Black Hawk over boston
© David L. Ryan | The Boston Globe | Getty ImagesA Black Hawk searches above the locked down Watertown neighborhood.
More than half a day after a bloody rampage that ended with his accomplice brother dead, Boston marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev eluded a massive manhunt that has put the city and surrounding suburbs on total lockdown.

Anxiety was rising as SWAT teams and troops hunted door to door for the fugitive - and for more bombs - with more than a million people told to hunker down behind locked doors. Friday night's scheduled Red Sox and Bruins games and Big Apple Circus performance were canceled. Amtrak service between Boston and New York was suspended.

Tsarnaev, 19, remained on the lam hours after he and brother, Tamerlan, 26, made a desperate effort to flee the city following the FBI's release of their photos Thursday evening.

They killed a campus security officer, carjacked a man, and led police on a wild chase that ended in a firefight in which more than 200 rounds were exchanged, police said. The older brother, who had a bomb strapped to his body, was killed but the younger one escaped, though he may have been wounded, law enforcement sources said.

During the early morning Watertown gun battle between police and the two brothers about 200 rounds were exchanged.

During the course of the day, seven improvised explosive devices were recovered, some in Watertown some at the brothers' house in Cambridge, police said.

Authorities had said they were also looking for a possible associate, but NBC News learned later that the only subject of the search was the younger Tsarnaev. Adding to the nightmare, an explosive was found in Boston Friday morning and disabled, and police feared there could be more explosives, an official said.

President Barack Obama was briefed by his top security and counter-terrorism advisers on developments for about an hour in the White House Situation Room.

During a desperate effort to flee after their photos were released by the FBI, the brothers carjacked a Mercedes SUV and told the driver they were the men behind Monday's double-blast attack at the race and had just killed a campus security officer, a source told NBC News. The driver was released unhurt.


Comment: If they actually were implicate in Monday's bombing, and if they already killed a security officer, why would they let the driver live, especially after they confessed all their crimes to him? And where is this driver? Did anyone see him give any interviews?


Tamerlan Tsarnaev flew in and out of Kennedy International last year and was out of the country for six months. Investigators said they want to know if Tsarnaev received any terror training while he was overseas.

Travel records obtained by NBC New York show Tsarnaev left New York on Jan. 12, 2012, for Russia. He stayed overseas and returned to JFK on July 17, 2012. The travel documents show a photo of a bearded Tsarnaev. The documents show there is no record of Dzhokhar leaving the United States.

Three dozen FBI agents were surrounding the Cambridge, Mass., home where the brothers, of Chechen descent, grew up after moving to the U.S. a decade ago.

Chechnya is a largely Muslim area of the Caucasus region that had engaged in a bloody war and spectacular terrorist assaults while trying to break away from Russia.

The militant group responsible for the Chechen insurgency cast doubt on allegations that the brothers had carried out the marathon attacks. The official media arm of the Chechen mujahedeen, the Kavkaz Center, published a blog post that suggested the investigation into Monday's deadly attack is part of an anti-Chechnya "PR campaign."

In an emotional statement, their uncle Ruslan Tsarni called his nephews "losers," telling reporters: "They put a shame on our family. ... They put a shame on the entire Chechen ethnicity."

"Turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness from the victims!," Tsarni said outside his Maryland home.

An aunt, Maret Tsnaraeva, told reporters in Toronto that about two years ago the older brother became a devout Muslim who prayed five times a day, and she didn't believe the brothers could have been involved in Monday's attack, according to The Associated Press.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev had married and had a 3-year-old daughter, Tsnaraeva said. "He has a wife in Boston and from a Christian family, so you can't tie it to religion," she said. "At that age all they want is love, so he found his love, he married, he had a daughter, and he was very happy about his daughter."

In Russia, the suspected bombers' father, Anzor, told The Associated Press his sons "were set up."

He called Dzhokhar "a true angel" and described him as a medical student who was expected to visit for the holidays.

In an interview with the pro-Kremlin paper Izvestia, the father said he last spoke with Tamerlan right after the marathon attack.

