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The Situation Room

Boston Manhunt

Aired April 19, 2013 - 18:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ERIC MERCADO, HIGH SCHOOL FRIEND OF DZHOKHAR TSARNAEV: A friend told me this morning, when we were all alerted of Dzhokhar's name and his involvement in this whole thing.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hold on for one moment, Eric.

I want to continue this conversation.

But I want to update our viewers. It's now the top of the hour. I want to once again in our viewers here in the United States and around the world. We're standing by for a news conference. Local law enforcement, local state, federal authorities, we're expecting them to show up at the microphones in Watertown.

We're following the breaking news coverage. This truly massive manhunt for the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings. We want to welcome once again our viewers around the world.

We're standing by, as I said, for the news conference. We have been standing by for a while. It looks like it's been delayed. But, of course, once it begins, we will have live coverage. Here's an update on what we know right now. Two brothers, one is dead. The other on the run right now, both accused, suspected of committing deadly acts of terror.

If you're just joining us, here are some of the latest developments we're following as we await the start of the news conference. The Boston area, and I'm here in Boston, virtual lockdown. The city is in a virtual lockdown, suburbs as well. Thousands of officers are hunting for the suspected bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The search spreading to the University of Massachusetts campus Dartmouth where 19-year-old Tsarnaev still is registered, still is registered as a student. He's been on the loose since the firefight with police overnight in the Boston suburb of Watertown. His 26-year- old brother, Tamerlan, he died after a shoot-out.

Sources now telling us that the suspects threw a grenade and five pipe bombs at police during that confrontation overnight. Three of those bombs detonated, two didn't. We're also told that investigators are recovering what they describe as a significant amount of homemade explosives in their pursuit, including a pressure cooker bomb similar to one of the bombs used in the marathon terror attack.

Once again, as soon as this news conference begins in Watertown, we will have live coverage.

In the meantime, I want to learn a little bit more about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from his high school friend, Eric Mercado, who is joining me right now.

You saw the picture, the two pictures of the brothers. Did you know older brother at all?

MERCADO: No. No.

BLITZER: You just knew the younger brother, the man on the loose right now. You said, boy, that looks like Dzhokhar, but you were just almost just joking? You really didn't think it was really serious?

MERCADO: No.

Like I said, most of my friends kind of felt the same way.

BLITZER: Did you start talking to them last night about it?

MERCADO: Yes. I won't say that. This morning is more or less when we started to really confer about it, and talk amongst each other.

But last night it was more or less an idea in the back of your mind. But it wasn't something you wanted to bring to the forefront of your mind, because obviously you don't want to implicate that anybody that you know is involved in something of that magnitude.

BLITZER: So, then all of a sudden this morning you get confirmation that these two brothers are the suspects.

MERCADO: Right.

BLITZER: I don't know. How did you react?

MERCADO: We took to social media and we took to our yearbooks, and just wanted to confirm that the names matched up, that photos were, you know, matching up. I mean, it was complete shock.

You're just trying to figure out who to call, and who to kind of contact and see what they know, and see if -- who's been in contact with him as of late.

BLITZER: We're watching Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts. He has now arrived on the scene. They're giving some preliminary information about this news conference. They're testing the microphones. We will hear from Governor Patrick, and no doubt we will hear from the FBI special agent in charge.

Let's just hear what this guy is saying.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief Deveau of Watertown.

We will take questions afterward. Please bear in mind that it's an ongoing investigation, is very active at this very moment as well. So there will be a lot of questions you have that we cannot answer.

Colonel Timothy Alben, he's been briefing all day. We will fill in the blanks later if you miss it.

BLITZER: So there it is. We have got a little update on what we can anticipate from the governor, mayor and others will be coming over to this news conference. There's the mayor in the wheelchair, Thomas Menino. He's had some serious ailments lately. But he's back. I'm sure he's going to be speaking.

Let's listen, in fact, right now.

GOV. DEVAL PATRICK (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Good evening, everybody. And thank you, all of you, for your patience, and to all of the viewers and listeners in the area who have also been very patient.

I'm going to have Colonel Alben give a quick update on what we can say about the ongoing investigation. I will have a couple of comments then about the stay indoors request and the T and then we will turn it over to the mayor and then to Chief Deveau from Watertown here.

So, first to Colonel Alben.

COL. TIMOTHY ALBEN, MASSACHUSETTS STATE POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: Thank you, Governor.

Good afternoon. I certainly want to thank all of you for your patience. I know you're all tired. We certainly are as well.

But we remain committed to this. We do not have an apprehension of our suspect this afternoon. But we will have one. We're committed to that. I want the neighborhood here in Watertown to know that we went through about 20 streets here door to door with our tactical teams. We knocked on doors to ensure that everyone was safe in their homes and that they saw the police on their streets. We did limited searches of those homes to render them safe.

We have also followed a number of leads this afternoon that have taken us in various places in Eastern Massachusetts. And none of those leads have been fruitful to this point. There's much left to be done, including ballistics and forensics work that will be concluding in Boston in the next few days.

