Tsarnaevs shooting at cops (courtesy getonhand.com)

The American intelligence community is busy on two fronts: covering their asses regarding their failure to anticipate the Boston Marathon bombs and trying to find the elder Tsarnaev’s connection to a terrorist organization (or two). It’s still not clear whether or not one or both of the brothers received “professional” training. Yesterday’s revelation that they carried a BB gun piqued commentator hryan’s curiosity. “The BB gun makes me wonder if they started the night with only one gun and picked up another handgun and the rifle from the slain MIT cop.” This pic—showing the Tsarnaev’s shooting at police in Watertown—indicates that they weren’t rank amateurs . . .

Notice the Weaver shooting stance from the bomber on the left. Also clock the fact that they’re using the car’s engine block for cover. To my mind that indicates a tactical mindset. If so, was it gleaned from the ‘net, TV and movies, or learned from someone with experience?

Click here for entire photo sequence. We await info on which guns they used, how they got them and how they learned how to use them. If you see something in the press please ping [email protected].

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79 COMMENTS

  1. The guy in the window (that is, the dude who took the photos) had a PERFECT vantage for surprising the Tsarnaevs with a couple shots from his modern sporting rifle… If only.

    • But if some bystander had killed them, we wouldn’t have one of them alive to glean all that intel. After all, there’s no way the authorities are going to give a terrorist his Miranda rights and thus cut off a source of potentially valuable…

      Oh. Nevermind.

      • “But if some bystander had killed them”…. could have wounded one or both of them and ended the thing there. Even the one captured alive was perforated a few times by the cops and maybe even shot himself in the throat. So… who knows. A hit from a .223 could have ended it there but left two living witnesses.

      • Miranda would only apply to his particular case. It doesn’t touch info on things for which he would not be tried.

      • When American citizens can be classified “terrorists” at whim and stripped of their legal rights, we’re all fvcked.

    • I don’t know about y’all, but if there’s a shootout with cops, I am not opening fire from a third position. The cops will probably assume I’m shooting at them, and I’m allergic to .40 S&W.

      • Yeah right. Like the cops could actually -hit- you! If it wasn’t for gravity, a lot of those yahoo’s wouldn’t be able to hit the freakin’ GROUND.

        • I’d bet most of us who spend a decent amount of time at the range could out shoot 90% of LEO’s.

      • I’m with you. I don’t want to invite fire into my house, where my infant son and wife are sitting…

        • +1 not the time to john wayne with a bunch of exhausted and pissed LEO’s outside your front door.

      • Well if you stick a rifle out the window and start shooting, the police on scene could very well see the muzzle flash and start shooting at you. That’s why you would not stick the rifle out the window. Stand back as far in the room as possible to hide the flash — and a lot of the sound as well. Speaking of sound, had the photographer shot from that position, it was close enough that the police would have thought it came from the suspects on the street.

  2. You can pick up a bunch of info from the net and the movies and books. But you still need hands on training and experience to put it all together and do it right on the fly and under fire. IMHO.

  3. The picture of the wall and chair with the bullet hole in them had to have come from a round fired by police based on the description of where the room is located.

  5. Your articles on the brothers and the bombing are really getting out of hand, sometimes bordering on drivel. Stop speculating with who cares material and nonsense before you lose a good percentage of your followers. I have grown weary of almost all of your posts in the last 10 days — write something which is not obviously written for lack of real ideas, and on subjects that really exist/matter. In short, the answer to your question is who cares.

    • I’ve been hearing [“speculation” or tips from “sources”] on the news that they specifically killed the MIT officer in order to get his gun(s). I think RF is right on here and we’ll see that once more info is officially released.

    • In short, the answer to your question is who cares.

      I do. Got a problem with that? Because I have no problem with you remaining ignorant.

      I always love it when one guy whose initials aren’t RF wants to dictate the content of a site viewed and enjoyed by hundreds of thousands.

    • “Stop speculating with who cares material and nonsense before you lose a good percentage of your followers. ”

      exactly whom do YOU speak for and represent? and what blog you be leading “followers” to?

    • I care, who taught these guys to shoot? Who taught them their tactics? Do we ourselves need to ramp up training to deal with stuff like this? (Police cant be everywhere, but subscribers to this site do know that).

