An unidentified man who was carjacked by the brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombing has recounted his harrowing ride last Friday night, which began with one of the men tapping on the window of his car.
"Did you hear about the Boston explosion?" one of the two suspects said, according to a criminal complaint. "I did that." He then removed the magazine from his gun and showed the driver a bullet. "I am serious," he said.
It wasn't clear whether the suspect quoted was Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who would be killed hours later in a violent confrontation with police, or his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was caught later and charged Monday in his hospital bed with using a weapon of mass destruction.
In the following minutes, the three drove the streets of Cambridge, stoping at bank machines where the brothers forced their victim to withdraw money, all while talking of their plans, according to reports. The victim said his abductors only decided not to kill him because he “wasn’t an American,” and also talked of going to New York next, according to reports.
The victim, according to an excerpt from the Cambridge Police Department report filed by the driver and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, told police he was driven to a Shell gas station on Memorial Drive in Watertown, Mass. Once there, while still inside the vehicle, the brothers “declared to [the victim] that they were the Boston Marathon bombers and would not kill him because he wasn’t an American,” the report said.
The victim then saw an opportunity to flee and ran to a nearby gas station, where he asked the owner to call 911, the report continues.
According to The New York Times, which cited a senior U.S. government official, the suspects told the unidentified owner of the Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicle that they planned to head to New York.
About 40 minutes after they allegedly killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev crossed the Charles River into Boston and stole the SUV at gunpoint and briefly held the unidentified driver hostage. The alleged carjacking occurred in Boston’s Brighton section, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed during a shootout with police in Watertown early Friday. Dzhokhar Tsarneav, 19, was arrested later than night following a 20-hour manhunt. The motive for the bombings remains unclear.