We also have a scene up here, a forensics scene where we had some exploded and unexploded ordnance there that were made safe and removed during the course of the afternoon. That is still ongoing, but should be completed shortly.

We are going to draw back our tactical teams, but the state police will be providing additional patrols to the town of Watertown over the next about two to three days. For the neighbors and the citizens of this community, we're going to have for the chief an additional 10 state police patrols augmenting the Watertown police in those neighborhoods, three shifts a day probably through Monday. So, again, I want to emphasize this is a complicated investigation that's being led by the FBI. Our presence here today is about the safety of the people in the community. We're confident that we did that to the best of our ability. Unfortunately, we don't have a positive result at this point.

But for the sake of everyone that were hurt or killed during the marathon or those police officers that lost their life or were seriously injured, we are committed to seeing a conclusion to this case.

Thank you.

PATRICK: Thank you, Colonel.

In light of the status of the investigation here in Watertown and the developments in the course of the day, the stay indoors request is lifted. The T is open effective immediately, the MBTA. Effectively immediately, we are asking the public to remain vigilant.

If you are out, continue to be alert to suspicious activity, unaccompanied or unattended packages or backpacks and so on. Remember, there is still a very, very dangerous individual at large. But we feel confident based on what we know about the status of the investigation right now that, to that extent, we can return to living our lives.

We begin in the areas where the stay indoors request has been in effect, that request is lifted, but remain vigilant.

Mr. Mayor?

THOMAS MENINO (D), MAYOR OF BOSTON: Thank you, Governor.

Let me just say to the public out there, thank you for your cooperation for the last several hours. Standby was very helpful to us, as the very different police departments went to work on this investigation. Yes, we do not have an individual arrested yet and brought to justice. But let me just tell you we have a lot of leads out there.

I would ask the public to continue to cooperate with us. Boston will stand tall. We will never stand down. Now, to all of my citizens out there in the city of Boston, thank you for your cooperation. Thank you to the business community who worked with us over the last several hours. Of course, there's been a big economic loss for them. But together, we will get through this crisis. Thank you.

PATRICK: Chief?

ED DEVEAU, WATERTOWN POLICE CHIEF: Thank you.

Again, my message is to the community of Watertown. It's a little different what we're going to do here. You're going to see saturated patrols. As the colonel said, state police will be out. Our local communities are going to support us. NEMLEC will be here.

We are going to see a big presence. We searched a very thorough search of the 20-block interior. Unfortunately, as you know, we didn't have any results. But we're going to continue to move forward as a community.

I can't thank the Watertown community enough for what you have done, your strength. But we need it to continue. As you heard, the crime scene is not done yet. That is not going to be collapsed for another few hours at least. We need your support there. Please go about your business. I know there's a lot of events in Watertown tomorrow. And we're going to have them.

But you're going to see a big police presence as we do that. Thank you. And please say a prayer for those police officers. Thank you.

PATRICK: One more thing.

(CROSSTALK)

ALBEN: One more point.

I just want to add, there's a photograph of our subject that's been widely distributed. I want to remind the public that it's there. If you see this individual, please I want to emphasize this, do not take action on your own, we want you to dial 911 to your local police department and anything that you might know about this individual, please send that to the FBI tip line.

This is very, very important. I appealed the other day to the community for your cooperation, and you have come through. We need that continuing cooperation to solve this. Thank you.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: I think that goes to the investigation. And I don't want to discuss the investigation. I will talk about anything that happened here today.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One at a time.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) decisions that have been made since the bombing?

ALBEN: No. We're committed to this since 11:30, or 11:00 last night. We have worked through since that time. And we have had people tirelessly walking those streets going door to door up there.

Unfortunately, we did not have enough people when those shootings took place in order to deal with the first aid issues that were prominent and establish a perimeter at that point in time.

(CROSSTALK) ALBEN: Go ahead.

QUESTION: Do you know where the suspect is, or do you believe you know where the suspect is? (OFF-MIKE)

PATRICK: May I?

Well, I don't think, first of all, that the instruction lends itself to, you know, simple phrases. Right? We are where we were effectively on as of Monday night, or Tuesday morning.

It -- with a couple of exceptions. One of the suspects is dead. There was a firefight out here last night, some 200 rounds and explosives. So we were very justified, I believe, based on what we understood about the investigation, in taking what we knew was a big step in asking people to stay indoors while we went house to house here, and in other communities close by, to which we believed the suspect, or law enforcement believed the suspect could have fled.

The investigation has continued to develop. We can't give you all the reasons -- all those developments right now. We will in the fullness of time. We can't right now. But based on those developments, we feel it is prudent to be able to say to people, you can get back out as long as you are vigilant.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: This has been an ongoing effort of the joint terrorism task force. It was from its onset and it will continue to be that. You have the FBI, the state police and all the local police departments, including the Boston Police Department. Go ahead.

QUESTION: Do you believe the suspect is still in the Boston area, or has he fled?

