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| Key player in Marathon bombing manhunt tells his story | |
| 2013-04-26 | |
| The 26-year-old Chinese entrepreneur had just pulled his new Mercedes to the curb on Brighton Avenue to answer a text when an old sedan swerved behind him, slamming on the brakes. A man in dark clothes got out and approached the passenger window. It was nearly 11 p.m. last Thursday. The man rapped on the glass, speaking quickly. Danny, unable to hear him, lowered the window -- and the man reached an arm through, unlocked the door, and climbed in, brandishing a silver handgun. "Don't be stupid," he told Danny. He asked if he had followed the news about Monday's Boston Marathon bombings. Danny had, down to the release of the grainy suspect photos less than six hours earlier. "I did that," said the man, who would later be identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev. "And I just killed a policeman in Cambridge." He ordered Danny to drive -- right on Fordham Road, right again on Commonwealth Avenue -- the beginning of an achingly slow odyssey last Thursday night and Friday morning in which Danny felt the possibility of death pressing on him like a vise. In an exclusive interview with the Globe on Thursday, Danny -- the victim of the Tsarnaev brothers' much-discussed but previously little-understood carjacking -- filled in some of the last missing pieces in the timeline between the murder of MIT police officer Sean Collier, just before 10:30 p.m. on April 18, and the Watertown shootout that ended just before 1 a.m. Danny asked that he be identified only by his American nickname. --- The SUV headed for the lights of Soldiers Field Road, banking across River Street to the two open gas stations. Dzhokhar went to fill up using Danny's credit card, but quickly knocked on the window. "Cash only," he said, at least at that hour. Tamerlan peeled off $50. Danny watched Dzhokhar head to the store, struggling to decide if this was his moment -- until he stopped thinking about it, and let reflexes kick in. "I was thinking I must do two things: unfasten my seatbelt and open the door and jump out as quick as I can. If I didn't make it, he would kill me right out, he would kill me right away," Danny said. "I just did it. I did it very fast, using my left hand and right hand simultaneously to open the door, unfasten my seatbelt, jump out...and go." The car faced west, upriver. Danny sprinted between the passenger side of the Mercedes and the pumps and darted into the street, not looking back, drawn to the lights of the Mobil. "I didn't know if it was open or not," he said. "In that moment, I prayed." The brothers took off. The clerk, after brief confusion, dialed 911 on a portable phone, bringing it to Danny in the storeroom. The dispatcher told him to take a deep breath. The officers, arriving in minutes, took his story -- with Danny noting that the car could be tracked by his iPhone and by a two-way Mercedes satellite system known as mbrace. The clerk gave him a bottled water.
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| Posted by:Anguper Hupomosing9418 |
| #2 No mention of a COEXIST sticker on Danny's leased Mercedes. It was a fun meme while it lasted, now it will become an urban legend. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2013-04-26 13:15 |
| #1 Map of hijacking events here. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2013-04-26 13:13 |
