Genocide Commemoration at State House Cancelled
WATERTOWN, Mass. (A.W.)—On April 19, residents of Watertown woke up to a state of emergency, with SWAT teams going door to door searching for one of the suspects of the Boston Marathon bombings. The suspect, identified today as 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev of Cambridge, went on a violent rampage together with the second suspect, identified as his brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan, terrorizing Cambridge and Watertown.
After an MIT police officer was gunned down around 11:45 p.m. on April 18, police went on a wild manhunt. After carjacking, the suspects drove to Watertown, where police caught up with them, but not before they dropped bags of what reports described as grenades. After exchanging gunfire, Tamerlan was shot. According to witnesses, he had an explosive device strapped to his chest, which then exploded. He was then reported as dead. Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center confirmed that he suffered from blast wounds.
The younger brother, Dzhokhar, fled in a carjacked black SUV. According to reports, he then abandoned the vehicle a quarter of a mile away. He is believed to be armed with a rifle, and possibly explosives.
Throughout the night and into the morning, TV news reports showed police and SWAT team activity in an area densely dotted with Armenian shops, schools, and churches on Mt. Auburn Street and Nichols Ave.
SWAT teams, police officers, and the FBI went door to door in Watertown trying to locate the suspect. ANCA Eastern Region Executive Director Michelle Hagopian, who resides next-door to the St. Stephens Armenian Church and around the corner from the Hairenik building where the Armenian Weekly offices are located, said she could see the SWAT teams approaching from her window.
“I woke up at 6:15 a.m. to a bunch of missed calls and texts from family and friends. My immediate thought was something bad happened back home in Granite City. I fell asleep just before 1 a.m. and heard and saw a swarm of police cars flying down Nichols Ave. but didn’t think anything of it until I woke up and caught up on the news. This is all in my backyard.” said Hagopian.
Authorities pressed for a total lockdown in the area, asking that residents in Watertown and the surrounding cities and towns including Newton, Belmont, Waltham, Cambridge, Boston, and Brookline remain indoors. All public transportations have been suspended as well, and businesses have been advised to remain closed. The Armenian Genocide Commemoration event to be held at the Massachusetts State House has also been cancelled.
According to news sources, the brothers are originally from Chechnya, residing in the U.S. for the past decade.
The brothers are believed to be the suspects of the Boston Marathon bombings, which occurred on April 15 and took the lives of three and injured over 160 others.
Nanore Barsoumian
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Are these terrorists the same kind that are being called the “Free Syrian Army” by the “mainstream”? Because I heard they are also in Syria “fighting for freedom, justice and the American way” to overthrow the brutal Assad regime who have been massacring innocent Syrians for two years straight, without even a break. Where are the clowns like John McCain and Lindsey Graham who are seeking to arm the same Chechen and other alqaida terrorists, oops, I mean “the freedom loving rebels who are fighting for truth, justice and the American way”?
I think this is how the fifth season of “24” started, with Chechens and stuff. Where is Kiefer when you need him?
I have heard a news report that the Maryland uncle of the two suspects, who one day earlier condemned the actions of his nephews in the strongest terms, describing the brothers as “losers” and urging them to turn themselves in to authorities, and also said that he had not had contact with the two men for several years, is now claiming that his nephews were allegedly radicalized by an “Armenian” who was allegedly a recent convert to Islam.
This allegation is an outrageous and disgusting smear against the Armenian people which needs to be countered with all the force our community can muster.
First of all, how can an uncle who admitted that he had not contact with his brother’s family for several years, now claim to know this detail of who his nephews were associated with? And who can name even one Armenian who in recent times has willingly converted to Islam?. This smear, offered without a shred of supporting evidence such as the name of the supposed “Armenian” is not plausible to anyone knows the history of the Armenian people.
From all the factual evidence that has been accumulated and disseminated so far in the media, it is apparent that the bombs at the Boston Marathon finish line that killed and maimed hundreds, and the subsequent assassination of a police officer at MIT, were the work of the two brothers working by themselves.
It is outrageous for family members of the suspects to attempt to place the blame for these acts on an unnamed person of a different ethnic group, without the least shred of evidence.
Armenian-Americans of Watertown, and everywhere else, stand with the rest of America and the world in condemning these heinous, vicious, unprovoked attacks on innocent civilians in the strongest terms, and our sympathies are extended to all of the families and individuals who were victims of this tragedy.
Are you looking into the statement made by the bomber’s uncle that an Armenian influenced his actions? I have heard this from several sources.