ALBEN: I think I would be -- no, I don't have any direct knowledge that he's here in the Boston area. But we don't think he would get much further. His ties seem to be here.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: Well, I think this developed rather quickly last night. And I would wager that most of the activity that was printed in the media yesterday forced them to make decisions or take actions that ultimately revealed who they were.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: Yes, I want to be clear about the armed robbery.

These folks do not appear to be the individuals who were involved in the armed robbery. They were at the 7/Eleven in Cambridge at a time that was somewhat coincidental to that, and we retrieved a surveillance video out of the 7/Eleven. But they were not involved in an armed robbery at that convenience store.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: No, I don't want to comment on that, because that's a homicide investigation. But all of this individual's ties were here in Massachusetts, and we believe that's the only person that we're looking for at this time.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: Yes, I believe he's still in Massachusetts.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: No, the whole point in providing that extra coverage to Watertown is for the benefit of this community. We have had this whole community, in fact, the greater Boston area, as you know, shut down today.

But in particular, these folks had a shooting in their neighborhood last night. There was a loss of life up there. It was very violent activity. And so to provide that level of comfort to those folks up there in that neighborhood, we're providing or supplementing the Watertown Police Department.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: That would be supposition on my part. I'm not going to do that.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: I'm not aware of a Mercedes the public should be looking for.

Go ahead.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: Well, it's clear to us that there were explosives that they had with them last night. They threw those at the police officers that were pursuing them. Beyond that, what their intentions were would be a matter of supposition, and I'm not going to do that.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: Which car?

QUESTION: The one that (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: Prior to the carjack?

Yes, that car -- you're talking about the Honda. That car is being processed at this point. But its relevance to the case is still not known.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right here.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: It's not something that I have considered. I'm worried about apprehending this particular subject. He's a very violent and dangerous person. That's our primary concern.

(CROSSTALK)

ALBEN: I'm sorry?

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: We don't know of a vehicle that he has.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) entire city on lockdown (OFF-MIKE) a suspect. What's changed in the last eight hours for the public (OFF- MIKE) feel safe to go out when this suspect is still on the loose? And what is your message to the suspect?

ALBEN: My message to the suspect is to give himself up, to stop any further violence towards anyone.

In terms of where he is at this point, we cannot continue to lock down an entire city or an entire state. We are confident that we have done what we can do here in this particular neighborhood in terms of our search. And unfortunately that was not fruitful. But we are redoubling our efforts and we are as committed as we were this morning towards apprehending him.

QUESTION: Has anything changed in the last eight hours? Have you found out anything new?

ALBEN: No.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: I would never give an all-clear on anything. Again, I want to reemphasize the point that people have got to be vigilant. This is a dangerous person who we believe has killed people. They need to be extremely careful, and contact their local police department if they even suspect they identified this individual.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: We have done a number of searches this afternoon, but that, again, is going to go to the investigation, and I don't want to comment on that.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: Well, I think that would always be law enforcement's preference. But sometimes those things are decisions that they take away from us. And we hope that's not the case here.

And that's why I'm appealing to him to give himself up and do it now.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: They were together last night. One of them was killed and one of them fled the scene.

QUESTION: How did he do that?

ALBEN: On foot.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: I'm not going to get into that. Again, this is a homicide case we're talking about. And I don't want to discuss the evidence in the case.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two more. Two more questions. Two more questions. Right here. Come on, right here.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: Well, I think, again, that's going to go to the investigation. And I don't want to comment on the evidence.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: Yes.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

ALBEN: I think that you should be reassured by the presence, the enhanced presence of the state police in the Watertown Police Department being here in your neighborhood. And we are convinced that we did absolutely everything that we could in this neighborhood to ensure that this individual's not where he left last night.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The last question.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last question, colonel.

ALBEN: Last question.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: How did he get away? And do you have a sense (OFF- MIKE)

ALBEN: He abandoned a car that he had used that was involved in the pursuit from Cambridge here to Watertown last night.

In terms of how he got away, he did it on foot. He fled on foot. I don't know where he went specifically after that.

QUESTION: So he abandoned the car...

(CROSSTALK) ALBEN: I think that's it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's all.

ALBEN: Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're covering old ground. We have said what we have to say.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Motive remains under investigation. As I said to start this, much of this remains under investigation. This is going to be the last briefing of the night unless there's a significant development.

Again, we thank you for your help throughout the day. We thank you for your patience and we thank you for understanding that there's still a lot of this we can't publicly disclose. Thank you.

BLITZER: All right, so there you have it, the latest from law enforcement here local, state, federal authorities. We did hear from -- briefly from the governor. And we did hear briefly from the mayor of Boston as well.

But there's some new developments that we learned in the course of this briefing.

Juliette Kayyem here with us.

One thing we learned, that robbery at the convenience store, he says it was a 7/Eleven, and 7/Eleven says it was another convenience store. But that these two guys happened to be there, but they weren't robbing the convenience store.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN ANALYST: Right. So that is a coincidence, and a sort of shocking one.

