Dzohkar Tsarnaev’s Mother

By Susan O’Neal, Oak Park, Illinois

April 19, 2013

            On December 15, 2012, a day after a young adult with a brain disorder shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, fired his mother’s Bushmaster AR-15, killing 26 children and school personnel, before shooting himself with a hand gun, a woman named Liza Long inserted herself into the national dialogue by posting an article online, entitled, “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother.”

            I am not Dzhokar Tsarnaev’s mother.  I am a 55 year old, third generation Irish American.  But, I could be Dzhokar Tsarnaev’s mother. It is easy for me to imagine for me since I am mother of a 20 year old son.  Try to imagine that you are, too.  Maybe not his mother, but his father, his brother, his sister, his aunt, his uncle, his cousin, his grandfather or grandmother.  You get the point, right?  He is somebody’s son.  His dead brother, the one Dzhokar ran over earlier, as he made his desperate escape from the firestorm of bullets, was somebody’s son, too.

            As I watched the television news coverage over the past 24 hours, I realized that everyone involved was treating Dzhokar like the prey on a safari, and the law enforcement community were the big game hunters.  It wasn’t just the media.  The news anchors did use that language though.  They spoke of a manhunt and toward the end of the day, when they had him cornered, the news anchors used phrases like the law enforcement officers “have him in their sights” and that we, the American people, were waiting for the “big moment”, a phrase which might better be used to describe waiting for the grand finale of the fireworks display at an Independence Day celebration.

            This brings me to the second realization that I had, which is that everyone surrounding this horrible event is treating the “capture” of Dzhokar Tsarnaev as though they had been waiting for the ball to drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve in Manhattan.  In fact, after it was all over, and Dzhokar was in police custody in a Boston hospital, the television news showed a crowd of college students, whose mood was described by CNN’s Piers Morgan as “jubilant” over the capture of the young man they are calling the “second marathon bomber.”  The students were chanting, “U.S.A., U.S.A.“ and “This is Boston.  This is Boston.“ 

            That same network’s Poppy Harlow told the viewers that this jubilation was not limited to Boston.  She said that similar celebrations were to be found all around the country, and even “30,000 feet up in the air.”  Poppy went on to tell about a flight from Atlanta to Chicago tonight, where a woman read on Twitter that Dzohkar had been apprehended, she told the flight attendants, who told the pilot, who announced it to the passengers over the intercom system.  Poppy reported that then “the plane erupted in applause.” 

            The Boston Police apparently had time to Tweet, as CNN reported that they tweeted, “Captured!!!  The hunt is over.”  That little red banner that maddeningly runs toward the left, as whatever else is going on in the main frame on CNN, reported, “Revelers pour into Boston streets, brandishing American flags.”

            Yet, we forget that Dzokhar is a 19 year old man, barely a man.  He’s not even old enough to legally drink beer.  He was discovered lying bleeding in a guy’s boat, after apparently being shot nearly 24 hours earlier in the gunfight, in which his brother was fatally wounded. 

            The television news reports that Dzhokar came to the United states in 2002, at the age of 8, with his parents.  His relatives claimed that the family needed asylum.  They were allowed to stay, but he had two sisters and a brother left behind in one of the former Russian states, Chechnya or Dakestan perhaps.  The older brother only came to the U.S. six years ago, at a time when he was already 20 years old. 

            Dzhokar is a United States citizen.  By all accounts he does not fit the profile of either a mentally unstable mass murderer, or a religious zealot and terrorist.  His friends describe him as being funny, popular, athletic, and not religious at all.  He was a college student, who played soccer.  His dead brother, apparently, was not an American citizen, had no American friends, he said, and claimed he did not understand us.  The older brother had become quite religious and political over the past five years, according to their mother.  When he died, he was wearing an explosive suicide vest and a detonator, a stark contrast from his bleeding 19 year old brother, found lying in a guy’s boat in a Watertown back yard. 

            Oddly, at least to me, since I am an attorney, CNN reports that the U.S. Justice Department has made the decision that Dzhokar is not entitled to his “Miranda rights”, due to a “public safety exception” that the federal government is invoking.  Apparently I am not the only one surprised by this move, as Piers Morgan interviewed prominent attorney, Alan Dershowitz, who pointed out that Dzhokar’s attorneys will question both the federal government’s jurisdiction in this case, as well as them invoking  this “public safety exception“, which would, if applicable, deprive Dzokhar of his Miranda rights.  Dershowitz claims that Dzhokar’s attorneys will claim this is murder, which is a state case, and not an act of international terrorism. Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain are declaring that Dzhokar should be considered an "enemy combatant."

            Seems like Alan Dershowitz has some good points.  There is no evidence at this time that this was a terrorist attack.  Dzhokar as an American citizen has constitutionally protected rights, including his Miranda rights.  These things make a difference.  This is a seriously wounded young adult who is or will be being questioned by law enforcement officials, while in custody.  If convicted of these federal crimes, he could be executed.  If he is tried for murder by the State of Massachusetts, the most severe penalty would be life in prison.  We don’t even know if Dzokhar killed anyone.  A friend of his, named Bassel Nasri, told CNN that Dzhokar was very much influenced by his older brother, whom he looked upon as a father figure, since their father was half-way around the world, back in the Caucasus.  But, according to American law, Dzhokar is guilty of all of the crimes, even if it turns out  that the dead brother actually committed the crimes, because of the theory that a person who is there and knows the crime is going to be committed is guilty just the same.

            Clearly, four people were killed, apparently by one or both of these young men, and dozens of people were wounded, several of whom suffered amputations from the bombs.  Millions of people were further frightened and confined to their homes or businesses, during the “manhunt.”  No one should forget this.  But, I am suggesting that Dzhokar Tsarnaev is a human being.  He is not an animal and he is someone’s son.  He could be my son, or yours.  There is no cause for jubilation.