In a split second terrorism returned to America.
MAN: We’ve had an attack, oh my God. My God.
WOMAN: I mean, there were just families all around us with kids. I mean yelling and screaming and, I mean, we just wanted to try and get away as quick as possible
MAN 2: I just walked away. 15-20 feet away and a bomb went off and it knocked me to the ground.
MAN 3: They were pretty big explosions. There was a lot of blood everywhere.
STEVE HEITKAMP, FORMER NYPD COUNTER-TERRORISM: When you attack the Boston Marathon, you are not attacking a military target, you are not attacking a political target. You are attacking innocent civilians, children.
ALMUT ROCHOWANSKI, CHECHNYA ADVOCACY NETWORK: In the back of my mind I thought it may come.
First responders rushed to the finish line of the Boston Marathon to find three dead and almost 200 wounded.
BARACK OBAMA, US PRESIDENT: We still do not know who did this or why and people shouldn't jump to conclusions before we have all the facts. But, make no mistake - we will get to the bottom of this and we will find out who did this, we'll find out why they did this. Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups will feel the full weight of justice.
And so began the first and perhaps strangest phase in tracking down the killers - a digital man-hunt.
STEVE HEITKAMP: We learnt a lot of lessons from 9/11 particularly about information and how to access and process it, how to use it. The other problem is that there's so much more information being produced so actually narrowing down on the right information is incredibly challenging.
For the first time the public was seeing almost everything the authorities were seeing. Social media exploded with gossip, theories and tip-offs - both credible and fanciful.
BRIAN MERCHANT, EDITOR, MOTHERBOARD ONLINE: I don't think that there's ever been a national crime story that has been so influenced by social media both in the way that we consume information about it, and directly influencing the narrative as it's unfolding. Social media groups like Read It are coming up with suspects on their own and the FBI is then forced to respond to that and it's actually shaping the way that we are processing who is guilty or conceiving of this entire sort of mess that is unfolding before our eyes.
Thousands of amateur sleuths congregated in online forums, determined to find the bombers themselves by crowd sourcing, forensics.
BRIAN MERCHANT: It emerged very quickly that the bomb was most likely detonated inside of a backpack. So it was Read It and other groups started to look for suspicious-looking people with backpacks and that could be anyone.
What began with good intentions soon turned into a witch-hunt, and innocent bystanders at the parade ended up being named as suspects in the court of public opinion and even on the front page of a national newspaper.
BRIAN MERCHANT: And he saw his photo on the front page of Read It and on the New York Post and immediately rushed to the Police Department to turn himself in saying "No, I'm innocent, I was here. I'll tell you anything you want to know."
Meanwhile, mourning of the victims began in earnest, remembrances of an 8-year-old boy, a 29-year-old restaurant worker and a Chinese university student. The President and First Lady soon came to Boston to pay their respects.
BARACK OBAMA: And so we come together to pray and mourn and measure our loss….
The nation had settled in for a long wait for answers, but then a sudden FBI announcement on Thursday afternoon.
OFFICIAL: Good afternoon, today we are listing the public's help to identify the two suspects. After a very detailed analysis of photo, video and other evidence we are releasing photos of these two suspects. They are identified as Suspect 1 and Suspect 2. They appear to be associated. Suspect 1 is wearing a dark hat. Suspect 2 is wearing a white hat. Suspect 2 set down a backpack at the site of the second explosion, in front of the Forum Restaurant. We consider them to be armed and extremely dangerous. No-one should approach them. No-one should attempt to apprehend them, except law enforcement.
Now the real man-hunt was on - a battle of wits and weapons that would soon claim another life, an MIT police officer shot and killed by the two men on the run.
POLICE OFFICER: A police officer, a young man starting a career at MIT...
The young officer had been ambushed in his car. The two men, their identities still unknown hijacked a Mercedes SUV, threatening the driver but eventually setting him free after talking of their plans to move on to New York. But before that can happen, the men get caught in a fierce shoot-out with the police in the suburb of Watertown.
GIRL: There's explosions and gunfire going on down the street.
The elder of the two suspects is fatally wounded in the squirmish, the younger escaping in the vehicle, into the night. By morning they are being identified as brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Although Tamerlan Tsarnaev had lived in the US for many years, those who know the community say he was still resoundingly Chechen.
ALMUT ROCHOWANSKI: The way he looked and presented himself, the fact he engaged in boxing and treated and related to his girlfriend and wife. He's so Chechen to me, he is like a prototypical young Chechen male. If I saw him walking down the street he wouldn't be out of place, he would be like every young Chechen man there. The younger brother not at all, the younger brother looks, presents, lives, sounds like an American kid.