In the timeline they gave this morning, it did involve the convenience store robbery. Then they went back. This happens as things unfold live. They're going to rewrite their story as well, who was where, when. And what we know, though, is of course the MIT killing of the police officer was related to the chase to Watertown and everything that happened last night, which is what we suspected.

BLITZER: These two suspects were probably the ones who killed that police officer at MIT and wounded another police officer.

KAYYEM: Right. That's exactly right.

BLITZER: So the older brother, the 26-year-old is dead. The younger brother is on the loose right now.

KAYYEM: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: He's armed, very dangerous. Yet the local authorities come out and say, you know what, we're going to ease this lockdown and go back and do what you need to do. The freeze in effect is over.

KAYYEM: Right.

BLITZER: You're a former adviser, Juliette, to homeland security authorities here in Massachusetts, also in the federal government. Why did they make this -- why did they decide to tell everybody, you know what, you can go back and do what you want to do?

KAYYEM: To answer that question, you have to understand why they put the lockdown in, in the first place, the shelter in place, and it was to preserve the public safety folks and all of them looking for this person to find the suspect.

They didn't do that. They admitted it first off. And now they're going to sort of allow people to go out, live their lives, but there was a clear distinction, Watertown will be different. There will be a strong police presence. Wolf, we were talking, this is the biggest challenge in public safety, particularly in counterterrorism.

It is very easy and important to ratchet up. We saw it immediately after other terrorist incidents. Much more difficult to calm the public. I think the fact that they turned this around so quickly, said, look, we didn't find him. We believe he's here, and they probably believe he's here because he was the younger brother, clearly the less dynamic, and is now alone. That is a key factor here. So the hunt will continue.

But, you know, you couldn't sustain today much longer than today. People need to...

BLITZER: He escaped on foot. If he did have explosives on his body, that's one thing. But he probably didn't have -- if he's running away on foot, he didn't have a whole lot of...

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: This is Drew Griffin in Watertown, where we're now seeing extensive amounts of the police who have been combing this area actually being pulled out after that somewhat disappointing news conference.

And the bottom line from that news conference is that he got away. And it's very unclear that the police have any idea in which direction he went. They do believe -- I believe one of the officials said he's in the state of Massachusetts. But there was no corroborating evidence as to why they thought that.

He fled the scene on foot, but there was no indication of whether or not there was any kind of a car apprehended after that, any kind of car that they might be looking for. They're still just looking for -- and if we can put the photo up, the photo of this man, the suspect, the surviving suspect who fled the scene last night in Watertown.

And despite a massive, massive search that surrounded Watertown today, and for those of you who don't live in this greater Boston area, literally shut down this entire town today, he has gotten away. And that right now is the disappointing bottom line -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Thanks very much, Drew.

I want to bring Tom Fuentes in, the former assistant director of the FBI, our CNN law enforcement analyst.

It's hard to believe that this young 19-year-old could escape on foot from this shoot-out with law enforcement in Watertown, and simply disappear, despite this massive manhunt that has been under way since the middle of the night last night. How is that possible, Tom?

TOM FUENTES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think, Wolf, the way that could have happened is that you have the shoot-out on the street, and explosives are going off. And basically you have a little gun battle, an explosives battle going on with the police officers. And this subject flees on foot after the other brother gets badly injured and then later dies at the hospital.

You could almost call that a fog of war. He runs out, maybe he runs around the corner and is out of view. But we don't know from that point on, when the police lose sight of him in the darkness that night, did he manage to carjack another car, and flee the area entirely? Did he go to an apartment building and maybe he realized he better not go to where he usually would go, where he lives or where he has friends, and did he go into somebody else's residence?

They combed that area. Or did he keep running, so the area that he ran to, he's outside the perimeter that later gets set up to have? So I think there's a couple of possibilities with that. And that's the only explanation I can think of, is that he just managed, at that moment, immediately after the shoot-out with the police, that he managed to get out of their view, into the darkness, and get away.

BLITZER: Because it's hard to believe a 19-year-old can do something like that, escape law enforcement, not just a dozen or two dozen or a few hundred. Thousands of law enforcement personnel are searching for him in this area. And he just sort of disappears.

Let me bring Juliette into this.

How sophisticated is this 19-year-old, based on everything you're hearing?

KAYYEM: Not very. Well, enough to plan an attack, but clearly the exit strategy, they didn't think through.

One of the reasons, why would the state police say we believe he's here is because he was the younger brother. What we know so far, he was likely the less dynamic brother. Terrorists tend to act -- a lot of terrorists are brothers. A lot of terrorist groups have lots of siblings in them. And he's now alone. That's the key factor. Right. He doesn't have his partner in crime, so to speak.

And so by loosening up here or ratcheting down, as we call it, letting people live their lives, being resilient, being cautious of what is going on, this is now a criminal search for an individual. It may look a lot less like a manhunt in the days ahead. But it will be localized again. And they probably also have looked at cars, the turnpike, other ways to exit the city, and have strong confidence that that would have been hard for him to do.

