2 likely planned more attacks, police say

Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis (left) and Superintendents William Evans and Kevin Buckley carry the “Gifts” to the altar during Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Sunday in Boston. Prayers were said for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings and the subsequent manhunt and for fi rst responders.
Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis (left) and Superintendents William Evans and Kevin Buckley carry the “Gifts” to the altar during Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Sunday in Boston. Prayers were said for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings and the subsequent manhunt and for fi rst responders.

WASHINGTON - Investigators believe the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing were likely planning other attacks based on the cache of weapons uncovered, the city’s police commissioner said Sunday.

Commissioner Ed Davis told CBS’ Face the Nation that authorities found an arsenal of homemade explosives after a gun battle between police and the suspects in the Boston suburb of Watertown early Friday.

“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,” Davis said. “That’s my belief at this point.”

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that government investigators had still not determined what motivated the suspected Boston bombers, or whether they had direct ties to terrorist organizations.

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A series of explosions at the Boston Marathon killed two people and injured several on April 15, 2013.

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“We don’t know all the facts,” he said before landing in Jerusalem on Sunday to begin a week of negotiations in the region.

One suspect, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was fatally wounded in the gun battle, and his brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar, escaped, authorities said. The two threw explosive devices at police in their getaway attempt, authorities said.

“There were over 250 rounds of extended ammunition that was found at the scene. This was a five- to 10-minute gun battle that occurred there, punctuated by loud explosions,” Davis said, adding that the explosive devices were homemade.

The scene was loaded with unexploded bombs, and authorities had to alert arriving officers to them and clear the scene, Davis said. One improvised explosive device was found in the Mercedes the brothers are accused of carjacking, he said.

“This was as dangerous as it gets in urban policing,” Davis said.

He said on Fox News Sunday that authorities cannot be positive there aren’t more explosives that haven’t been found. But the people of Boston are safe, he said.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured Friday evening while hiding in a boat in Watertown after an extensive manhunt. He is hospitalized in serious condition, using a breathing tube, and has been unable to communicate with authorities.

In all, more than 50 people remain hospitalized in the region.

“We don’t know if we will ever be able to question the individual,” Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said.

The authorities said Sunday that they believed that Tsarnaev had tried to kill himself, based on the extent of the gunshot wound to his neck.

The injury “had the appearance of a close-range, self-inflicted style,” a senior law enforcement official said. “He’s not in good shape.”

Davis said shots were fired from the boat, but investigators haven’t determined where the gunfire was aimed.

As prosecutors worked to complete the criminal complaint against the younger Tsarnaev that will detail the charges, hundreds of police detectives and FBI agents - including members of the Joint Terrorist Task Force in Boston, along with nearly 250 agents from 24 of the FBI’s 56 field offices - continued to work on the investigation, officials said.

Their efforts included analyzing records from the brothers’ phones and computers, searching their browsing histories to find associates and witnesses and extremist group affiliations. The agents also scoured the brothers’ credit-card records and other material seized from their apartment and car for evidence of bomb components, the backpacks used or any other evidence that could tie them to the bombings last Monday or the shootings later in the week.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is tracing the weapons to try to determine how they were obtained by the suspects.

This photo released Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows a suspect that officials identified as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, being sought by police in the Boston Marathon bombings Monday.
This photo released Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows a suspect that officials identified as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, being sought by police in the Boston Marathon bombings Monday.

Federal Public Defender Miriam Conrad said her office will represent Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. She has represented other defendants in terrorism-related cases, including Rezwan Ferdaus, a 27-year-old man who is serving a 17-year sentence for terrorism conspiracy.

Meanwhile, several lawmakers on Sunday said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be tried in federal court as a civilian, a move that would allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

“I hope he’s brought to trial in federal court. He will get a fair trial,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a military lawyer for 30 years, said. “The public defender assigned to him should vigorously defend this young man because he or she will be helping America.”

Graham said that prosecutors should leave open the possibility that Tsarnaev should be treated as an enemy combatant in order to question him for a lengthy period without a lawyer and outside the criminal justice system, intensifying a recurring debate over how to handle terrorism cases arising inside the United States.

Under the public safety exemption, Graham said, Tsarnaev can be questioned without having his Miranda rights read to him.

“When the public safety exception expires, and it will here soon, this man, in my view, should be designated as a potential enemy combatant, and we should be allowed to question him for intelligence-gathering purposes to find out about future attacks and terrorist organizations that may exist that he has knowledge of,” he said. “And that evidence cannot be used against him in trial.”

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., agreed that investigators should question Tsarnaev without the presence of a lawyer, but he said that there was no need to designate him an enemy combatant in order to do so.

“I think that the good news is we don’t need enemy combatant to get all the information we need out of him. No. 1, the court, the one court that has ruled has allowed a lot of flexibility in the public safety exception before you Mirandize somebody,” Schumer said. “But second, at any time, what’s called a HIG, a High-Value Interrogation Group, composed of the FBI, CIA and anyone else, can question him without a lawyer in a secured situation and find out whatever they need.”

He also said the information gathered during this questioning could not be used in a trial.

But Schumer said there was overwhelming evidence implicating the suspect and they would not need a confession to convict.

“Given the facts that I’ve seen, it would be appropriate to use the death penalty in this case, and I hope they would apply it in federal court,” he said. Massachusetts does not have the death penalty.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the chairman and a senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee, sent letters to the directors of three of the nation’s leading intelligence-gathering agencies that called the FBI’s handling of the case “an intelligence failure.”

They said Tamerlan Tsarnaev was the fifth man suspected of committing terrorism while under investigation by the bureau. Agents had questioned him in 2011, and last year he left on a 6½-month trip overseas, primarily to Russia.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a former FBI agent, strongly defended the bureau’s work. He also said he believed the older brother traveled to Russia under an alias.

“They had information from a foreign intelligence service that they were concerned about his possible radicalization,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “The FBI did their due diligence and did a very thorough job of trying to run that down, and then asked some more help from that intelligence service to try to get further clarification, and unfortunately that intelligence service stopped cooperating.”

In other developments, doctors say the Boston transit police officer wounded in a shootout with the suspects had lost nearly all his blood and his heart had stopped from a single gunshot wound that severed three major blood vessels in his right thigh.

Surgeons at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge say 33-year-old Richard Donohue is in stable but critical condition. He is sedated and on a breathing machine but opened his eyes, moved his hands and feet, and squeezed his wife’s hand Sunday.

Doctors say he is expected to make a full recovery and that nerves and muscles in his leg are intact.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is asking residents to observe a moment of silence today at the time the first of two bombs exploded near the finish line.

The one-minute silent tribute to victims is scheduled for 2:50 p.m. EDT and will be followed by the ringing of bells in Boston and elsewhere in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, thousands of New Yorkers donned “I Run for Boston” bibs during a 4-mile run Sunday in Central Park, one of a number of races held around the world in support of the victims of the marathon bombings.

More than 500 runners gathered in St. Louis on Saturday for a Unity Run. In San Francisco, about 400 people ran four miles along the Embarcadero on Friday. In Michigan, runners braved sub-freezing temperatures and a partly flooded course Sunday for the Lansing Marathon, which was dedicated to the Boston victims.

Sunday’s London Marathon started with tributes to the Boston victims and a moment of silence. The London event was the first major race since the twin bombings.

Information for this article was contributed by Karen Mathews and Marilynn Marchione of The Associated Press; by Marc Santora, William K. Rashbaum, Ethan Bronner, Thom Shanker, Brian Knowlton, Charlie Savage and Michael S. Schmidt of The New York Times; and by Janelle Lawrence, David McLaughlin and Angela Zimm of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/22/2013

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