Katana VentraIP

Boston Marathon bombing

The Boston Marathon bombing, sometimes referred to as just simply the Boston bombing,[4] was a domestic terrorist attack that took place during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs that detonated near the finish line of the race 14 seconds and 210 yards (190 m) apart. Three people were killed and hundreds injured, including 17 who lost limbs.[1][5][6]

"Boston attack" redirects here. For the incident in 1770, see Boston Massacre.

Boston Marathon bombing

April 15, 2013 (2013-04-15)
2:49 p.m. (EDT)

6 total:

  • 3 from initial bombing
  • MIT Police Officer Sean Allen Collier on April 18
  • Tamerlan Tsarnaev on April 19 (Perpetrator)
  • Police Officer Dennis Simmonds in 2014

281

Revenge for American military action in Iraq and Afghanistan[2][3]

On April 18, 2013, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released images of two suspects in the bombing.[7][8][9] The two suspects were later identified as the Tsarnaev brothers. Later on the evening of April 18, the Tsarnaev brothers killed an MIT policeman (Sean Collier) and proceeded to commit a carjacking. They engaged in a shootout with police in nearby Watertown during which two officers were severely injured (one of the injured officers, Dennis Simmonds, died a year later). Tamerlan was shot several times, and his brother Dzhokhar ran him over while escaping in the stolen car. Tamerlan died soon thereafter.


An unprecedented manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ensued, with thousands of law enforcement officers searching a 20-block area of Watertown.[10] Residents of Watertown and surrounding communities were asked to stay indoors, and the transportation system and most businesses and public places closed.[11][12] After a Watertown resident discovered Dzhokhar hiding in a boat in his backyard,[13] Tsarnaev was shot and wounded by police before being taken into custody on the evening of April 19.[14][15]


During questioning, Dzhokhar said that he and his brother were motivated by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that they were self-radicalized and unconnected to any outside terrorist groups, and that he was following his brother's lead. He said they learned to build explosive devices from the online magazine of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.[16] He also said they had intended to travel to New York City to bomb Times Square. He was convicted of 30 charges, including use of a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property resulting in death.[17][18][19]


Two months later, he was sentenced to death,[20] but the sentence was vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.[21] A writ of certiorari was granted by the Supreme Court of the United States, which considered the questions of whether the lower court erred in vacating the death sentence. After hearing arguments as United States v. Tsarnaev, the Court upheld the death penalty, reversing the First Circuit Court's decision.[22][23]

Tsarnaev brothers shootings and manhunt

Shooting: Corner of Vassar Street and Main Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts[62]
Firefight and manhunt: Watertown, Massachusetts

Shooting: April 18, 2013, 10:25 p.m.
Firefight and manhunt: April 19, 2013, 12:30 a.m.8:42 p.m.

Shooting, vehicle ramming, lone wolf terrorism[63]

3 (including Tamerlan Tsarnaev and a victim who died in 2014[64])

16 (via gunfire)

  • Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (sentenced to death)
  • Tamerlan Tsarnaev (deceased)

Firearms theft (murder of MIT officer)
Evading arrest (Watertown shootout)

Legal proceedings[edit]

Interrogation[edit]

United States Senators Kelly Ayotte, Saxby Chambliss, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain, and Representative Peter T. King suggested that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a U.S. citizen, should be tried as an unlawful enemy combatant rather than as a criminal, potentially preventing him from obtaining legal counsel.[138][139] Others said that doing so would be illegal, including prominent American legal scholar and lawyer Alan Dershowitz, and would jeopardize the prosecution.[140][141] The government decided to try Dzhokhar in the federal criminal court system and not as an enemy combatant.[142]


Dzhokhar was questioned for 16 hours by investigators but stopped communicating with them on the night of April 22 after Judge Marianne Bowler read him a Miranda warning.[78][143] Dzhokhar had not previously been given a Miranda warning, as federal law enforcement officials invoked the warning's public safety exception.[144] This raised doubts whether his statements during this investigation would be admissible as evidence and led to a debate surrounding Miranda rights.[145][146][147]

Motives and backgrounds of the Tsarnaev brothers[edit]

Motives[edit]

According to FBI interrogators, Dzhokhar and his brother were motivated by extremist beliefs but "were not connected to any known terrorist groups", instead learning to build explosive weapons from an online magazine published by al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen.[16] They further alleged that "Dzhokhar and his brother considered suicide attacks and striking the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular on the Fourth of July";[168] but ultimately decided to use remotely-activated pressure cooker bombs and other IEDs. Fox News reported that the brothers "chose the prestigious race as a 'target of opportunity' ... [after] the building of the bombs came together more quickly than expected".[169][170]


Dzhokhar said that he and his brother wanted to defend Islam from the U.S., accusing the U.S. of conducting the Iraq War and War in Afghanistan against Muslims.[142][171][172] A CBS report revealed that Dzhokhar had scrawled a note with a marker on the interior wall of the boat where he was hiding; the note stated that the bombings were "retribution for U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq", and called the Boston victims "collateral damage", "in the same way innocent victims have been collateral damage in U.S. wars around the world".[3] Photographs of the note were later used in the trial.[173][174]


Some political science and public policy writers theorize that the primary motives might have been sympathy towards the political aspirations in the Caucasus region and Tamerlan's inability to become fully integrated into American society.[175] According to the Los Angeles Times, a law enforcement official said that Dzhokhar "did not seem as bothered about America's role in the Muslim world" as his brother Tamerlan had been.[59] Dzhokhar identified Tamerlan as the "driving force" behind the bombing, and said that his brother had only recently recruited him to help.[142][176]


Some journalists and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's defense attorney have suggested that the FBI may have recruited or attempted to recruit Tamerlan Tsarnaev as an informant.[177][178][179][180]

Other arrests, detentions, and prosecutions[edit]

People detained and released[edit]

On April 15, several people who were near the scene of the blast were taken into custody and questioned about the bombing, including a Saudi man whom police stopped as he was walking away from the explosion; they detained him when some of his responses made them uncomfortable.[222][223][224][225] Law enforcement searched his residence in a Boston suburb, and the man was found to have no connection to the attack. An unnamed U.S. official said, "he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time".[226][227][228]


On the night of April 18, two men who were riding in a taxi in the vicinity of the shootout were arrested and released shortly thereafter when police determined that they were not involved in the Marathon attacks.[229] Another man was arrested several blocks from the site of the shootout and was forced to strip naked by police who feared that he might have concealed explosives. He was released that evening after a brief investigation determined that he was an innocent bystander.[230][231]

a triple homicide to which Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been connected

2011 Waltham triple murder

a 1996 terrorist attack which also targeted a public event

Centennial Olympic Park bombing

List of Islamist terrorist attacks

FBI (October 21, 2013). . FBI.gov. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"Updates on Investigation into Multiple Explosions in Boston"

Volpp, Leti (2014), , Fordham Law Review, 82 – via Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository

"The Boston Bombers"