BLITZER: Yes, it's a pretty amazing development, Tom Fuentes, when you think about it. Juliette and I are just sort of perplexed when we heard this news conference.

And they said, you know what, everybody go back to your normal lives as much as you can, even though you know a suspected killer is on the loose. He might be in Watertown, he might have gotten outside of Watertown, despite this massive manhunt. Go about your normal day- to-day activities, ratcheting down this freeze, if you will.

Tom, do you think that's wise?

FUENTES: You know, Wolf, I don't know. They could be second- guessed either way in this case. If he managed to run and get out of the perimeter, get away or get ahold of another vehicle and make his escape, and in the meantime you're locking down, you know, a huge city indefinitely, you know, that doesn't help.

And that's not going to keep the public happy for a long time. It's going to create a lot more problems in the long run maybe doing that. I think that probably is what they're thinking at this point. You raised the issue earlier about how could he get away.

Well, first of all, it's dark. Second of all, those explosive devices and gunfire would create a huge amount of smoke. So you have a smoke cover, darkness. Many of his friends today reported that he was a great athlete. And the fact that he is 19 years old, and frankly, running for his life, under those conditions, with a cover of smoke and darkness, it could account for how he was able to get away and get outside.

Before they could actually create a perimeter, he may have been already been outside of it.

BLITZER: And I suspect almost everyone now has seen his face. It's going to be very difficult for this 19-year-old to continue this run, if in fact he's running right now. Because everyone knows what he looks like right now.

And he's going to be -- he is a very, very wanted man. Tom Foreman is in our virtual studio right now. Tom, I know you've been trying to piece together what happened overnight. Show our viewers what we've learned.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- led on the trail of this young man right here. This is what happened as a result. They reached out to the people of this town, about 4.5 million people in the metro area and said, first of all, let's start with about 300,000 of you in six little different towns here and tell you to lock down, close your doors, don't let anybody in.

And they flooded this area with police officers. Then, they tightened up even more. They started focusing really on the Watertown area. Saying, this is where we clearly think he is. Yes, there's an element of public safety in here, but there also is clearly a tightening of this net.

How did they do it? Well, they tried to cut down all ways for him to get out of there. What did that mean? That meant they went after things like taxi services, 5,500 taxicab drivers asked to stay out of the area, shutting down on things like the subway and buses in and out.

They had more than 300,000 people who commute in and out every day that way. Then they went after businesses. Fenway Park canceled a ball game today. Many other businesses kept their doors closed, simply to keep people away so essentially the only person on the street would have been the suspect.

Even though there were more, that is the goal in this. More than 130 public schools were closed. A lot of private schools closed, too. And all the universities up in Boston, there are a tremendous number of universities there, like Harvard, MIT, Brandice, Boston University, Boston College, all those closed their doors as well to help out in this effort.

And on it went they cut back on train service. They even shut down the air space over this part of Boston for a while and they stepped up security out at the airport. Now, widen out and look at this. What do we have here, wolf?

What we have is essentially an electronic and physical net that was cast around this whole area, and clearly it was done not only to protect people, but on the belief that this fellow was somehow in the middle, and they had him there. But now as we're getting closer to nightfall, that does not seem to be clear at all.

They're lifting some of these restrictions and that means the net is loosening around there. Clearly they're still looking for him, Wolf. But the position we were in, five, six hours ago, seems to be substantially different as we head toward nightfall -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, once it's get dark, it's about to get dark right now. It's going to be a little bit more difficult, maybe a lot more difficult. We're approaching -- we're at the bottom of the hour right now.

Let me update our viewers who just might be tuning in on the latest developments. Police, they are promising they will catch the surviving suspect in the Boston marathon attack. Here are some of the other late breaking developments.

Authorities now say they believe the 19-year-old still is somewhere in Massachusetts. They warn he's violent and very, very dangerous. The governor says he's lifting the order for Boston area residents to stay indoors. That order has been in effect all day.

Extra police, though, will be patrolling Watertown. That's where Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan, he died after that confrontation. The younger brother escaped on foot, local law enforcement authorities have just told us. Officials do confirm that the two suspects told the driver of a car, they allegedly hijacked last night, that they were in fact, get this, they told this driver allegedly they were the marathon bombers, hard to believe.

But that's what this driver has said. The driver was released. We're also learning a lot more about this 19-year-old suspect who is still at large. CNN's Jim Acosta has been keeping track of what his relatives, other acquaintances are saying, as well as some of the things that we're learning about this 19-year-old, who apparently, what he said about himself on social media. Jim, tell our viewers what you're learning.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, the profile that's emerging of this suspect, a young man who is sort of a mystery. He's been described by his classmates, even some relatives as a friendly student athlete, but one relative, and even the suspect's activities on social media suggest he may have become more radical leading up to the bombing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice-over): The manhunt may be for someone who is just 19 years old, but authorities warn the Boston bombing suspect who is still on the run, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, believed to be wearing the white baseball cap in the surveillance video released by the FBI, who looks even more boyish in this updated photo, should be considered armed and dangerous.

