Suspects showed signs of discontent
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, came to America from central Asia about a decade ago and appeared to have embraced their new life — attending school, holding jobs, playing sports and, in the older brother’s case, aspiring to represent the United States as a boxer in the Olympics.
But there were signs of discontent from the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings.
“I don’t have a single American friend, I don’t understand them,” Tamerlan Tsarnaev said, as reported in an online photo essay that shows him training for a boxing competition.
And a man who lived in the same Cambridge neighborhood as the brothers and speaks Russian said the older one told him “he was upset with America because America was in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries.” The man, who declined to give his name, added, “Should I have called someone to tell them this guy doesn’t like America? I’m having second thoughts.”
The brothers apparently grew up in Makhachkala in Dagestan, a region of Russia next to Chechnya, a mainly Muslim republic that fought a 10- year war with Russia marked by terrorist attacks in Moscow and Breslan.
The family arrived as refugees, said a law enforcement official, and was granted asylum.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s YouTube channel, created in August 2012, has religious overtones, as well as links to lighter fare, such as sites for “Vasya Oblomov,” a satirical music project by Russian musician Vasily Goncharov.
Seven months ago, he created channels, one of which has been removed by YouTube, called “Terrorists” and “Islam.”
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger brother, graduated from Cambridge Rindge & Latin School in 2011. He received a $2,500 scholarship from Cambridge to be used toward higher education.
He was a wrestler and was honored as the student athlete of the month in February 2011.
Ty Barros, 21, of Cambridge, a classmate, said Dzhokhar attended a nearby mosque in Cambridge. “He would drink with us, he would smoke with us, he wasn’t too religious, but he was Muslim obviously,” Barros said as he stood next to a police barricade on Cambridge Street on Friday.
He said he had never heard Dzhokhar say anything radical. “There’s definitely nothing that would indicate that to me — no red flags,” said Barros, who added that he last saw him eight months ago.
When authorities released photos of the suspects, Barros said, “I joked with some friends, ‘ It looks like Dzhokhar!’ It was ridiculous to me, that’s why I made the joke.”