      Your weapon is no good if your opponents tactics and mindset are superior to yours. A lot of us do get range time, but there is a HUGE difference between range shooting and tactical shooting.

    • Boy, talk about fodder for a new post. With proper equipment, would you take a shot at these guys? Why or why not? Complicating things is that the guy with the camera probably wouldn’t have known at that point that the 2 gun shooting guys were the bomber boys.

      • The window where you can do some good is pretty small. An urban setting makes it even more confusing. You don’t wan’t to draw any fire on your neighbors, let alone your family. Not getting shot by the cops would be hard to do, as well. With no comms, how do you get them to recognize you are a good guy? In a rural setting with less bystanders, you may be more able to help.

        • The pictures, which seem to be down now, made it look like the police were a long ways down the street.
          I doubt they’d even be aware of your two well aimed shots on the perps. Giving you plenty of time to retreat deeper into the house and call 911 to inform them of your assistance.

  8. I dont know ….”—indicates that they weren’t rank amateurs . . .”
    standing in the headlight beams of your own jacked SUV so that the LEOs can see you in their sights doesn’t seem like a great tactic to me. Maybe they didnt know how to turn off the headlights in a Benz.
    Does anyone know if that is a dead end street?

  9. YouTube. Seriously. Or a torrent file of anything with Costa or Magpul. Not trying to play the blame game, but if anybody has a desire, it’s readily available information that requires little practice outside of watching some videos.

  10. I have to disagree. It’s quite easy to fall into a weaver stance automatically, because you happen to be looking with your dominant eye. I might have been able to accept them choosing the engine block to hide behind had the car been perpendicular to the officers, but it was straight on. As long as they stood on their side of the car they would be using the engine no matter how they stood unless they wanted to stand in the middle of the street, or up against the edge of the car which makes no sense whatsoever.

  11. Seriously, if they had gone by what they see on TV or in the movies they would be dead. Almost always when there is a shootout and a car is available, they (the perps and the cops) crouch behind ALL sections of the car for cover and miraculously no bullets make it through. Or stand to the side of a door for protection, like bullets only go through doors not drywall!

    • Maybe they did go by tv. After all, one’s dead and the other’s handcuffed tp a hospital bed.

      • But at least during this shootout, they (the cowards) used the engine for cover! Yes, they did get shot and one killed but how many rounds did the engine stop? Some say over two hundred rounds were fired!

        • Cowards? They willingly got in to a shootout with a overwhelming force. All you do is bitch and moan from your computer. I wonder who the coward really is.

        • So Matt, oh excuse me, matt. These fine, upstanding, individuals “willingly” got in a shootout with police and in your eyes, that makes them what…heroes? Really, willingly, they were cornered, hence the shootout.

          Sorry, someone that puts a bomb at the feet of children and innocents is a COWARD! Someone that walks up to a policeman or any person and opens fire without provocation is a COWARD!

        • Navillus – are you a Moron in the best possible (Val-U-Rite) sense? If so, it’s good to see some cross-pollenation. If not, thanks for linking the article.

  13. As a rule bad guys with a plan practice accordingly. See 1986 FBI incident.

    Cops with some exceptions shoot because of regulations.The results are predictable.

  14. Question of the day: would Andrew Kitzenberg (the guy who took these pictures) have been justified had he shot the brothers from his third floor vantage point? What would you do in that situation?

    • In Massachusetts, he’d be in jail.

      I would have shot them with my .308, one bullet each. It would have taken less than 5 seconds.

      Then, I’d be in jail for saving those police officers bacon.

    • What would you do in that situation?

      I’ve been thinking about this for several days. The main question for me is whether I’d draw fire from the cops. I know that no good deed goes unpunished, but being hosed down by a bunch of LEOs handling a major adrenaline dump seems like a wee bit too much punishment.

    • Mind my own business. You got several hundred guys in uniform with an itch to shoot, all they need is a reason for a new target. So if the shooter they are seeking does not have a weapon trained directly on me or those I care about, why the hell would I provide a reason to get shot at? Furthermore, say one gets involved and gets a lucky shot and kills the guy-You just royally f*cked up an investigation, no one left to interrogate now, I am pretty sure the powers that be are not gonna be all that thankful to the moron that commits that faux pas. Can you say book thrown at ya? Stupid Is As Stupid Does……

  16. Robert, you infer a lot from a picture that frankly doesn’t support your contentions.

    A photo captures a split-second in time, and we frankly don’t know if they were moving or in a fixed position when the snapshot above was taken. We can’t infer any sort of evidence of training from a photo.