Relatives who haven't been in touch with him can only guess about his motives since he moved to the U.S. over a decade ago and sought asylum with his family. The suspect's uncle who lives in Maryland was asked by reporters what might have provoked Tsarnaev and his brother.

RUSLAN TSARNI, SUSPECT'S UNCLE: I say, Dzhokhar, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness.

ACOSTA: But in tweets on what is believed to Dzhokhar's Twitter account, there is little sign of remorse. Isn't no love in the heart of the city. Stay safe, people. Read one tweet posted after the bombing.

And two days later, I'm a stress-free kind of guy. On what's believed to be his account on a Russian web site, he's described as Islam. His personal priority career and money.

A video posted showing the carnage from the civil war in Syria. U.S. officials say Dzhokhar became a U.S. citizen on September 11th last year and attended high school in Cambridge outside Boston.

He even won a scholarship before enrolling at the Dartmouth campus at the University of Massachusetts. Most friends and teachers say they never saw any signs of trouble.

DEANA BEAULIEU, SUSPECT'S HIGH SCHOOL FRIEND: Regular teenager. I didn't suspect anything. He was on the wrestling team. He went to parties with, you know, other students. He went to the prom.

LARRY AARONSON, SUSPECT'S HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER (via telephone): He was a wonderful kid. We were proud of him. You know, he was an outstanding athlete. There's nothing -- you know, he was never a troublemaker.

ACOSTA: But another friend says one conversation does stand out.

ERIC MERCADO, SUSPECT'S FRIEND (via telephone): A friend of mine, we've been in contact this morning, and he had told me that there was a conversation that him and another close friend of mine had had just recently, maybe six months to a year ago, in regards to terrorism, the act of terror, not being a serious issue if you come from a place that I come from.

ACOSTA: Still, the suspect's father told Russian television he believes his sons were set up.

ANZOR TSARNAEV, SUSPECT'S FATHER (through translator): Someone framed them. I don't know who exactly did it, but someone did. Being cowards, they shot the boy dead. There are cops like this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Now, the mother and aunt of the suspects are also expressing their doubts, in the words of their mother, nobody talked about terrorism, she says in her family. Wolf, getting back to those tweets that were apparently sent out from this Twitter account, that is believed to be the account of the suspect.

He apparently tweeted about the Boston marathon back in August 10th of last year, saying, the Boston marathon isn't a good place to smoke. We're not sure about the context of that or why he might have tweeted that. In fact, he may have tweeted about the Boston marathon last year -- Wolf.

BLITZER: A good place to smoke what? Any indication what that means?

ACOSTA: Does not say anything else besides that. It's just another puzzling piece that is just not stitched together at this point. We just don't know the context of that -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Jim Acosta, thanks very much for that report. We're also learning a lot more about the 26-year-old older brother, who is now dead, fascinating information, just coming in to CNN right now. Stay with us. We'll take a quick break. We'll update you on the dead brother right after this.

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BLITZER: We're just getting this in from Interpol, France, the international law enforcement agency, saying they have -- let me get my microphone, excuse me. The international law enforcement agency in Leon, France, they've issued what they call a global security alert. A global security alert in connection with the Boston marathon bombings, this issued at the request of U.S. law enforcement authorities, Interpol saying they have told all of their law enforcement members across 190-member countries to detect any similarly configured bombs, similar to the bombs that were used at the Boston marathon.

This Interpol, orange notice as it's called, also includes the fingerprints of the two suspects, and other information provided by the FBI. This has been made available to world police authorities.

The decision by the FBI and U.S. authorities, it goes on to explain, Juliette, give us some context what this means. An orange alert by Interpol to search for similarly crafted bombs, as the ones used in the Boston marathon.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN ANALYST: So, while everything seems abnormal today, there are actually normal protocols that go on when this happens in any country. This happened for example after the July 7th attacks in London.

There's a device, people used in the United States, in a city, it goes around to international police organizations and all throughout the world saying, you know, there may be devices that others are planning similarly.

And it does not mean we know there are, it does not mean these two suspects here have relations in other countries, it means only as smart law enforcement, we are going to educate our brothers and sisters throughout the world about what we found here.

This is what Interpol is all about so that lessons can be learned and people can be looking for these kinds of devices.

BLITZER: But we shouldn't draw the conclusion that Interpol is now being -- that there's some sort of international conspiracy behind these two suspects.

KAYYEM: Absolutely not. Interpol is an agency that exists to deliver information throughout the world, to law enforcement agencies, so that lessons learned, best practices can be shared.

This is consistent with what they would do in any case. It seems sort of, you know, something that is abnormal, it's actually quite normal in a big incident like this, where in fact the world is watching.

This was an attack in an urban area during a sporting event. Every city, every country in the world has similar situations, and here's what Boston, here's what the FBI has learned about it so far.

