Alternate Route, Part I
April 28, 2013
On April 15, 2013 on Boylston street in Boston Massachusetts, Dzhokhar, age 19, and Tamerlan Tsarneaev, age 26, allegedly planted two bombs injuring a reported 282 people additionally killing three people:
Krystle Marie Campbell, 29, Lü Lingzi, 23 and Martin William Richard, an eight-year-old boy. May they rest in peace and Justice be served in their names.
I have found it quite challenging to find all of the facts on this story in one place, so I will try to put them in a chronological order with logical reasoning. While this post is not a conspiracy pot (and never will be) there are details that hit the “mind-boggling” level on the stupidity meter. I feel the questions need to be raised. Even if a direct answer is not formed, knowing the holes in cases like this is important.
Monday, April 15, 2013: After the two brothers set off the bombs at the Boston Marathon, they went into hiding. As police and FBI reviewed images from security cameras of nearby buildings, they came up with two suspects. Upon the release of these images that following Thursday, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan fled Boston, shot and killed an MIT campus police officer, carjacked a Mercedes SUV and wound up in Watertown, MA. where the Tsarneaev brothers had a shootout with police. Tamerlan was killed and Dzhokhar briefly escaped only to be found hiding in a Watertown resident’s boat.
The materials used in the bombing were simple: pressure cookers filled with gun powder, nails and ball bearings, to insure maximum damage. When Dzhokhar’s and Tamerlan’s pictures were made public, they were merely suspects. They were picked out of several still images that were captured from surrounding stores. An enlarged image was able to show that both Dzhokhar and Tamerlan had large back packs that seemed to be full and sagging heavily. These pictures are widely available on the internet, but here are two of them:
Thursday, April 18, 2013:
In the midst of all of this, you might have heard that Dzhokhar and Tamerlan robbed a 7/11 in between the Boston bombings and the MIT shootout. At first it was widely reported by major news organizations, but now few stories remain regarding the 7/11 robbery. This part of their rampage has seemingly been misreported, yet curiously forgotten at the same time. USA Today has been the only popular news source to even address the correction. Other news sources have pulled their initial reports altogether. This was the image that was released upon the first reports of the 7/11 robbery:
USA Today reported that “Margaret Chabris, the director of corporate communication at 7- Eleven, says the surveillance video (the picture above) of the crime was not taken at a 7-Eleven and that the suspect that did rob the 7-Eleven does not look like Tamerlan or Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.”
So not only did they not rob the 7/11, the picture widely released (initially) is NOT EVEN FROM A 7/11! It would be reasonable to place blame for the robbery on two terrorists, but the problem here is the media. This story was WIDELY reported at first, and then pulled because they figured out it was a wild goose chase. Where is the fact checking? Apparently, it’s better to pretend that you didn’t run a story than it is to accept responsibility and correct yourself. So, the story was pulled altogether. But that doesn’t answer the question of where the picture comes from, because the picture clearly shows Dzhokhar in some store wearing the same sweat shirt he was wearing when he was eventually caught (see below). So, for now, why this 7/11 story was run and where the picture comes from remains a loose end.
While we don’t know for sure who robbed the 7/11, mistakes in reporting can be common and even more common in hysterical times such as these, but why bother pulling almost ALL of the news reports regarding the 7/11 robbery? Why not just correct the reporting as USA Today did?
Logical reasoning would say that it would make sense for the Tsarneaev brothers to keep a low profile by not robbing anything, let alone the 7/11 in Cambridge, minutes from Boston. On a separate, but related note, why didn’t Margaret Chabris ever release a surveillance photo the correct suspect? Little things like that tend to raise eyebrows.
Looking at this map, it doesn’t make much sense to rob a 7/11 in Cambridge after detonating two bombs in Boston a few days earlier.
(Point A (green), Watertown, MA. where Dzhokhar is found in a resident’s boat. B - Red point, Cambridge and 7/11 location. East of Cambridge is Boston.)
Later that Thursday night, around 10:30 PM, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan shot and killed MIT campus police office Sean Collier.
“Collier’s shooting sparked the bloody, bizarre chain of events — authorities say they carjacked a Mercedes SUV in Cambridge, then tossed bombs and traded gunfire with cops during a furious shootout in Watertown — that ended in the death of suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and led to the daylong manhunt and eventual capture of his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19.” - Boston Herald
Here, we run into another problem with the stories being reported. Reportedly, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan carjacked a Chinese-American citizen (who no one has heard from or interviewed) of his Mercedes SUV. If he is worried about his anonymity (a legitimate concern) they have makeup artists, voice modulators and blackouts for interviews in cases like this. People have a right to know this man’s story. Because as of now, it just seems to fit the story's purpose. Aside from that, the timing of all of this is important, at what time did they “toss bombs and trade gunfire” after the carjacking?
The timing is relevant because one of the brothers apparently found the time to stop at an ATM.
This image taken from surveillance video provided by the Boston Regional Intelligence Center shows Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev at a Bank of America ATM in Watertown, Mass. at 11:18 p.m. on April 18, 2013.
As you can see from this picture, captured from an ATM camera, the younger brother is wearing the same shirt that he was pictured wearing during the supposed 7/11 robbery (notice the yellow diagonal stripes on his right).
Note: the sweatshirt in both pictures is consistence with the picture taken when he was captured in Watertown, MA (below).
Back to the carjacking, “Police sources told the Globe that the carjack victim has told police that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, pointed guns at him and, in an apparent effort to intimidate the victim and dissuade him from trying anything foolish, Tamerlan Tsarnaev told him, “We just killed a cop. We blew up the marathon. And now we’re going to New York. Don’t [expletive] with us.”
When suspects just come right out and say things like to witness no one knows exist, it really helps confirm the police reports.
::End Sarcasm::
“The carjacking took place in Allston shortly after, police say, the Tsarnaevs ambushed Collier as he sat in his cruiser in Cambridge.”
More good news for the police reports came when Boston.com reported, “According to the official, the bombers repeatedly told the carjack victim that they were going to New York, which is why they used his ATM card at various locations: they needed cash for the trip.”
How wonderful, everything is falling into place just like an NCIS episode.
Of course details are still being learned and new evidence being found, but the very idea that many mainstream news groups simply take a story and run with it, so to speak, is quite frightening. If it wasn’t clear before, it should be clear now: Fact checking is outdated and whatever is entertaining enough to sell goes on the shelf (or web in our case). Don’t enough conspiracy stories and blogs exist that we should be able to rely on popular news sources. After all, if they aren’t reliable and interested in fact checking, why are they so popular?
