Shootout with the Boston Marathon Bombers

The 8 ½ Minutes You Never Heard About - A special APB Behind the Badge feature

Jun 11, 2024

HORROR AT THE BOSTON MARATHON FINISH LINE

On April 15, 2013, two pressure cooker bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing 2 and seriously injuring several more. That event launched one of the most extraordinary terrorism investigations in United States history. The two suspects were seen on surveillance cameras, their photos released to the public, and soon they were the subject of an intense manhunt.

MURDER OF OFFICER SHAWN COLLIER; CARJACKING

Three days later, on April 18, 2013 at 10:25 PM[1] the suspects murder Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Police Officer Shawn Collier, shooting him in the head at close range. They attempt to steal his service pistol but are unable to do so; then at 11:00 PM[2] they carjack and kidnap a driver; Shortly afterward, at 12:15 AM[3] (on April 19), the kidnap victim escapes and summons police. Police receive information from OnStar that the hijacked car is in Watertown, just outside of Boston. But at the time, police only know that they have a stolen car. They have no idea who’s inside.

STOLEN CAR TRACKED TO WATERTOWN

As Watertown police assemble for the midnight shift on April 18, they are briefed about MIT police officer Shawn Collier. A saddened group heads out to patrol the small city of Watertown. Within minutes of hitting the street, they are alerted to the carjacking which has been tracked from Cambridge to Dexter Avenue in Watertown. Officer Joe Reynolds heads in that direction while Sgt. John Maclellan approaches from the opposite end of Dexter. As those two officers are responding to the stolen car, Sgt. Jeff Pugliese is sitting in his personal car outside the Watertown police station. He had just finished his evening shift and was listening to the news about the shooting of Officer Collier. He’s also listening to his police radio and hears his colleagues trying to wrangle the stolen car. Pugliese decides to head in that direction just in case they need help. He is driving toward Dexter Avenue, still in his personal vehicle.

Editor’s note: For the next series of events which we describe here, we will refer to the suspects as Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for clarity of the story. However, their identities were unknown to Watertown police at the time of the shootout on Laurel Street. In fact, the officers were unsure exactly how many shooters were involved at first, and there was no information that connected these carjacking suspects to either the Boston Marathon bombing or the murder of MIT Officer Shawn Collier.

POLICE FACE OFF WITH CARJACKING SUSPECTS; SHOTS FIRED

Officer Reynolds and Sgt. Maclellan are now on Laurel Street just off of Dexter Ave. and they both have the stolen Mercedes in sight. Maclellan radios to Reynolds that he sees the car and tells Reynolds to “light ‘em up”, to turn on his emergency lights and stop the car. But the Mercedes pulls over on its own. It’s now 12:43 AM[4]. Reynolds recalled, “One of the suspects exited the driver’s side of the vehicle and started approaching my cruiser, at which point he lifted up his right arm and started firing at my cruiser.” Reynolds quickly and expertly puts his cruiser in reverse and traverses an extended distance while bullets are hitting his police car. Reynolds radios in, “shots fired, shots fired!”, which is overheard by Sgt. Pugliese who then begins racing to Laurel Street to help his fellow officers.

MORE GUNFIRE AND A TROJAN HORSE

One of the suspects sees Sgt. MacLellan in another police car. MacLellan had just put his Ford Expedition in park. “He takes one shot at me. I see the gun light up and I get sprayed with glass,” said Maclellan. The bullet was so close to his head that Sgt. Maclellan believed that his ear had been shot off; but he was okay. The bullet would later be recovered in the headrest of his cruiser. Sgt. Maclellan is under fire, and he knows that Officer Reynolds is also taking rounds. Maclellan decides to grab his patrol rifle - but it’s not releasing from the rack. He runs through the series of steps to unlock the rifle, but to no avail. “I’m looking down the street. I see a Honda with three doors open and a Mercedes with two doors open. I got people shooting at us. I don’t know how many bad guys we got downrange,” said Maclellan. He added, “There’s only two of us, we just called out ‘shots fired’, but it’s going to take a while to get people to us. So I figured I’d send my cruiser down, get some cover, and look and see who engages the vehicle cause they’re gonna think someone is in it.” Maclellan’s police vehicle has become a Trojan horse for police. The police car begins gliding down Laurel Street, and the diversion works! The suspects begin firing at the empty police cruiser.