PROFESSOR KAREN GREENBERG, NATIONAL SECURITY: There have been a number of individuals who have come from abroad who have trouble - I think they have trouble knowing where their home is, knowing where their national home is and you see it come up in terrorism prosecution transcript after terrorism prosecution transcript.
Echos of this explanation were startlingly apparent when the suspects uncle publicly denounced his nephews.
UNCLE: I say, what I think was behind it, being losers, not being able to settle themselves, and thereby just hating everyone who did.
The younger brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar was an all-star wrestler, a well adjusted and well liked kid by all reports. At home he may have been under intense pressure.
ALMUT ROCHOWANSKI: In Chechen society and many other North Caucuses societies, relationships inside the family are very different from ours here. They are hierarchical, older brothers have a formal authority over their younger siblings. Younger brothers all of their lives have to be loyal and obey their older brothers and respect them, and show them loyalty.
With Dzhokhar still on the loose, the people of Boston awoke to scenes they could have never imagined.
SOLDIER: This is our garage right now. What the hell.
Authorities had placed the city under lockdown.
CIVILIAN: Our doors are locked, our windows and shades are drawn. It's really desolate.
SOLDIER: Ladies and gentlemen, you have to pack up. Everyone has to back up.
With the streets cleared of civilians, heavily armed police methodically worked their way from house to house in the hunt for Dzhokhar.
UNCLE: I say Dzhokhar, if you are alive turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness.
STEVE HEITKAMP: What is particularly interesting is how locked down things were. Everyone I knew was staying at home - was waiting for news that they should be moving around.
When that permission finally came, a Boston resident went out to his backyard and discovered traces of blood and his boat's tarpaulin partially undone. Thermal imaging confirmed someone was hiding inside.
PROFESSOR KAREN GREENBERG: Then the next thing we saw was the shoot-out. You heard the shoot-out, which we are not used to hearing shoot-outs, and the idea that there can be a war-like incident, and then this idea of is he alive or dead? Is he in the boat? That was a very interesting point because what you wanted was this individual to be alive.
Dzhokhar was indeed captured alive. He was taken to hospital with a bullet wound to the neck and authorities believe it may have been self-inflicted. The celebrations were spontaneous and loud and fuelled by sheer relief.
MAN: America can go to bed tonight? I’m happy my family can go, you know, go to sleep without worrying about some crazy terrorist on the loose in the town.
WOMAN: It's been really difficult to breathe.
While there were celebrations in Boston, the revelation that the FBI had investigated Tamerlan Tsarnaev two years ago has sparked anger from some American Law makers.
LINDSEY GRAHAM, REPUBLICAN SENATOR: The ball was dropped in one of two ways. The FBI missed a lot of things is one potential answer or our laws do not allow the FBI to follow up in a sound solid way. There was a lot to be learnt from this guy, he was on websites talking about killing Americans.
As investigators searched for clues about the radicalisation of the brothers, a link on Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Facebook page has led them to a controversial Sydney cleric. NSW counter terrorism authorities have questioned the Sheikh, but say they do not consider him to be a person of concern but many questions remain for the FBI.
STEVE HEITKAMP: We'll see in the coming weeks and months whether or not there was a failure involved, and whether there was something else they could have or should have done to see the back story. I'm sure in the calculations whether or not to proceed with an investigation, someone sat down and thought okay "Do we have an ability to access this individual who may have these ties and if we don't, how do we cultivate that, how do we get a source? What do we have to do in order to get the information we need?" and that can be an incredibly long process, and developing a really good source overnight.
ALMUT ROCHOWANSKI: The FBI contacted me quite a few years ago from headquarters, just to talk about the Chechen community and then some of their local officers in some other states purged people from the Chechen community to do community outreach. I want to say to sort of the older informants in the community, but there's not always a community. Not everyone you talk to will be an informant and then they stopped.
PROFESSOR KAREN GREENBERG: We need to give more thought on how to help these individuals at an earlier stage and how to understand what their problems are and I'm not saying this from the point of view of "Let's think about the victim." Society is the victim of these individuals when they grow up, become violent and harm the rest of us. It's important we understand that we need to have a safety net ahead of time.
In the coming weeks the Boston Marathon bombing will be woven into the complex tale of America's ongoing war on terror - the testimony of the surviving suspect may change America's approach to preventing attacks like this in the future. One chapter on the war on terror is closed. Another set to open.
ANJALI RAO: Aaron Lewis with that report, which was produced by Aaron Thomas. The bedside court that I mentioned at the start of the story saw the 19-year-old survivor suspected of the bombing, charged with using a weapon of mass destruction. If convicted the penalties include death or life in prison.
Reporter/Camera/Editor
AARON LEWIS
Producer
AARON THOMAS
Fixers
ARIKIA MILLIKAN
GEORGE LERNER
Additional Camera/Editing
AARON THOMAS
Original Music Composed by VICKI HANSEN
MAN: We’ve had an attack, oh my God. My God.
