UPDATE: With Dzhokhar Tsarnaev captured after the massive manhunt another shootout with the police, there is relief in Boston. And still plenty of questions.
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Large swaths of Boston remain closed as police search for one of two Chechen brothers who allegedly orchestrated Monday's devastating bombing attack at the Boston Marathon.
Just hours after the FBI released images of the suspects Thursday evening, Dzhokhar (pronounced JA-har) and Tamerlan Tsarnaev lead law enforcement on a heated chase through Cambridge, Mass. — across the Charles River from Boston — that left one MIT campus officer dead. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed by police gunfire in the pursuit, during which the suspects threw explosives at officers from a carjacked Mercedes SUV.
As authorities continue to search for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — who fled on foot just west of Cambridge in Watertown — more details are emerging about the brothers, who moved to the United States in 2002 to seek asylum with their parents and two sisters.
Before coming to the U.S., the family is reported to have lived in Kazakhstan and Dagestan, a Russian republic located to the immediate east of war-torn Chechnya.
An uncle of the suspects named Ruslan Tsarni bitterly called his nephews "losers," adding that "someone had radicalized them." He said nothing of a possible motive.
Sources close to the investigation told CNN not to assume that the brothers were radicalized because of their origins in the Russian Caucuses. The same can be said of their Muslim background.
Here's what else we know:
Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev
- 19-years-old, wore a backwards white baseball cap during bombings
- Attended the prestigious Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where he was a member of the volleyball and wrestling teams. Described as “very sweet" by a former classmate, he won a $2,500 scholarship in 2011 from the City of Cambridge.
- "Everybody loved him," said a former wrestling coach. “He wasn’t a loner, the complete opposite."
- He was a second-year medical student and "a true angel" according to an AP interview with the suspects' father Anzor Tsarnaev, who resides in Dagestan.
- Other sources list him as an accounting student at a University of Massachusetts campus in Dartmouth.
- Worked as a lifeguard in 2010
- According to Vkontakte, a popular Russian social media hub, he identifies his worldview as “Islam” and his priorities as “career and money." He's also listed as a member of a "Free Chechnya" group.
- A Facebook account, inactive since 2012, was identified but is no longer available
Tamerlan Tsarnaev
- 26-years-old, wore a black cap during the bombings
- On a photo website (now unavailable) he notes being a devout Muslim who refrained from drinking and smoking. He was involved in martial arts and boxing, and hoped to become a naturalized citizen and fight for the U.S. Olympic team.
- Earned the New England heavyweight title in 2010
- An acquaintance noted that Tsarneav was surprisingly rude and disrespectful at the gym in the past week, adding that "something was up."
- Once arrested for domestic assault on a girlfriend, according to the Associated Press
- Attended Bunker Hill Community College, but took time off to train as a boxer
- While still unconfirmed, a YouTube account and an Amazon wish list with books on ID fraud also have emerged