THE FIRST BOMB

Then, one of the suspects lobs an improvised explosive devices – a pipe bomb – at Maclellan’s police unit, shattering windows. Maclellan is taking cover behind a tree. From Reynolds’ perspective, he fears that Maclellan is taking fire inside the police car. But Maclellan spots Reynolds and calls him over to the tree. A puzzled Reynolds asks Sgt. Maclellan, “who’s driving your car?” to which Maclellan says, “I’ll tell ya later!” As the officers crouch behind the tree the first bomb detonates. Both officers are trading gunfire with the suspects, yelling commands for them to surrender. But volleys of gunfire continue from both sides. Now, the suspects lob a second explosive – this one will be worse than the first. Maclellan said that he and Reynolds took cover, and then, heard a huge explosion. “It was like four guys standing around me with baseball bats and hitting me in the chest. The concussion was huge.” Maclellan continued, “My eyes were shaking in my head. I had to reholster and grab my eyes – I couldn’t see.” Maclellan said he was about 12 feet from that device when it exploded, but, miraculously neither he nor Reynolds were hit with any shrapnel.

MORE BOMBS, MORE GUNFIRE

Officer Reynolds makes a dash to his police car to retrieve his patrol rifle while Maclellan tries to get closer to the suspects. And then comes bomb number 3. Maclellan was obviously their target as it landed next to him. He described the device as round, “like a softball” with two caps. He braces for the explosion… but nothing happens.

Reynolds said that the suspects sent 3-4 bombs at police, the last one being a pressure cooker device. Said Reynolds, “As I saw that being thrown I could see it was a larger bomb. I knew there was going to be a larger blast radius so I grabbed Sgt. MacLellan I said, ‘run, run!’”

The officers were vaulting fences and navigating through backyards to get a tactical advantage over the suspects, changing their positions and seeking cover and concealment. Reynolds recalled that when one of the suspects appeared in his sights, he took a shot to try to end the rampage. But both suspects continue to fire on police.

SKIP-SHOTS; FIRST SHOOTER TACKLED

Sgt. Jeff Pugliese had arrived on Laurel Street just a couple of minutes after Reynolds “shots fired” radio call. He was still in uniform from his earlier shift, pausing only briefly as he got out of his car on Laurel Street to don his body armor. Pugliese sees his fellow officers pinned down by gunfire while also returning fire. Pugliese, a military veteran and a police firearms instructor, decides to go through backyards in order to flank the suspects. As he makes his way in the darkness, a pressure cooker bomb explodes. Pugliese felt something skim by his face. But he continues to advance in order to train his sights on the suspects. As Pugliese gets a visual on the shooters, he sees that they are taking cover behind an SUV. So, Pugliese starts skip-shooting, aiming his shots under the SUV at the suspects’ and letting his bullets skid along the pavement into the legs and feet of the shooters. Former Police Chief Ed Deveau told APB Cold Case that Pugliese struck Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older brother, at least once in the leg. It seemed that Tamerlan “felt defiant, invincible”, said Deveau, noting that Tamerlan and Pugliese were firing at each other from close range, and once Tamerlan ran out of ammunition he threw his gun at Pugliese before charging toward the sergeant who tackled him. Pugliese was joined by Maclellan and Reynolds and together they handcuffed the elder Tsarnaev brother who continued to struggle.

SECOND SHOOTER RUNS TO STOLEN CAR; RUNS OVER AND DRAGS BROTHER

The younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ran back to the stolen Mercedes SUV. Former Chief Deveau told APB Cold Case, “He turns around and comes roaring down the street and now Joe (Reynolds), John (Maclellan) and Jeff (Pugliese) are in the middle of the street, and his plan is to just to run them over.” It’s 12:50 AM[5] as Sgt. Pugliese tries to drag Tamerlan by his belt out of the street to safety. But at the last moment, Officer Reynolds yells “get out of the way”, at the same time Pugliese saw the vehicle speeding toward them. “I felt the breeze of the headlights go by my face”, said Sgt. Pugliese. “I’m lying on my back and I saw the wheels go over the older brother and he bounced up between the undercarriage and the pavement a couple times. He got hung up in the rear wheels, and he got dragged about 25 feet, and they smashed into one of our cruisers.” Pugliese continued, “For a brief second you could hear the engine racing, he was trying to break free of the collision. And he finally broke free, took off, and as he broke free the rear wheels went over the brother.”