WOMAN: I mean, there were just families all around us with kids. I mean yelling and screaming and, I mean, we just wanted to try and get away as quick as possible
MAN 2: I just walked away. 15-20 feet away and a bomb went off and it knocked me to the ground.
MAN 3: They were pretty big explosions. There was a lot of blood everywhere.
STEVE HEITKAMP, FORMER NYPD COUNTER-TERRORISM: When you attack the Boston Marathon, you are not attacking a military target, you are not attacking a political target. You are attacking innocent civilians, children.
ALMUT ROCHOWANSKI, CHECHNYA ADVOCACY NETWORK: In the back of my mind I thought it may come.
First responders rushed to the finish line of the Boston Marathon to find three dead and almost 200 wounded.
BARACK OBAMA, US PRESIDENT: We still do not know who did this or why and people shouldn't jump to conclusions before we have all the facts. But, make no mistake - we will get to the bottom of this and we will find out who did this, we'll find out why they did this. Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups will feel the full weight of justice.
And so began the first and perhaps strangest phase in tracking down the killers - a digital man-hunt.
STEVE HEITKAMP: We learnt a lot of lessons from 9/11 particularly about information and how to access and process it, how to use it. The other problem is that there's so much more information being produced so actually narrowing down on the right information is incredibly challenging.
For the first time the public was seeing almost everything the authorities were seeing. Social media exploded with gossip, theories and tip-offs - both credible and fanciful.
BRIAN MERCHANT, EDITOR, MOTHERBOARD ONLINE: I don't think that there's ever been a national crime story that has been so influenced by social media both in the way that we consume information about it, and directly influencing the narrative as it's unfolding. Social media groups like Read It are coming up with suspects on their own and the FBI is then forced to respond to that and it's actually shaping the way that we are processing who is guilty or conceiving of this entire sort of mess that is unfolding before our eyes.
Thousands of amateur sleuths congregated in online forums, determined to find the bombers themselves by crowd sourcing, forensics.
BRIAN MERCHANT: It emerged very quickly that the bomb was most likely detonated inside of a backpack. So it was Read It and other groups started to look for suspicious-looking people with backpacks and that could be anyone.
What began with good intentions soon turned into a witch-hunt, and innocent bystanders at the parade ended up being named as suspects in the court of public opinion and even on the front page of a national newspaper.
BRIAN MERCHANT: And he saw his photo on the front page of Read It and on the New York Post and immediately rushed to the Police Department to turn himself in saying "No, I'm innocent, I was here. I'll tell you anything you want to know."
Meanwhile, mourning of the victims began in earnest, remembrances of an 8-year-old boy, a 29-year-old restaurant worker and a Chinese university student. The President and First Lady soon came to Boston to pay their respects.
BARACK OBAMA: And so we come together to pray and mourn and measure our loss….
The nation had settled in for a long wait for answers, but then a sudden FBI announcement on Thursday afternoon.
OFFICIAL: Good afternoon, today we are listing the public's help to identify the two suspects. After a very detailed analysis of photo, video and other evidence we are releasing photos of these two suspects. They are identified as Suspect 1 and Suspect 2. They appear to be associated. Suspect 1 is wearing a dark hat. Suspect 2 is wearing a white hat. Suspect 2 set down a backpack at the site of the second explosion, in front of the Forum Restaurant. We consider them to be armed and extremely dangerous. No-one should approach them. No-one should attempt to apprehend them, except law enforcement.
Now the real man-hunt was on - a battle of wits and weapons that would soon claim another life, an MIT police officer shot and killed by the two men on the run.
POLICE OFFICER: A police officer, a young man starting a career at MIT...
The young officer had been ambushed in his car. The two men, their identities still unknown hijacked a Mercedes SUV, threatening the driver but eventually setting him free after talking of their plans to move on to New York. But before that can happen, the men get caught in a fierce shoot-out with the police in the suburb of Watertown.
GIRL: There's explosions and gunfire going on down the street.
The elder of the two suspects is fatally wounded in the squirmish, the younger escaping in the vehicle, into the night. By morning they are being identified as brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Although Tamerlan Tsarnaev had lived in the US for many years, those who know the community say he was still resoundingly Chechen.
ALMUT ROCHOWANSKI: The way he looked and presented himself, the fact he engaged in boxing and treated and related to his girlfriend and wife. He's so Chechen to me, he is like a prototypical young Chechen male. If I saw him walking down the street he wouldn't be out of place, he would be like every young Chechen man there. The younger brother not at all, the younger brother looks, presents, lives, sounds like an American kid.
PROFESSOR KAREN GREENBERG, NATIONAL SECURITY: There have been a number of individuals who have come from abroad who have trouble - I think they have trouble knowing where their home is, knowing where their national home is and you see it come up in terrorism prosecution transcript after terrorism prosecution transcript.
