I can't help but feel like these brothers are also victims here. Of course, their victimhood is nothing like what they inflicted on the people of Boston and the marathoners, but they're victims nonetheless. Humans are glorified chemical reaction vessels; somehow, they ended up going down a path that led them here. Was there any alternative? Was it the education system? Social circumstances? I'm sure the magnitude of what he's done must be setting in on Dzhozkar now. Provided that this case is how it appears, his life is over; he's committed terrible crimes. But provided that he's not a biologically-determined sociopath, somewhere down the road he become subject to forces that ended up with him hiding from FBI HRT in someone's backyard after a prolonged shootout-chase with his brother dead. Even if this is justice, it seems tragic.<p>EDIT: I'm not denying agency or free will, I'm just expressing the belief that you are the product of your environment. I like the saying that an individual will tend towards being the average of their friends. If all of your friends are into running, you'll probably end up being into running. If all of your friends are into music, you'll probably end up interested in music. Certain books, movies, or other cultural experiences can affect individuals in differing, significant ways. All of these forces act on people to create who they are tomorrow.<p>There's no statement about free will, in a strong sense, in there. It's all about social and cultural context, and brownian motion. He's still responsible for his actions. I would reserve the term "human monster" for measurable psychopaths. Those do exist, and are a different matter entirely.
I'm impressed with the professionalism of the Boston police. After cops killed, and a day-long adrenaline filled hunt, they managed to remain professional for the sake of the greater good and take this schmuck alive.<p>edit: I guess only 1 cop was killed?
Earlier I was reading through the Twitter account of the now apprehended suspect and what is most striking is just how normal he is. Every one of his tweets could have been attributed to a completely normal teenager, he couldn't be more generic. It's strange how Twitter offers an insight into his life... but really it doesn't show anything. When someone blew people up in the 90s the news would report they're crazy, we'd all accept it and move on but now with platforms like Twitter we can see how this could be any one of us, maybe we're all one shitty situation away from doing terrible things. Unnerving.
"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him." -Dostoevsky<p>On twitter a lot of people are essentially saying "Good, now we'll get <i>answers.</i>" I'm sorry to say I don't believe there is typically anything satisfying about the answers of people who become deranged. Maybe this time, but if reading about madmen past is any guide, its very unlikely that we will be enlightened by any testimony.
Glad to hear they got him alive, it must have been hard to do that. Having him alive is important to understand and analyse the sequence of events, the motivation, the planning etc. There is also a possibility they had help and more people may be involved and if he were dead that would be very hard to discover.
Kudos to the FBI and the Police authorities of Boston.
Thank God. While I'm honestly not concerned about the man's well-being - that 8-year-old boy should be alive in his place - I am very curious as to why they did this.
Now that the full audio[1] transcript of the police scanner is available, I'd be interested in whether police ever actually mentioned the the two other individuals that everyone seemed to think had done it.<p>[1]<a href="https://soundcloud.com/producermatthew/scanner-audio-from-watertown" rel="nofollow">https://soundcloud.com/producermatthew/scanner-audio-from-wa...</a>
The ending to The Blues Brothers seems prophetic.<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2quc-iQ96R0" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2quc-iQ96R0</a><p>To edit and elaborate: they shut down a large portion of New England, affecting millions of people. Amtrak service, for example, was suspended north of New York City at 12:30pm today. Private taxi service in the Boston Metro area shut down until 11am. Other public transit, such as the T, shut down for most of the day. People didn't go to work.<p>I know it sounds callous, considering how many died or were maimed, but we now have to consider that a couple of pressure cookers are on par with hurricanes, blizzards and power blackouts when it comes to anesthetizing the North East corridor. I think we should think about this.
For me this will be the enduring image of the manhunt: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/lV7CMQA.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/lV7CMQA.jpg</a><p>Even if there's a manhunt, shelter in place order, and an officer with an assault rifle on every corner, life will go on.