On Monday, Apr. 15, over 23,000 people gathered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, to begin a 26.2 mile race in the 116th annual Boston Marathon. However, two bombs exploded several hundred feet before the finish line on Boylston Street, leaving three people dead and over 113 injured. A four-day manhunt followed the explosions, ultimately leading to a day-long lockdown in Boston and the death of suspected bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev and the arrest of his brother and accomplice Dzhokhar.
1. Two bombs exploded on Monday at 2:49 p.m.. The first explosion occurred on the north side of Boylston Street, between Exeter Street and Dartmouth Street, across from the Boston Public Library. The second explosion went off about ten seconds after the first, on the same side of Boylston Street but farther from the finish line.
2. At 11 p.m. on Thursday, Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier, 26, was ambushed and shot by the Tsarnaev brothers on campus near Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Although
the bombers’ motive for killing Collier is not yet clear, so far police suspect the brothers needed an extra gun, so they shot the officer to take his.
3. On Friday in the early morning hours, the Tsarnaev brothers hijacked a 26-year-old entrepreneur’s new Mercedes ML 350 SUV on Brighton Street. The man had pulled over to send a text message, when, as he recalls, an old sedan slammed on the breaks behind him and a man in dark clothing approached his window. This man was Tamerlan, the older brother, who violently commanded the man to drive as he sat in the passenger seat, holding the car owner at gunpoint while younger brother Dzhokhar followed in the sedan. Eventually Dzhokhar abandoned the sedan and joined his brother and the entrepreneur in the Mercedes. Tamerlan shared with the owner of the car that he was responsible for the marathon bombings and for the murder of the MIT police officer.
4. After a 90-minute drive through Brighton, Watertown and back to Cambridge, Dzhokhar went into the Shell Station on Memorial Drive to pay for the gas, because the station was cash only. When the owner of the car and Tamerlan were the only ones in the car, the owner took advantage of a lapse in attention when Tamerlan put his gun down to fiddle with the navigation system. He jumped out of the car and sprinted to the safety of a supply room in the Mobil station across the street, screaming for the clerk to call 911. The car owner’s escape helped authorities track down the Mercedes.
5. At around 1 a.m. on Friday, police traced the hijacked Mercedes to residential Watertown, where a grand shootout took place. The brothers hurled explosives at the officers from the windows of the Mercedes as bullets flew. Dzhokhar drove away and reportedly ran over his brother, who had been shot and died shortly after. From very early Friday morning to around six on Friday evening, police searched for the fugitive in Boston and surrounding areas (including the entire area shown), putting the entire city on lockdown. Schools were closed, public transit stopped and people were told to clear off the streets. Although this emergency has been referred to as a lockdown, Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts officially requested “shelter in place,” a request that is not mandatory but asks people to find a safe place indoors and turn off all lights, close all blinds, lock all doors and windows and shut down any signs that indicate occupation. Fear kept much of the city’s population quiet, hidden and cooperative while Boston police searched the city and surrounding areas for the missing suspect.
6. From 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, Authorities decided to allow citizens to leave their homes for the first time since the early hours of that morning, instructing people to “remain vigilant.” David Henneberry walked into his backyard to get some fresh air and noticed something suspicious about the tarp covering his 20-foot boat, the Slips Away II. Henneberry notified the police when he saw some pads that he had placed on his boat were missing. When he looked further, Henneberry saw Dzhokhar’s body lying in the boat. Dzhokhar had tried to hide there after the night’s shootout but was injured and unable to escape farther. The injured suspect was taken to Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center where he received treatment for his wounds.
