The unidentified man who was carjacked by the two brothers accused of bombing the Boston Marathon told police that they were headed to NYC. According to a "senior United States official" who spoke with the Times, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told the owner of the Mercedes SUV that they planned to go to NYC. It's unclear if they told the victim what they planned to do there, but the Boston Police Commissioner said yesterday the two men had such a large cache of weapons that they most likely intended to continue their rampage.
After the gun battle that left Tamerlan Tsarnaev dead early Friday morning, investigators found many unexploded homemade bombs at the scene, along with more than 250 rounds of ammunition. Police Commissioner Ed Davis told CBS the stockpile was ‘‘as dangerous as it gets in urban policing. We have reason to believe, based upon the evidence that was found at that scene — the explosions, the explosive ordnance that was unexploded and the firepower that they had — that they were going to attack other individuals."
The SUV owner who was briefly held hostage by the two brothers told police that they identified themselves as the Boston Marathon bombers. So why let him live to tell his tale? According to the victim's statement to police, the brothers said they "would not kill him because he wasn't American." He fled the vehicle at a Shell Gas Station in Watertown, and told a worker in another gas station to call 911. Within the hour, Tamerlan would be gravely injured after his younger brother Dzhokhar ran him over while escaping a chaotic shootout with police.
It remains to be seen where the brothers allegedly acquired the weapons and how they received the training to assemble and detonate the bombs. Some investigators tell the Times that they believe the brothers downloaded a manual from an online Al Qaeda affiliate website. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino says that it appears the brothers "acted alone" and that Tamerlan had "brainwashed” his younger brother to follow him and “read those magazines that were published on how to create bombs, how to disrupt the general public, and things like that.”
