrgyzstan and eventually immigrated to the United States as refugees about 10 years ago.

Marathon bombing suspect Tsarnaev (FBI)

Authorities gave no indication of what they might believe the brothers’ motivations could have been in the crime.