The first image the nation saw of the two brothers may serve
as more than a pivotal clue to investigators in the Boston Marathon bombings.
It is, perhaps, a snapshot of their relationship: One leads, the other follows.
That's how some
friends remember the Tsarnaev brothers: At 26, Tamerlan was seven years older
than his brother Dzhokhar, who followed his big brother around like a puppy.
And with their father in Russia, the older brother may have become a
father figure to the 19-year-old these past few months. At 6-feet-3, Tamerlan
was, by many accounts, an intimidating presence with increasingly strong
convictions about society and religion in recent years.
But the picture
that is emerging of the now infamous brothers is also fuzzy -- just like the
surveillance video.
An investigator
who studied their video images after the bombings said the two brothers
"acted differently than everyone else" -- they stuck around and
watched the carnage unfold, and walked away "pretty casually."
Aquaintances
of the brothers, now dredging their memories, find themselves short on clues.
Many say both were likable and well-loved in their neighborhood, not loners
driven away by society.
The casual air of
the brothers seemed to mean nothing before Monday, April 15.
'He was a big
friendly giant'
Luis Vasquez had
planned to watch the finish of the race with his family, but the hectic pace of
raising two young children altered his plans.
Vasquez had been
friends with Tamerlan and one of his sisters in high school. They would hang
out together at cafes and talk about boxing, Tamerlan's real passion. Vasquez
also coached the younger brother in soccer at Cambridge Rindge & Latin
School.
Reflecting on what
transpired this week, he can't help but think of the what-ifs. What if he had
attended the marathon? "I wonder if they had seen us ... if they would say
anything to us or if they would've acknowledged us in any way," Vasquez
said. "That kills me to know, because we were going to be there."
As the oldest of
four, Tamerlan seemed to see it as his duty to make sure his siblings didn't
forget their Chechen roots. He was about 16 when the family arrived in America.
One sister had an
arranged marriage awaiting her in Chechnya, Vasquez said, and "he felt the
responsibility to make sure she stayed in line with that." That sister
enjoyed the freedom of America, and Tamerlan had "an issue with that."
He was like a shadow, always lurking in her presence.
"There was
pressure to stick to your ways, your religion, your culture -- to respect
that," said Vasquez.
But he saw no
seeds of terror.
"He was a big
friendly giant. ... There was nothing weird about him, nothing alarming,"
Vasquez said. "He never went around and tried to force his views on
anyone."
Vasquez said he
has "very positive memories, very positive interactions."
"The crime
doesn't fit the memories."
Clearly, if the
allegations against the brothers are true, something changed. Vasquez thinks
someone must have "got in his (Tamerlan's) ear and he passed that along
probably to whoever he could recruit" -- in this case, he believes, the
younger brother.
"In what I've
seen of their personalities, the brain behind this is the older brother,"
Vasquez said. "When it comes to the two of them, he would lead and the
little brother followed."
The neighborhood
in Cambridge where the family lived at 410 Norfolk is a melting pot of America
-- a mix of working-class immigrant families and college intellectuals who
attend Harvard and MIT.
It's not unusual
for immigrants here to return to their homeland after high school. In fact,
it's almost a rite of passage. Residents don't think twice when a neighbor
travels to their country of origin.
Yet it is on
visits back home in recent years, investigators say, that Tamerlan became radicalized. Shortly
after returning from a six-month trip last year, he uploaded several videos to
his YouTube account, including one of a well-known jihadist.
Back in 2011,
according to the FBI, Russia asked the FBI to interview Tamerlan "based on
information that he was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer, and
that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United
States for travel to the country's region to join unspecified underground
groups."
While
investigators continue to pore over evidence and documents, those who knew the
brothers say their anger over the bombings is compounded by their confusion --
that two nice guys may have taken such a dark turn.
'I teach a guy to
fight, not kill'
A couple miles
from the family home is the Somerville Boxing Club. Hundreds of boxers have
come through the doors over the years. Trainer Gene McCarthy has been there for
three decades and remembers the day Tamerlan, then 16, walked in with his
father.
The dad was an
amateur boxer in Chechnya and wanted his oldest son to get even better
training. Tamerlan was a physical specimen: 6-foot-3 and 196 pounds. He had a
long reach, great quickness, tenacity and confidence -- the perfect combination
of a young Muhammad Ali.
He wouldn't just
knock out his opponents; he would annihilate them. "When he threw a punch,
he was always right on the money, right on the target," McCarthy said.
"Nobody could touch him."
After winning one
fight in January 2004, the rising sensation told the Lowell Sun newspaper that he grew up in
Grozny, Chechnya, and moved with his family to the United States the year
before in hopes of starting a new life.
"I like the
USA," Tamerlan said. "America has a lot of jobs. That's something
Russia doesn't have. You have a chance to make money here if you are willing to
work."
