WASHINGTON (AP) — It's been almost
a year since police in the Boston suburb of Watertown were at the
center of the hunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.
Police found
themselves in a late-night shootout with the suspects — one was killed,
the other was found wounded almost a day later.
On
Wednesday, Watertown's police chief was on Capitol Hill testifying at a
House hearing on the aftermath of last April's bombings.
Edward Deveau was asked about what lessons his department learned in the wake of the attack and if anything should be different.
He
said while his department is too small for a permanent seat on the
Boston area's Joint Terrorism Taskforce — one of many task forces around
the country organized by the FBI — smaller agencies like his "need to
have access to that table" immediately after events such as the Boston
Marathon bombings.
A few days
after the attacks that killed three and wounded hundred others,
Watertown officers got into an early morning shootout with bombing
suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Deveau said his officers
thought they were pursing carjacking suspects when the officers were
attacked with homemade explosives and gunfire. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was
killed in the shootout and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found nearly a day
later, wounded and hiding in a boat.
Deveau
testified before the House Homeland Security Committee along with a
sergeant from his department and former Boston Police Commissioner Ed
Davis.
"When something like
this happens, we need to have access to that table ... to be updated,"
Deveau said of working with the FBI-led terrorism task force. "We need
to have a seat right away."
The
committee chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said he still worried
that law enforcement officials missed signs that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had
become increasingly radicalized in the months and weeks leading up to
the bombings.
McCaul said a report from the committee on the bombings "found that several red flags and warnings were missed."
The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that Tamerlan Tsarnaev
submitted an application with immigration authorities to legally change
his name to honor a slain militant who fought Russian forces in
Dagestan, a Russian republic where the Tsarnaev family is from.
The
Tsarnaev brothers, ethnic Chechens, and their family immigrated to the
Boston area more than a decade ago. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a legal
permanent resident. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev became a naturalized citizen just
months before the bombings.
Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to a 30-count indictment and is
scheduled to stand trial in federal court in November. The government is
seeking the death penalty.
___
Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap
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