According to the federal indictment against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, when he “…drove the Mercedes at the three police officers, he barely missed Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese, who was attempting to drag Tamerlan Tsarnaev to safety. Then Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ran over Tamerlan Tsarnaev, seriously injuring him and contributing to his death.”[6]

Dzhokhar is last seen driving away with a hail of bullets being fired in his direction. Tamerlan, even though he is handcuffed, shot, hit by an SUV and dragged, continues to struggle.

OFFICER DOWN

It’s at this time that officers hear a frantic radio call: “officer down!” Just down the street, an officer who had responded to the ‘shots fired’ alert had been struck by a bullet. Officer Richard ‘Dic’ Donahue of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) had been shot. Officer Reynolds holsters his gun, grabs a medical bag from his cruiser and runs to the aid of Officer Donahue. “He was bleeding pretty profusely,” said Reynolds. “There were other officers tending to his injuries and starting CPR,” he added. An ambulance arrived and transported the critically injured officer to the hospital. Reynolds described Donahue’s wound as grave. “He was bleeding out. He lost all his blood.”

Former police chief Edward Deveau credits on-scene responders and hospital staff for saving Officer Donahue’s life. “Days later I talked with the doctors down there. They said, ‘Chief you’re guys did a great job but Donahue lost all his blood. You guys are doing CPR, but CPR doesn’t work if there’s no blood in the body.’” Deveau describes Officer Donahue’s recovery as miraculous. “Those emergency room doctors just did incredible work; they wouldn’t give up.”

YOU GOT THE BOMBERS!

So now, the dust had settled on Laurel Street, and police had a huge crime scene. But at that point, Watertown police still felt that they were dealing with carjackers. Pugliese recalled that several other police agencies began arriving on Laurel Street after Dzhokhar had fled the scene and Tamerlan had been transported to the hospital. Sgt. Pugliese said, “…the other agencies were telling us, ‘you know who you have there?’ I said, ‘a couple carjackers’, and they said ‘no, you got the bombers.”

SECOND SHOOTER ESCAPES

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev abandoned the Mercedes SUV on Spruce Street in Watertown and destroyed both of his cell phones.[7] He concealed himself inside a drydocked boat in the backyard of a resident’s property until he was apprehended by police following an historic community lockdown.[8]

AFTERMATH

Edward Deveau has since retired from the Watertown Police Department. You can sense his pride in his officers as you listen to his interview in Shootout with the Boston Marathon Bombers: The 8 ½ Minutes You Never Heard About. He lauds the skill of Officer Reynolds in tactically reversing his cruiser while under fire, a move that Maclellan said saved his life. And how Sgt. Maclellan told him that despite taking fire and shrapnel, there was no retreat option. And MacLellan sending his unattended police car down the street as a diversion which drew the attention of the shooters; And how Sgt. Pugliese tactically advanced on the shooter’s flanks, skip-shooting under the SUV they used as cover. The collective ingenuity, bravery, and grit exhibited by the Watertown police in stopping two violent terrorists was unrivalled. Chief Deveau was not the only person who recognized the heroic work of his officers that night. Said Deveau, “I talked to some of the Boston Tactical Teams, (and) the federal people, and they said, ‘where are your guys, I want to shake their hands’. They have some intestinal fortitude with all that was happening.”

