Friday, April 19, 2013

Boston Bombing Suspects in Firefight with Police

If you thought all the confusion and misidentifications were dramatic, things just got crazier. More bombs, lots of shots fired, suspect in custody and another on the run in Watertown all after killing an M.I.T. security officer. Once again things are confusing and unclear though we now have names: Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi. Incorrect info. Dzhokar and Tamarlan Tsarnaev are the correct names.

Somehow I don’t think they are Tea Party activists.

BREAKING 2nd NIGHT

6:00 PM CST: Shots fired in Watertown, families being evacuated from one street. 20-30 shots fired. Suspect is down.

He in a boat on a trailer in a back yard. Robot being brought in to search for explosives.

6:25 PM CST: From the scanner stream… He’s still moving in the back of the boat. Police are having trouble getting fields of fire cleared to avoid a blue on blue. Police dogs are being coordinated so only one will go after him if he runs.

6:56 PM CST: Two flashbang grenades have been used after seeing a possible small fire on the boat. No movement by the suspect in reaction. This is after he’d been seen sitting up more than once. A negotiator may be brought in. Tsarnaev is on his back not moving.

7:30 PM CST: Not much happening other than the suspect has been seen moving his arms and is covered in blood. State police chopper did illuminate with Midnight Sun spotlight, plus the police are irked that somehow the downlink video has shown up on the Net. Not sure if that really has happened or if it is the scanner audio being out there that is the problem.

It has been surreal following this via the streamed scanner. Time for me to head out, maybe this will be over by the time I come back home.

FINAL

Arrived to see friends play at a local American Legion to see the news go by on the TV that they captured Tsarnaev alive about a half hour after I last posted. I doubt they get much useful intel out of him since it was his brother that got the training. I am concerned that he didn’t get his Miranda rights and since he is a citizen, that’s flat out wrong. He’s not a foreign combatant and must be treated with the rights that are due to him, no matter how evil he is.

Previous postings after the fold.

UPDATED 11 AM CST: The real names have been revealed of the two brothers. Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev is the one still on the loose. His dead brother Tamarlan was 26. The motivation comes from being Chechnyan Islamists.

11:12 AM CST: Rumors of additional suspects/accomplices being searched for has hit the media.

In the meantime, police scanner streaming indicates something going on with a body and bomb disposal robots. Confusion continues.

A quote on a comment section at Hot Air points out an ugly truth about the situation amidst the usual static and idiocy that dominate comment threads on the Net:

Need any further evidence that the terrorists are winning and accomplishing their goal? Just watch the news coverage of Boston.

One man is on the loose. One man. A dangerous man? Sure. He’s obviously very violent and he knows how to build explosives. And he’s managed to kill several people and injure quite a few others with those explosives.

However, right now, at this moment, that one suspect has an entire metro area of 4 million people held hostage. The entire transportation infrastructure of Boston — taxis, trains, buses, planes — is completely shut down. The streets of Boston look like a ghost town. Businesses are closed. People are told to not, under any circumstances, leave their homes.

Police teams are moving through neighborhoods house-by-house with such overwhelming numbers that you’d think the entire city was under martial law. The news media is wall-to-wall, 24/7 coverage of this manhunt. Not to mention the fact that we’re not even discussing the constitutionality of all of this, because it is an emergency action.

If one man with some homemade bombs can cause this much terror and disrupt the lives of one of our great American cities to this degree, just imagine what Al Qaeda could do in a larger, coordinated attack distributed throughout several cities.

No, it’s time we face the fact that the terrorists have indeed won. They’ve achieved their goal. We live in terror and we cower in fear. And we’re willing to sacrifice anything, even our freedom of movement, to try to alleviate the tiniest bit of that fear.

Sad.

Shump

Terrorists around the world have to be gleeful at what has been achieved by the brothers.

11:50 CST: From listening to the scanner, it is clear that law enforcement do not know where Tsarnaev is. Even a moved ladder has them spooked. Those that believe the government knows all and sees all should listen to the feed.

12:01 PM CST: It sounds like a possible hostage situation has developed with a SWAT team is surrounding a house. Different agencies trying to figure out what the others are doing is adding to the confusion.

12:37 PM CST: Sounds like that was a false alarm from the outcome. Meanwhile, the twitter account of Tsarnaev reveals a lot about him. He’s definitely Muslim, a 9/11 truther, and an ardent Obama supporter. According to a tweet by a friend he’s a pothead. None of these descriptions fit the narrative the media wanted so it will be interesting to see how (or if) it will be presented.

Will this affect the immigration amnesty bill? That’s a question I find myself wondering. The timing couldn’t be worse for it and having legal immigrants behind this atrocity can’t help with efforts to legalize illegal aliens.

Meanwhile, the Chechen president is blaming American society for what’s happening and condemned the shooting of the older brother! Yeah, the world is very screwed up these days.

Last night’s posting follows:

Looks like an interesting night to have problems getting to sleep…

Live stream from Channel 7 WHDH NBC Boston.

Okay, they are now saying one has been shot and killed.

2:30 AM CT: Now there is talk that the remaining suspect is holed up in a home, but nothing verified.

Sequence of events as known: They robbed a 7-11, carjacked a Mercedes, killed an M.I.T. officer,  were pursued by police, firefight complete with pressure cooker bomb thrown, possibly shot a transit officer, one was either arrested or killed by police, remaining one on the run, then possibly holed up in house.

Emergency tweet from MA state police to residents in Watertown not to answer anyone at the door, don’t let anyone in, etc.

2:55 AM CT: Film of what appears to be one of the suspects naked and getting into a police cruiser has been shown on WHDH. It seems nothing is going to be straight forward or clear in reporting on the Marathon bombings.

Also footage shown where you can hear a huge amount of rounds being fired off with what sounds like police dogs barking. Reporters are pointing out that this was in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

3:08 AM CT: White hat suspect is verified as the one on the loose. He is in a commercial building. Black hat is dead.

3:18 AM CT: Press conference, officer says black hat was struck by gun fire, apparently is alive. Or is he? Very vague.

3:38 AM CT: No names are officially given, so it is not verified that the names heard on the police scanner are correct. Black hat died from wounds. Who is the guy put in the cruiser?

Multiple undetonated explosive devices are supposedly left around the area. Some may be C4 based, which would be quite a development.

What a grim week.

4:00 AM CT: Everything is still fluid and it will be awhile before the complete story is known. White hat is still on the loose and I pray there will be no more deaths of innocents.

Time to hit the sack, daylight will hopefully bring illumination.

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