US News
|
Entertainment News
|
ABC News Videos
By BRIAN ROSS
The brothers Tsarnaev had plans to drive to New York in
their carjacked Mercedes and explode their remaining bombs last Thursday, but
their plans went off track when the owner of the car they stole made an escape,
the New York City mayor said Thursday.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the information came to the
attention of investigators during the interrogation of 19-year old Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev, who had at first said the plan was to go to New York to
"party" but then changed his story in an interview 24 hours later. At
that time Tsarnaev allegedly acknowledged that he and his brother planned a
follow-up attack. The brothers had six unexploded devices with them as they
tried to flee, Boston Police sources said.
"We were informed by the FBI that the surviving attacker
revealed that NYC was next on the list of targets he told the FBI apparently
that he and his brother had planned to drive to NY and detonate additional
explosives in Time Square, they had built these additional explosives and we
know they had the capacity to carry out the attacks," Bloomberg said at a
press conference Thursday.
"The fact is NYC remains a prime target for those who
hate America and want to kill Americans the attacks in boston and the news that
NYC was next on the list shows just how critical it is for the federal
government to devote high risk areas," he said.
Bloomberg and New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said
the brothers had a pressure cooker bomb similar to those detonating during the
attacks on the Boston Marathon, as well as five pipe bombs.
Law enforcement officials also tell ABC News they are
preparing to move the accused Boston Marathon bomber from his hospital room to
a secured medical facility in one of the region's prisons, sources tell ABC
News.
The move is expected in the next 48 hours, but officials
were not making public the timing of the transfer or the Tsarnaev's
destination. There are several prison facilities around Boston that have
medical facilities.
The developments come after authorities collected what could
be fresh evidence of how the men believed responsible for the twin detonations
at the Boston Marathon finish line constructed their bombs.
Agents uncovered a stash of firework shells, some of which
appeared to have been emptied of their gunpowder. The cache was discovered in a
used clothing collection bin in a grocery store parking lot in Watertown.
"It was a device that looks like a big firecracker …
that had a wick in it," said Michael Tambosi, a representative of the
group Planet Aid New England, which owns the clothing donation containers.
A driver for the organization first spotted the fireworks
when he opened the bin. There were about half a dozen Roman candle shells in a
plastic grocery bag and Tambosi said it looked like some of them had been
scooped out.
Investigators responded late Wednesday, loading the bins on
a flatbed truck and carrying them away to the staging area the FBI team has set
up for gathering evidence in the bombing case.
Already, authorities have determined that most of the
homemade bombs were built with store-bought items, including kitchen pressure
cookers, nails, and the guts of remote control cars. The source of the
explosive materials was still being studied.
Officials will be examining the fireworks to see if the
hollowed-out shells match those that Tamerlan Tsarnaev is believed to have
purchased from a vendor in New Hampshire, or bear any resemblance to the
pyrotechnic device that agents said was discovered in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's
college dorm room. Explosives experts said the powder from the fireworks can
serve as a potent ingredient in homemade devices similar to those that exploded
along Boylston Street, killing three and wounding more than 250 marathon spectators.
"They can be extremely powerful," New York Police
Department bomb technician Kevin Barry told ABC News.
Officials continued Wednesday to try piece together the
actions taken by the Tsarnaev brothers in the days and weeks leading up to the
marathon blasts. But that effort will no longer be aided by the hospitalized
suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Tsarnaev is no longer cooperating with interrogators,
authorities said. He was read his Miranda rights on Monday after 16 hours of
questioning, which interrogators said was stretched out as long as possible.
Authorities were gathering evidence that suggested the two
brothers might have been planning a trip to New York.
The man who was car-jacked by the bombers has reported he
may have overheard them talking about Manhattan. Police were also scrutinizing
photos posted on a Russian social network page by a friend and one time
classmate of 19-year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The photo showed Tsarnaev and
others in Times Square a year ago.
The New York police commissioner said he had been told by
investigators that the two brothers were talking about traveling to New York
after the bombings.
"The bit of information that we have ... may have been
words to the effect of coming to New York to party," said New York City
Police Commissioner Ray Kelley
People in Boston continue to struggle to understand the motive of the bombings and the murder of a police officer on the MIT campus. At Wednesday's memorial for the slain officer, Vice president Joseph Biden spoke with angry contempt of the Tsarnaev brothers. "Two twisted, perverted, cowardly, knock-off jihadis here in Boston," he said.
One lingering mystery lies in what changed for Dzhakhar Tsarnaev, who spent most of his childhood and formative years in America schools, and was widely described as easy going and well liked. Just last year, on September 11, in a patriotic ceremony on the floor Boston's TD Garden, the University of Massachusetts student and casual soccer player sat among 2,500 immigrants and swore his allegiance to the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Seven months later, authorities say he told FBI agents that he and his brother planted bombs along the route of the revered sporting event and killed a police officer. The reason he gave, according to authorities, was that Muslims are at war with the US.
No comments:
Post a Comment