    Well, that isn’t entirely true.

    I’d point out that the retaining wall just behind them is cover, and that a car is concealment, and no, they aren’t remotely drawing substantial cover from the engine black while standing. So they don’t grasp the basics of cover and concealment.

    I’d also note standing directly in front of vehicle’s headlights is about the most amateur move they might possibly make here, and they both did it.

    combine this with Tamerlan’s decision to charge officers with an empty gun, and I’d opine that the evidence presented suggests violent neophytes, not operators.

    • The older brother knew be was beat. Suicide by cop. Jihadists don’t want to be taken alive. The younger one was humoring his big brother. Poor stupid bastard!

  17. Get used to pictures like these, we are still in the 1st 4 months of The Obama 2nd term, 3 years and 8 months remain. If you think the nation will not continue to suffer, in ways far worse and far more intense, you have another think comming.

  18. Wait, I ‘m confused. So did they shoot first here too? Any proof of that? The police shouldn’t have shot back anyways, look at the surrounding area.

    Oh wait, I’m not RF, and I guess they were dangerous terrorists after all.

  19. One of the Watertown PD involved in the gun fight is a close family member of a colleague. He went through three 30-round mags in his patrol rifle.

    not sure what the other LEO shot but makes me wonder, where did all those rounds end up going? I mean, one punctured the photographer’s roommate’s chair, but what of the balance (total 160-180 rounds or more)?

  21. This IS THE REALITY, BOTH THOSE BROTHERS ARE CIA TRAINED CHECHEN
    INFORMANTS GATHERING INTEL ON RUSSIA, THE BROTHER IS NOT DEAD. HE FLEW TO CHECHNYA, BROTHER #2IS ONLY GOING TO TELL US WHAT THE CIA TELLS HIM TO TELL US. AND YOUR DEMENTED PRESIDENT IS APPLAUDING THE THEATER.

    PLEASE DTOP TALKING ABOUT GHIS AS IF IT WAS REALLY A TERRORIST.THE ONLY TERRORIST LIVE IN A BIG WHITE HOUSE IN WASHINGTON!!!

      • I don’t read the NYT unless I’m shown a link to one of their anti-gun diatribes. I also know that a response using ALL CAPS will prove to be worthless and I don’t presume to label the information that I receive from the internet as “intel” like a Call of Duty addicted 12 year-old.

        You make a lot of presumptions about who you’re talking to for someone who is allegedly so much better informed than the rest of us. Don’t they miss you over at Prison Planet?

  23. My guess is Hollywood and Youtube being the most probable reference sources. Books and Magazines (check out Amazon for anything to do with SAS and special forces and their tactics) are other possibilities. And, they might have talked to some veterans of the Chechnyan wars of the 1990s. How the Chechnyans repulsed the first attack on Grozny was a tactical masterpiece, but then most of the Chechnyan fighters had been trained by the Russian Army so they knew how the attack would proceed.

    • We know. These are the guys who shot Kennedy. They’re in cahoots with the CIA, the Mafia and the League of Women Voters.

  25. Your all indoctrinated with media bull. Your a waist off time. Go watch CNN, I’ll talk to the insiders and you will believe the sensational lies. Good luck when they come for your guns…

  27. From Boston Herald http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/04/tamerlan_tsarnaev_got_mass_welfare_benefits

    In early 2011, Tamerlan Tsarnaev first came to the attention of the FBI when the Russian FSB intelligence service contacted the U.S. agency to warn that he was suspected of being a dangerous radical and sought information.

    “The request stated that it was based on information 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.” The FBI reported finding no “terrorism activity.”

    In mid-2011, he was being monitored by the FSB, apparently prompting the FBI contact, ahead of his six-month trip home to Dagestan in 2012, where Time magazine reported he is believed to have attended a notorious radical mosque.

    Now how did the commie pinkos at the FSB (KGB) know ANYTHING about what ANYONE residing the US was doing or thinking? And BEFORE the FBI? Perhaps Barry is giving student visas to spies?

    And, big surprise, all the family was living on welfare.

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