"When I heard the terrible news, I called my older son's phone and asked, 'Were you there? Are you OK?' And he said: 'Dad, don't worry, we did not go there. Everybody is alive and well.'"

Authorities painted a starkly different picture of the surviving son.

"We believe this man to be a terrorist," Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said. "We believe this to be a man who's come here to kill people."

Across the area, as police cars screamed down streets and helicopters hovered overhead, authorities urged the public to stay inside and keep their doors locked to anyone but law-enforcement officers.

"There is a massive manhunt underway," Gov. Deval Patrick said. "We are asking people to shelter in place."

At a midday television appearance, he advised residents to keep their doors locked and not to open them to strangers.

Kurt Schwartz, director of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, urged people on the job in the Boston area to leave work and drive home.

The lockdown initially affected more than 300,000 people in Cambridge, Watertown, Newton, Brighton, Allston and Belmont, but by 8 a.m., the entire city of Boston was paralyzed, officials said.

Watertown, where the second suspect was last seen, was the epicenter of a sprawling search. Frightened residents were trapped in their homes as convoys of heavily armed officers and troops arrived by the hour.

Two unidentified people were taken into custody at the Cambridge home where Tsarnaev brothers grew up, but they were not being described as additional suspects. Dozens of law enforcers ringed the house.

Across the area, as police cars screamed down streets and helicopters hovered ahead, authorities urged the public to stay inside, their doors locked to anyone but a law-enforcement officer.

Police discovered an improvised explosive device in Boston at Charles Gate and rendered it safe, a senior Boston police official said. Following that the city was locked down and the MBTA transit service was completely shut down.

Authorities fear additional devices may have been planted. It is clear, they said, that these men wanted to cause the maximum damage they could.

The University of Massachusetts was evacuated after authorities determined that a person being sought is a registered student, the school said on its website.

Harvard University, Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Emerson University were all closed and students were told to stay inside. Boston public schools were shuttered for the day.

The overnight violence began near MIT, after 10 p.m., more than six hours after the FBI released surveillance photos of the two men suspected of planting two bombs near the finish line of Monday's Boston Marathon, killing three and wounding 176.

Tips about the identity of the suspects were still pouring in when the Tsarnaev brothers fatally shot MIT police officer Sean Collier, 26, in his vehicle, law enforcement officials said.

The brothers then carjacked a Mercedes SUV, holding the driver captive for a half-hour while they tried to use his cash card to get money from three ATM's, a source said. At the first, they put in the wrong number; at the second, they took out $800 and at the third, they were told they had exceeded the withdrawal limit,the source said.

The man was released unharmed at a gas station in Cambridge, sources said. As they sped toward Watertown, a police chase ensued and the suspects tossed explosive devices out the window, officials said.

"There was a long exchange of gunfire," Andrew Kitzenberg of Watertown told NBC News in an interview.

"They were also utilizing bombs, which sounded and looked like grenades, while engaging in the gunfight," he said. "They also had what looked like a pressure-cooker bomb.

"I saw them light this bomb. They threw it towards the officers," he said. "There was smoke that covered our entire street."

A transit officer, identified as Richard H. Donahue, 33, was wounded in the gunfight. Authorities said he was in surgery at Mount Auburn Hospital.

Kitzenberg said he saw the firefight end when Tamerlan Tsarnaev ran toward the officers and ultimately fell to the ground.

Tamerlan - the man in the black hat from FBI photos released six hours earlier - had an improvised explosive device strapped to his chest, law enforcement officials said.

Dzhokhar - who was wearing a white hat in the surveillance photos from the marathon - drove the SUV through a line of police officers at the end of the street, he said.

Police said he has a Massachusetts driver's license and lived in Cambridge. He was described as light-skinned and with brown, curly hair, and wearing a gray hoodie. The FBI was releasing more photos of him.

Military humvees and busloads of law-enforcement could be seen rolling into Watertown in the hours after the gunfight. A photo showed two officers in military gear lying on a backyard shed with their weapons trained on a home.

"We've got every asset we could possibly muster on the ground right now," Patrick said.