11 things the bombers did that will make you say WTF
Read Time:3 Minute, 25 Second
Yesterday suspected terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged wtih “use of a weapon of mass destruction” and “malicious destruction of property resulting in death” for his ‘alleged’ role in last Monday’s bombing of the Boston marathon.
The federal criminal complaint comes three days after police captured Tsarnaev in a boat in Watertown, Massachusetts, and four days after a manhunt for these specific suspects began in earnest. For the time being, law enforcement officials believe Dzhokhar and his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed Friday, acted alone.
Dzhokhar and Tamerlan’s motive—or motives—is still unclear. But that’s not the only unknown. Many of the Tsarnaevs’ actions last week seem baffling in retrospect. Here are some of the most confounding things they did:
- Wear a backwards hat and no sunglasses. Unlike his older brother, Dzhokhar made little effort to prevent cameras from capturing his face, making him easier to identify when the FBI released security camera photos on Thursday. Indeed, classmates at University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth did see him in the photos, but dismissed the similarity because it seemed so far-fetched.
- Not react to the explosions. For three days, investigators pored over all available photos and surveillance videos of the blast area searching for abnormal reactions. The complaint filed in federal court on Monday specifically cites Dzhokhar’s reaction to the first explosion as a giveaway; per the complaint, he glanced in the direction of the first blast only briefly.
- Leave the car in the shop. The Wall Street Journal reported that Dzhokhar stopped by an auto-body shop in Watertown on Tuesday to pick up the Mercedes he’d brought in for repairs.
- Stay in Boston. The second bomb exploded at 2:49 p.m. last Monday. Dzhokhar and Tamerlan carjacked a Mercedes at 10:39 p.m.* on Thursday. What did they do in the interim three days? Go to the gym, check in on their busted car, and, in Dzhokhar’s case, go to a party on the UMass–Dartmouth campus. During the three-day window in which their involvement was unknown, they made no attempt to flee.
- Kill an MIT police officer. Why did the brothers shoot 26-year-old Sean Collier? The murder at 10:30 p.m. on Thursday set in motion the events that would ultimately lead to their capture.
- Run out of cash. When Dzhokhar carjacked a Mercedes on Thursday night, he and his brother had one thing in mind: Get cash, and fast. They emptied $800 from an ATM using their victim’s PIN number, before they reached the account limit. Holding up a stranger for money suggests a woeful lack of planning on their part (they hadn’t budgeted) that helped alert them to the authorities.
- Not understand how ATMs work. After reaching the daily withdrawal limit at one ATM, the Tsarnaevs, apparently not realizing that the machines are part of an interconnected system, decided to try their luck at two different machines. The quest to find a working ATM was how they ended up, coincidentally, at a 7/11 in Cambridge around the same time it was the scene of an armed robbery, and were spotted on the store security camera.
- Confess to the hostage. According to the complaint, when Dzhokhar got into the Mercedes, he immediately told the driver, “Did you hear about the Boston explosion? I did that.” That meant their cover would be immediately blown if the driver escaped. Which brings us to…
- Stop for snacks. The Los Angeles Times reported that the hostage escaped after the brothers stopped at a gas station on Memorial Drive to buy snacks.
- Keep the hostage’s phone. The Tsarnaevs continued on without their hostage—but they did have his phone, which allowed police to track their location via GPS.
- Bring a BB gun. The weapons used by the two suspects, according to police: a pressure-cooker bomb, seven IEDs, an M4 carbine, two handguns, and a BB gun. A BB gun? WTF?
Many thanks to our friends at Mother Jones for story contributions.
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It’ll be pea shooters and catapults next
I maintain they may have been provided with bombs or the training to make them–even organized Palestinian groups often have a good number of failed bombs, and remember the Weathermen scaled back after losing three of their own in a bomb-making accident; in this case, it sounds like the bombs found on these two had a decent level of sophistication.
Their other actions were entirely lacking that same sophistication (which is all the more reason to suspect that if they had made these bombs on their own, the effort would have been like a fatal version of Laurel and Hardy–if only, as it might have stopped them from surviving long enough to place the bombs). That said, it sounds like if they did have support, it stopped at “here are some bombs, have at it.” The killing of the MIT officer, the taking of a hostage–none of it makes any sense, which makes me think that the “Laurel and Hardy” analogy may be giving them too much credit. I’ll be interested to see whether Dzhokhar stands by their actions on twisted ideological grounds, or whether he’s already looking back with the warranted “what in the g*dd*mn hell were we thinking?” These were a real pair, and it’s a tragedy that others had to lose their lives and limbs for their whacked out idiocy.
You do make some good points. They may have been provided with a least the bob-making innards. Maybe we will learn that if the elder brother didn’t conceal that from the younger one.
Anyone can get instructions on making a variety of weapons, including nuclear bombs, on the internet. Te latter would require skills and materials few people would have but the principles are there.
Relatively simple IEDs can be constructed by any 7th grade student with access to some cash.
Mike and James, I found myself chuckling at the “experts” yesterday as they all claimed that these guys had to have had training to have pulled this caper off and to have made their bombs, especially the pressure cooker bomb. I guess its my age but when I was ten years old I had learned how to make black powder and use it to shoot rockets several hundred feet in the air (basically an open ended pipe bomb) with my 12 year old cousin. By 14 we were experimenting with .22 caliber zip guns. In the 1970’s the Weather Underground was driving authorities nuts with bombs all over the county. All of this without the internet. Give the guys the internet and it is fairly easy for me to see them figuring out how to make these bombs themselves. These new age experts just never hung around the projects with folks like me I guess. I don’t know what they used but let’s see, if I could get a tightly closed container (like a pressure cooker), fill it with plain old gun powder and ball bearings, and introduce a spark, Yep, I would have one hell of an explosion. Think of a shot gun shell as big around as a pressure cooker exploding. Yep that would work. Nothing genius about that.
I did all of those things when I was young as well Bill.
All of these point to a non-professional act. If they had any training or had even thought about things in advance, they would not have done any of these. In the end, I believe we will see a couple of fanatics, trying to emulate others, not helped by any organization.
A BB gun? WTF? I’m surprised these guys didn’t blow themselves up.