FBI didn’t tell Boston police about suspect: Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis told Congress on Thursday that the FBI never told the police department that they received warnings from Russian intelligence sources about Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Davis said that four officials who were assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force had no idea that the FBI investigated warnings about Tsarnaev, reported WMUR-9 television.
“They tell me they received no word about that individual prior to the bombing,” Davis told the hearing.
Davis said that even if there were warnings about Tsarnaev, it might not have prevented the attack that left three people dead and more than 200 people injured in mid-April.
“The FBI did that and they closed the case out,” he added. “I can’t say I would’ve come to a different conclusion based on the information at the time.”
But if his office knew about Tsarnaev, who was shot and killed days after the bombing, “we would certainly look at the individual,” he said, reported The New York Times.
“I’m not ready to vilify anyone at this point in time, but there are questions that need to be answered,” Davis added. “And I’m looking forward to the review of what occurred so we can get to the bottom of a lot of different questions.”
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul, (R-Texas) was more dire in his assessment.
“My fear is that the Boston bombers succeeded because our system failed,” McCaul said, according to ABC News.
Davis also said that not a single student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth called authorities after surveillance photos of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the other alleged bomber, were posted by the FBI.