BLITZER: All right, good perspective, Juliette. Thanks so much. We also have new information coming into CNN about the older terror suspect, the one who was killed overnight. He was married, and has a young daughter. CNN's Jill Dougherty has more now on the life of the 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the FBI video, he's the man in the black hat, suspect number one, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, walking ahead of his 19-year-old brother Dzokhar. Tamerlan is now dead, killed in a police shootout, leaving behind dreams of becoming a world class boxer.

In a YouTube page in his name with links to his Islamic web sites, videos from a radical Australian preacher, and rap music. In a photo essay shot by a Boston University student, Tamerlan Tsarnaev is quoted as saying, I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them.

He and his brother are from the Russian caucuses, an area that includes the war-torn Republic of Chechnya and Dagestan. The head master of his school in Dagestan said the family arrived as refugees in 2001 from neighboring Kyrgyzstan.

Then they moved to the U.S. the family claimed asylum. His younger brother came first, authorities say, and became a citizen. Tamerlan followed, and got a green card. His aunt, who lives in Canada, said Friday --

MARET TSARNAEV, SUSPECTS' AUNT: He had a daughter and he was very happy about his daughter.

DOUGHERTY: But police records show he was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend. His father said Tamerlan quit school early to get married. According to a U.S. official, travel records show Tamerlan flew to Russia in January 2012 and returned to the U.S. six months later.

Friday interviewed in Dagestan, his father insisted his sons had nothing to do with the bombing.

TSARNAEV (through translator): Someone framed them. I don't know who exactly did it, but someone did. Being cowards, they shot the boy dead. There are cops like this.

DOUGHERTY: But his uncle in Maryland says, the brothers were losers, who were radicalized.

TSARNI: Being losers, hatred to those who were able to settle themselves. These are the only reasons I can imagine. Anything else to religion with Islam, it's a fraud. It's a fake.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOUGHERTY: And Wolf, in another development, the Russian embassy tells us that right after the attack, President Vladimir Putin of Russia sent a telegram to President Obama, our condolences, but also offering Russia's assistance in any type of investigation. And today, the father of those two suspects did tell CNN that he was questioned by Russian security services and then released -- Wolf. BLITZER: The father being in Dagestan, Jill, you know this area well. That's actually part of Russia. So President Putin would be in charge of that whole area. So if he wants to order the father to be questioned by law enforcement that is easily done in Dagestan.

DOUGHERTY: Right, that's true. And that whole area of Chechnya, again, I think it's important to note that that is a very, and has been for years, a very violent area. And one of the suspects did say, if you had come from a place like that, terrorism might not be that important. So I think that's a significant kind of indication of what we're dealing with.

BLITZER: Jill Dougherty reporting for us. Thanks very much. Michael Bouchard is joining us now, formerly with the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms in Washington, ATF.

What do you make of the latest developments, Mr. Bouchard? Because on the one hand, it's very perplexing that a 19-year-old who runs away on foot from law enforcement in the middle of the night after this exchange with police, the brother, the older brother is killed in the process.

He runs away from the car chase, if you will, and he's still, all those hours later, on the loose, even though thousands of personnel have been searching and searching and searching.

MICHAEL BOUCHARD, FORMER ATF ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Well, Wolf, in a foot chase, it's very tough to set up a perimeter, inner and outer perimeter very quickly, particularly in a remote area. So he had, you know, a good lead on all these officers. They're still trying to call for help, help an injured officer.

As they're trying to sort through all these things, he's running. The advantage they have now is he's been running for 20-plus hours. He's tired. He's scared. He's desperate. He's alone. He has nobody to turn to. So he's going to mistake here sooner or later, which will hopefully nobody else will get hurt before he's caught.

BLITZER: He's obviously in good shape. He was a college wrestler, if you will, 19 years old. So he's a young, healthy guy. So if he wants to run, he can run. But that face of his, everybody -- almost everybody has looked at those pictures, Mr. Bouchard. They know who he is. He presumably can't run very far.

BOUCHARD: I don't think so. Again, he's going to have to make a mistake here soon. Hopefully, he's not holed up somewhere with a hostage or anything like that. But again, he's not going to be able to hide from law enforcement. There's too much pressure. Again, he has nobody else to turn to. He just got himself to rely on.

BLITZER: The great fear though is that he could go down if he's captured or killed in an exchange. If he does have some sort of explosive on his body, a suicide vest or whatever and that's the suggestion that his older brother had that kind of explosives on his body when he was found dead. He could kill people in the process of going down. That's the great that law enforcement has I assume right now.

BOUCHARD: Certainly, that's in the back of the mind of all the courageous officers who were out searching for him. Every door they hit, every car they stop, every person they approach, if you can imagine the tension that they are under when they're approaching these individual.

So again, that's in the back of their minds. They are going to be overly cautious. They're very well trained officers. So, again, that's all the things that they're considering as they're pursuing him.

