FBI, Boston PD: No, We Did Not Identify The Tsarnaevs As The Bombers Until After The Shootout

There's been a bit of conspiracy theorizing -- fueled by a letter from Iowa Sen. Grassley to the FBI last week -- that the FBI was surveilling the Tsarnaev brothers before the shootout that resulted in the death of MIT police officer Sean Collier. The FBI is emphatically denying it:

“To be absolutely clear: No one was surveilling the Tsarnaevs and they were not identified until after the shootout,” the FBI, Boston police and Massachusetts State Police said in a joint statement this afternoon, in reference to the wild April 19 gunfight that left Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, dead. “Any claims to the contrary are false.”

Sen. Grassley had also asked whether the Tsarnaevs had been approached to be FBI informants prior to the bombing, something else police authorities are denying.

The case against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is lumbering forward. Prosecutors are expected to make a recommendation to AG Holder by October 31 on whether to seek the death penalty. The final decision will be Holder's.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 02:58 PM

| Access Comments