The city of Boston is currently on lockdown, as officials search for the white-hatted Boston Marathon bombing suspect, who authorities believe is 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a Chechnyan who'd been living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The other suspect was his older brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died in a gun battle with police early this morning.
Here's what we know about them:
- Dzhokhar Tsarnaev attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. He was in the class of 2011.
- Dzhokhar was born on July 22, 1993.
- Dzhokhar was one of 45 high-school seniors to receive a $2,500 scholarship from the City of Cambridge in 2011.
- A high-school wrestler, Dzhokhar was named Student Athlete of the Month in February 2011 and a Greater Boston League Winter All-Star in 2011.
- Dzhokhar once signed a petition about ducks and chickens in Cambridge with the comment: "leave the chickens."
- A social-media account bearing Dzhokhar's name lists his world view as "Islam" and his priorities as "career and money."
- Dzhokhar was very torn about Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. [via @johnmcquaid]
- A high-school friend told the Boston CBS affiliate that Dzhokhar was "just a normal American kid."
- Tamerlan was an amateur boxer, weighing 196 pounds, who trained at the Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts Center in Allston and studied at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston.
- The subject of a portrait series, Tamerlan told photographer Johannes Hirn that he fled Chechnya with his family because of the conflict in the early 90s, and lived for years in Kazakhstan before getting to the United States as a refugee.
- He also told Hirn, "I don't have a single American friend, I don't understand them."
- He loved the movie Borat, "even though some of the jokes are a bit too much."
- According to Tamerlan's Amazon Wishlist, the 26-year-old was very interested in fraud, persuasion, the mafia, and his native Chechnya. Highlights include as How to Make Driver's Licenses and Other ID on Your Home Computer and Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends & Influence People
- Tamerlan drove a Mercedes and said he dressed "European."
- Tamerlan kept a YouTube channel with a since-deleted category labeled "Terrorists."
- One of Tamerlan's favorite YouTube videos stars a chameleon wearing glasses.
- A photo of Dzhokhar with Robin Young's nephew:
- Dzhokhar is a registered student at UMass Dartmouth. The state school is closed today.
- The AP spoke to the Tsarnaevs' dad. "My son is a true angel," he told them. "Dzhokhar is a second-year medical student in the U.S. He is such an intelligent boy. We expected him to come on holidays here."
- A high-school classmate tells CBS Dzhokhar was a class clown. "He would just joke around, try and make jokes, get on the teachers nerves, just like a typical class clown," she said. "He was very friendly. Everyone liked him. No one had any problems with him."
- People called him Jahar "because Dzokhar was too difficult to pronounce."
- Buzzfeed's Rosie Gray talks with Dzhokhar's former classmates, who are all pretty shocked.
"I didn't know Jahar extremely well but he was literally among the sweetest, most laid back guys I've ever known," one tells her. "Always friendly and welcoming, I always felt comfortable hanging out with him." - More recently, Dzhokhar worked shifts at Harvard's Blodgett Pool.
- CBS spoke with the brothers' uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, who called Tamerlan a "loser" and said, "He deserved his. He absolutely deserved his" and "They do not deserve to live on this earth."
- This appears to be Jahar's Twitter account:
- Jahar apparently liked weed, according to anybody who knew him:
- A photo from his Facebook page:
- That's Jahar on the bottom row left, in a Facebook photo taken at UMass Dartmouth sometime last year and submitted by a tipster:
[photos via FBI]