McCarthy ranks him
as one of the best fighters he's ever trained. He won the open class
heavyweight division for the New England Golden Gloves. The kid could've taken
a gold medal at the Olympics, he said, but his immigration status prevented him
from trying out for the U.S. Olympic team.
"I would say,
'Geeze, I've got an Olympic champion but he can't qualify,' " McCarthy
said. "That was his only downfall -- the fact he wasn't a citizen. ... He
had the gumption and everything to win it all. He was fearless."
At the gym, the
younger brother, then just 10, would tag along and do calisthenics with
Tamerlan. "He was a cute little kid," McCarthy said.
He recalled
registering Tamerlan at the Golden Gloves. "While he was waiting in line,
he saw a piano and was playing classical music like it was Symphony Hall,"
McCarthy said. "Everybody in USA Boxing heard it, and they went in there
and they were amazed."
Boxers in his gym
typically come from troubled backgrounds -- broken families, crime-ridden
neighborhoods, absentee fathers. That wasn't the case with Tamerlan who had a
solid family support system. His mother, father and younger brother would come
to the fights. He went undefeated in his two years with McCarthy.
McCarthy tries to
instill self-respect and discipline in his fighters. "That's what boxing
means to me," he said. "Train them that, and they can become
respectable people -- believe it or not."
His emotions
ranged from anger to dismay when he learned the brothers were suspects in the
bombings. "I teach a guy how to fight, not kill," he said.
McCarthy sighed.
Tamerlan was such a likable person; the only people who didn't like him were
the guys he beat to a pulp in the ring.
"He was just
a young kid then, and that's about all I can say as far as that goes. I can
only say nice things about him."
Tamerlan switched
to a different gym after two years. They didn't have a dispute, McCarthy said.
It's just the way it goes in the rolling stone life of boxing. The kids come
and go.
Yet Tamerlan
didn't give up his dream. He registered again with USA Boxing from 2008-2010,
but he never regained his undefeated form.
In 2009, his uncle Ruslan Tsarni had a falling out with Tamerlan.
"I got into really a state of shock from changes I heard -- I wouldn't say
I saw -- I heard from Tamerlan," he told CNN.
The uncle recalled
a phone conversation in which Tamerlan called him an "infidel." The
young man also told his uncle he was not concerned about work or studies
because God had a plan for him.
Soon, Vasquez
said, he vanished from his neighborhood. "I wonder what happened in that
time we stopped seeing him around."
'I think his
brother put him up to it'
If Tamerlan was
the reserved one, Dzhokhar -- known as "Jahar" -- was the outgoing
kid, always quick with a joke. That was one of his goals, his friends say, to
make them laugh. The only time they'd seen him mad was if he lost a wrestling
match. Even that was rare. He was an all-star, 135-pound wrestler who placed in
the state finals.
One friend
remembered seeing how happy Dzhokhar was at the TD Bank Garden arena last year
when he became an American citizen. It was an especially patriotic day for
those in attendance because the ceremony was held on September 11, 2012, a date
that seems tragically odd in retrospect.
"Right now,
it's like a big puzzle and we're trying to put pieces together," said one
family friend who asked not to be identified.
Dzhokhar was
kind-hearted, too. When he wasn't wrestling in high school, he volunteered at
an after-school program to help kids with autism and Down syndrome.
"He was a
funny comical guy. He had me laughing a lot," said Peter Tenzin, who
co-captained the wrestling team with Dzhokhar. "After wrestling practice,
he would rather go down and spend time with kids with learning disabilities
than relax and go home."
The city awarded
Dzhokhar a $2,500 scholarship, and he assimilated well with students at the
University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, where he was studying engineering.
Like so many in
the family's neighborhood, Tenzin faults the older brother -- saying he likely
brainwashed the friend they knew. "All I can say is I think his brother put
him up to it," Tenzin said. "There's no way in heck that he would do
it. Mentally, he's just not that kind of guy."
"He loved his
brother and looked up to him, and that's why I think (Tamerlan) put him up to
this."
Though similar
stories are shared around the neighborhood, another picture of Dzhokhar has
emerged in the last two days: of a young man who partied on campus after the bombings and allegedly joined
his brother in gunning down a cop, carjacking a man in Cambridge, then engaging
in a gun battle with Watertown police complete with pipebombs and an explosive
device like the ones that wreaked mayhem at the marathon.
Tamerlan died in
that shootout. The one person who can provide answers to the bombings is
Dzhokhar, who was captured late Friday and remains hospitalized with wounds to
the throat.
The latest news --
that police believe the brothers were planning another attack --
can only compound the confusion felt by so many.
"To see two
brothers, both carrying leadership traits, flip the switch and jump into
something so evil is astonishing," said Luis Vasquez. "It's not what
we remember of them."
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