BLITZER: And that's why law enforcement is insisting, and I want to repeat it right now, if you think you spot this 19-year-old, don't try to apprehend him by yourself. Call 911, call the police. Let them try to do it. He is armed. He is dangerous.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, that's the picture and we'll make sure that you continue to see that picture in case you can find this guy, alert law enforcement. Don't try to do anything yourself. That could be very, very dangerous.

Mr. Bouchard, thanks very much for joining us. Let's take another quick break. When we come back, we're getting reaction from the bombing suspect's mother from surprise to anger and denial. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: We're back. We're watching what's going on. A massive manhunt under way for a 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the two suspects in the Boston marathon bombings. His older brother is dead.

John King, this is your hometown of Boston. You never thought you'd see a day when Boston was shut down like this.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Just now because they lifted this lockdown, if you will. You're starting to see more cars on the street. I just drove out, Wolf, to the edge of Watertown on roads that are usually packed during rush hour. It is largely a ghost town. That was done for good reason.

The officials wanted to have as few people in public as possible for this manhunt that now obviously has been lifted because the police say they are done with their door to door search in that area of Watertown. It's an interesting question now as we try to figure out where the younger brother be, the suspect still at large be.

If you look at that neighborhood, if you look at a map, if he's on foot, the question is where would he go? Is there a warehouse there? There are several churches. There is a big residential area. There also are within a short distance three different ways to get back across the Charles River into Boston.

BLITZER: From Watertown. KING: And the question now police are asking any other stolen car reports, any other carjacking reports, any stolen vehicles of any kind? Because the Massachusetts turnpike is right there as well, if another vehicle is stolen, there is access to hit the turnpike if you go east, you come back into the city.

BLITZER: Hold on one second, I understand that Drew Griffin is picking up something in Watertown.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: I just heard what sounded like multiple assault rifle shots to me. It sounded like police emptying their weapons rapidly fired and then all of a sudden it stopped. We're seeing some police activity.

I'm at Watertown right by the arsenal and school intersection. Now we're seeing lots -- let's turn the camera. We're going to see a lot of the police cars that are flying. We just did hear a series of shots, Wolf. I couldn't tell you how many.

I would say at least a couple of dozen shots fired in rapid succession. It sounded like it came from an automatic police style weapon. I heard the gunfire. Yes, anything else? I'm on with Wolf right now.

I'm only an ear witness to what I heard and all the police cars are now shooting straight down Arsenal Street.

BLITZER: All right, let me bring in Susan Candiotti. She is also on the scene. Drew, stand by for a moment. Susan, what are you hearing? What are you seeing?

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We started hearing some police sirens and then we saw a couple of large police vans go zipping by here. In fact, the back door of one of them was flying wide open. They were gone around the corner really fast.

You're starting to see some movement. I don't see anyone running any of these police officers, however, but people seem to be at a little more attention than they were before. It's just odd. We don't know why this happened.

We don't know whether they're responding to a possible sighting or exactly. We don't have any information about it yet. But I tell you, everyone's heartbeat started pumping a little bit faster.

We're seeing some officers walking now -- you can see with their weapons out now and we're trying to figure out what's happening here, of course. But certainly things stepped up a little bit. I want to stress, I don't see all these police officers suddenly standing in attention.

But there is certainly a pickup in the air around here. And this, after they just announced that it's OK for residents here to come out a little bit and I was just talking to some people that were saying they're happy to hear it. But they're still nervous about it.

BLITZER: Drew, go ahead. Tell us what you're hearing now.

GRIFFIN: I lost audio, guys.

BLITZER: All right, unfortunately, Drew can't hear me. But basically what he's been reporting, he heard gun shots, maybe two dozen gun shots just moments ago. Susan Candiotti, did you hear the gun shots as well?

CANDIOTTI: Not sure I heard people starting to scream and to yell. I couldn't hear what prompted that. There was a lot of commotion over in this area. We just saw more police vehicles with their lights going, zipping by here a little while ago, too.

I'm going to try to get over here and try to find out from some of the officers what's happening if I can. And then I can zip back over here, but I've got to disengage to do that. I think I'm going to do that and see what I can find out. As we continue to hear more sirens. I'll be right back.

BLITZER: All right, stand by. Here is the tape of when drew heard those gun shots fired in Watertown. Listen to this and watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN: Hearing that? Guys, roll on it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, you can hear the gun shots and we're seeing a lot of activity here in Boston as well. People are moving a whole bunch of people are moving right now. I don't know what's going on, but we did hear the gun shots. You heard -- you saw the look on Drew Griffin's face when those gun shots went off.

This is a dramatic moment that's going on right now. We don't know what's going on. I want to be precise as far as gunshots are concerned, but clearly Drew Griffin in Watertown. Drew Griffin in Watertown did hear those gun shots. We clearly had the tape, the audio. You can make that out.

We'll stay on top of this story. CNN will continue our breaking story and we're going to be watching what's going on. There are two reporters in Watertown now. If we have, want to get the latest from them.