THE 8 ½ MINUTES

The now retired police chief said that this handful of police officers, like in so many other communities throughout the nation, are the first and last line of defense; they were the ones to assess the situation and deal with it in a matter of minutes. Putting the timeline into perspective Deveau stressed that although Officer Reynolds had already broadcast “shots fired” over the radio, these officers were on their own. “The calvary was coming”, said Deveau. “but they’re by themselves for a while and as we all know the average police gunfight lasts 10 seconds, a minutes a long time, they were by themselves for 4 minutes and the whole thing lasted 8 and a half minutes”

Speaking about his officers, a proud Chief Deveau said, “They knew they were protecting this little community, this little street in Watertown. And as we all know, their plan when they carjacked that vehicle, was to take the bombs and the ammo, go down to Times Square and they wanted to kill more people. So I’m proud. The WPD stopped these guys from killing more people. It was remarkable what they did in the early morning hours.”

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Postscript: A Cop’s Wife and the Alaskan Alert

As you heard in our story, Sgt. Jeff Pugliese had just finished his evening 4 PM – 12 Midnight shift as he sat in his personal vehicle in the police parking lot. He was listening to news on the radio about the murder of Officer Shawn Collier at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in nearby Cambridge. And as you already know from the blog above, Pugliese became involved in one of the most intense shootouts in American police history.

On an ordinary 4-12 shift for Sgt. Pugliese, he should have been home by 12:43 AM. Instead, he was in the middle of a protracted gunfight with bombs exploding and shrapnel flying through the air.

How did his wife find out that something was going on in Watertown? One of Sgt. Pugliese’s brothers who lives in Fairbanks, Alaska was watching the television news when he heard a reference to Watertown, Massachusetts, his hometown. There was live coverage of the shootout on Laurel Street and it had apparently been connected, or at least surmised by the media that it could be linked to the Boston Marathon Bombing. Pugliese’s brother calls his sister-in-law, waking her out of a deep sleep and says, “Watertown is on the news. You don’t know what’s going on? You’ve gotta get up and watch the news!” Pugliese’s wife, realizing that her husband should have been home by now, wakes another brother-in-law who was visiting from out of town, and they turn on the tv.

At this point the gunfight was over, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had fled the scene, Officer Dic Donahue was being rushed to the hospital having lost all his blood from a gunshot wound, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev was also on the way to the hospital for multiple injuries from gunshots and being run over by his brother; Laurel Street became a major crime scene, and law enforcement officers from nearby agencies along with Boston PD and the FBI descended on Watertown. Sgt. Pugliese was still coordinating activities on the ground at Laurel Street, and then at a command post that was set up in nearby Kohler Square, a business district in Watertown about a half mile from the crime scene.

Sgt. Pugliese told APB Cold Case that, in the minutes following the dramatic shootout, he received a phone call from his wife. Sgt. Pugliese recalled the conversation, his wife asking, “Where are you?” He replies, “I can’t talk, I’m very busy right now.” His wife asks, “Are you in Kohler Square?” Puglise says, “I’m up on the East End, but I can’t talk. I just shot a guy, I’m okay. I’ll call you back.” About an hour and a half later Pugliese would have a brief opportunity to call his wife back and fill her in on some of the details.

Pugliese and other officers involved in the gunfight were at the command post until about 6:00 AM when they returned to Watertown Police headquarters where they were interviewed by a stress debriefing team from Boston PD, which lasted until about 11 AM. It wasn’t until about 1:30 PM when Sgt. Pugliese finally got home after being awake for 30 hours. He spoke with his wife, son and brother about the incident, but then he just wanted to get some sleep. As he took off his uniform, he noticed that his undershirt was drenched in blood. “My wife freaked because she saw all of the blood and thought I had an injury.” Said Pugliese, “I didn’t notice it at the time, but when I tackled him (Tamerlan Tsarnaev), my uniform acted like a sponge.

And that is the story-behind-the story of the circumstances of how one cop’s wife in Watertown, Massachusetts first learned about the dramatic events from her brother-in-law almost 4500 miles away in Alaska.

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[1] Indictment, United States v. Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, a/k/a Jahar Tsarni; hereafter, “Indictment”; p. 10; FBI.gov

[2] Indictment, p. 10; FBI.gov

[3] Indictment, p. 10; FBI.gov

[4] Indictment, p. 11; FBI.gov

[5] Indictment; p. 11; FBI.gov

[6] Ibid.

[7] Indictment, p. 12; FBI.gov

[8] Indictment, p. 12; FBI.gov

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