A Boston jury has found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 21, guilty on all counts related to the 2013 bombings of the Boston Marathon. The twin bombings, carried out with his older brother, Tamerlan, killed three people and left 264 others wounded. The jury convicted Tsarnaev on all charges, ranging from carjacking to using a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death. Seventeen of the 30 counts can carry the death penalty, and that is the goal of the justice system in this case.
The bombings occurred on April 15, 2013, the two-year anniversary happening now. At 2:49 pm, two bombs made out of pressure cookers exploded about 12 seconds and 210 yards apart, near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Boylston Street. Three people were instantly killed and 264 others were injured or hospitalized. The FBI took over the investigation and not but three days later had surveillance of the two men, and later that day they were identified as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Shortly after the FBI released the images, the suspects killed an MIT policeman, carjacked an SUV, and initiated an exchange of gunfire with the police in Watertown, Massachusetts. During the firefight, a police officer was injured but survived with severe blood loss. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot several times in the firefight and Dzhokhar ran him over with the stolen SUV in his escape. Tamerlan was pronounced dead at the scene. The next day, April 19, 2013, around 7:00pm, Dzhokhar was found by a Watertown resident in a boat in her backyard. Using thermal imaging, the FBI was able to shoot him, arrest him, and take him to a hospital. He told police that his late brother was the mastermind of the whole thing and that they were influenced by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and extremist Islamic beliefs.
Next will come the sentencing phase in which the jury will weigh the death penalty.
After hearing the verdict come down from the Federal courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, Governor Charlie Baker stated that he thinks the death penalty would be very much appropriate. During the trial, prosecutors argued that Tsarnaev was cold and calculating. “There was nothing about this day that was a twist of fate,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Aloke Chakravarty told the jurors during closing arguments. “This was a cold, calculated terrorist act. This was intentional. It was bloodthirsty. It was to make a point. It was to tell America that ‘We will not be terrorized by you anymore. We will terrorize you.’” Tsarnaev’s defense attorneys never denied that Tsarnaev participated in the bombings, but they argued that he was under the strong influence of his brother.The jury reached its verdict after deliberating for a little more than a day.
Nothing has been announced about what sentencing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will receive, but seventeen of the charges he is being faced with and has been pronounced guilty for are punishable by the death penalty. Only time will tell what is in store for the man who created so much chaos on April 15, 2013, and the days following.