Echos of this explanation were startlingly apparent when the suspects uncle publicly denounced his nephews.
UNCLE: I say, what I think was behind it, being losers, not being able to settle themselves, and thereby just hating everyone who did.
The younger brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar was an all-star wrestler, a well adjusted and well liked kid by all reports. At home he may have been under intense pressure.
ALMUT ROCHOWANSKI: In Chechen society and many other North Caucuses societies, relationships inside the family are very different from ours here. They are hierarchical, older brothers have a formal authority over their younger siblings. Younger brothers all of their lives have to be loyal and obey their older brothers and respect them, and show them loyalty.
With Dzhokhar still on the loose, the people of Boston awoke to scenes they could have never imagined.
SOLDIER: This is our garage right now. What the hell.
Authorities had placed the city under lockdown.
CIVILIAN: Our doors are locked, our windows and shades are drawn. It's really desolate.
SOLDIER: Ladies and gentlemen, you have to pack up. Everyone has to back up.
With the streets cleared of civilians, heavily armed police methodically worked their way from house to house in the hunt for Dzhokhar.
UNCLE: I say Dzhokhar, if you are alive turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness.
STEVE HEITKAMP: What is particularly interesting is how locked down things were. Everyone I knew was staying at home - was waiting for news that they should be moving around.
When that permission finally came, a Boston resident went out to his backyard and discovered traces of blood and his boat's tarpaulin partially undone. Thermal imaging confirmed someone was hiding inside.
PROFESSOR KAREN GREENBERG: Then the next thing we saw was the shoot-out. You heard the shoot-out, which we are not used to hearing shoot-outs, and the idea that there can be a war-like incident, and then this idea of is he alive or dead? Is he in the boat? That was a very interesting point because what you wanted was this individual to be alive.
Dzhokhar was indeed captured alive. He was taken to hospital with a bullet wound to the neck and authorities believe it may have been self-inflicted. The celebrations were spontaneous and loud and fuelled by sheer relief.
MAN: America can go to bed tonight? I’m happy my family can go, you know, go to sleep without worrying about some crazy terrorist on the loose in the town.
WOMAN: It's been really difficult to breathe.
While there were celebrations in Boston, the revelation that the FBI had investigated Tamerlan Tsarnaev two years ago has sparked anger from some American Law makers.
LINDSEY GRAHAM, REPUBLICAN SENATOR: The ball was dropped in one of two ways. The FBI missed a lot of things is one potential answer or our laws do not allow the FBI to follow up in a sound solid way. There was a lot to be learnt from this guy, he was on websites talking about killing Americans.
As investigators searched for clues about the radicalisation of the brothers, a link on Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Facebook page has led them to a controversial Sydney cleric. NSW counter terrorism authorities have questioned the Sheikh, but say they do not consider him to be a person of concern but many questions remain for the FBI.
STEVE HEITKAMP: We'll see in the coming weeks and months whether or not there was a failure involved, and whether there was something else they could have or should have done to see the back story. I'm sure in the calculations whether or not to proceed with an investigation, someone sat down and thought okay "Do we have an ability to access this individual who may have these ties and if we don't, how do we cultivate that, how do we get a source? What do we have to do in order to get the information we need?" and that can be an incredibly long process, and developing a really good source overnight.
ALMUT ROCHOWANSKI: The FBI contacted me quite a few years ago from headquarters, just to talk about the Chechen community and then some of their local officers in some other states purged people from the Chechen community to do community outreach. I want to say to sort of the older informants in the community, but there's not always a community. Not everyone you talk to will be an informant and then they stopped.
PROFESSOR KAREN GREENBERG: We need to give more thought on how to help these individuals at an earlier stage and how to understand what their problems are and I'm not saying this from the point of view of "Let's think about the victim." Society is the victim of these individuals when they grow up, become violent and harm the rest of us. It's important we understand that we need to have a safety net ahead of time.
In the coming weeks the Boston Marathon bombing will be woven into the complex tale of America's ongoing war on terror - the testimony of the surviving suspect may change America's approach to preventing attacks like this in the future. One chapter on the war on terror is closed. Another set to open.
ANJALI RAO: Aaron Lewis with that report, which was produced by Aaron Thomas. The bedside court that I mentioned at the start of the story saw the 19-year-old survivor suspected of the bombing, charged with using a weapon of mass destruction. If convicted the penalties include death or life in prison.
Reporter/Camera/Editor
AARON LEWIS
Producer
AARON THOMAS
Fixers
ARIKIA MILLIKAN
GEORGE LERNER
Additional Camera/Editing
AARON THOMAS
Original Music Composed by VICKI HANSEN