The Boston Marathon bombing happen almost a year ago on April 15,2013. There were two bombs that went off on the sidelines of the annual Boston Marathon. There were over 200 people injured and a total of 3 deaths. The suspects were soon identified as Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and the FBI took over the investigation a few days later. Many questions were raised and there were many improbabilities surrounding the case but it was quickly turned into a “solved crime”. Now we come to find out that the FBI might have been involved with the Tsarnaev family prior to the incident and that most of the people that could shed light on the situation have been mysteriously shot, strafed, deported or silenced.
According to Russ Baker from ‘Who What Why’, on January 30th U.S attorney General Eric Holder announced that they are seeking the death penalty against Dzhokhar. Is it a coincidence that the federal government has decided to put the one person who can truly reveal the complete truth about this tragedy on death row? There appears to be a lot more to this case than the government and media are letting on. If this is true then it is very unlikely that they will lose in any case and they seem very determined to not allow a real trial.
Source:
Russ Baker, “Does US ‘Death sentence’ in Boston Case Equal Silence?”, Who What Why, February 3,2014.
http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/02/03/does-us-death-sentence-in-boston-case-equal-silence/
Student researcher: Carmen Perez, Indian River State College
Faculty Educator: Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D., Indian River State College
ETHICS ALERT
The Boston Marathon bombing happened almost a year ago on April 15, 2013. There were two bombs that went off on the sidelines of the annual Boston Marathon. 264 people were injured and there were a total of 3 fatalities. The suspects were soon identified as brothers Tamerlan (26) and Dzhokhar (19) Tsarnaev, and the FBI took over the investigation a few days later. Four days later on April 19th a campus police officer was shot at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; soon after there was a carjacking in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Assuming they were connected to the bombing, authorities pursued the stolen vehicle all the way to Watertown, a Boston suburb where the older of the two brothers, Tamerlan, was wounded by explosives and shot to death. Dzhokhar fled the scene and was later found hiding out on someone’s boat and was shot several times before ever meeting with the police.
When the parents were interrogated they were adamant, insisting that their sons were innocent and were being set up. All their friends and family claimed that indeed this was true, that they were model students and all around good kids. The parents also revealed that the FBI had paid them several visits before the incident, claiming that their older son was an extremist, which they said was impossible because he didn’t keep secrets from them.
True, parents will go through great lengths to protect their children so this may not be very credible, yet almost everyone who can shed light on the situation seems to have been silenced in one way or another. Ibragim Todashev, a friend of Tamerlan, was killed in an unexplained shooting while in FBI custody; Todashev’s girlfriend and friends were silenced with a threat of being deported, which at least his girlfriend was. This simply leaves us with Dzhokhar to tell us what really happened.
The sole source of evidence that the brothers were at the scene of the crime is a supposed video sent in by a witness, who has yet to be named. The public has not even seen this video yet. There are also several inconsistencies with Danny’s story, the guy whose car was jacked on April 19th and who was supposedly held hostage for over an hour before he was able to escape. He claims that during this time he heard the brothers’ confessions about the bombing and about shooting the campus police officer. He is the only person who was witness to this, so is it really credible? The whole case is based on these two testimonies.
On January 30th of this year U.S Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the death penalty was being considered for Dzhokhar, which the media didn’t find suspicious, but it is considering he is the only person left to speak the truth. If he were to go on trial would he even be allowed to testify? The most he could do is plead guilty and hope for lesser punishment. This case now rests in the government’s hands, meaning it is extremely unlikely for them to lose. “The process by which this decision was made is confidential, and I will not comment further about that process other than to say that it entailed a careful and detailed consideration of the particular facts and circumstances of this case,” said Boston U.S. attorney Carmen M. Ortiz in a statement. Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said that the organization was disappointed with this decision “because it is discriminatory and arbitrary, and inherently violates the Constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment.” So what should we believe?