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Ibragim Todashev is seen in 2009 at the Massachusetts gym where Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev trained.

The friend of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev who law enforcement forces said was shot and killed Wednesday after being questioned by the FBI about a brutal 2011 Boston-area homicide was a promising if somewhat forgettable mixed martial artist, fellow practitioners of the sport said.

Chris Palmquist, who operates the official registry for amateur and professional MMA fighters, said Ibragim Todashev, 27, fought his matches under the name Ibrahim Tody. “I don’t know if it was an alias he gave or if it was just a misspelling. Or a promoter could have entered him,” said Palmquist, who fought Todashev once in a competition about four years ago.

There was “nothing that stood out” about Todashev when the two faced off in a 2009 New England grappling competition, a video of which is online.

In another video from 2009, this one showing an MMA bout at American Steel Cage Fighting in New Hampshire, the man who was shot on Wednesday strides into the circular ring to the thumping bass of Cypress Hill’s song “Rock Superstar”: “You want to be a rock superstar and live large / A big house, five cars, you’re in charge.”

The announcer introduces him as “hailing” from Chechnya, a “freestyle fighter” with a “perfect amateur mixed martial arts record with four victories in all four of his bouts.” Before the start of the three-round fight – which Todashev would lose – two bikini-clad card girls circle the ring.

Courtesy of Gary Marino

Ibragim Todashev weighing in at a 2009 mixed martial arts competition in Salem, New Hampshire.

Todashev is credited in that video with fighting for Wai Kru, the same gym in Allston, Mass., frequented by Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The man’s father, Abdul Baki Todashev, told NBC News in a phone interview from Chechnya that his son and Tamerlan Tsarnaev “went to the same gym for boxing classes.”

His son and Tsarnaev, the older bombing suspect who was killed in a shootout with police, “never were close friends,” he said.

Mixed martial arts is a popular, full-contact fighting sport in which competitors use boxing and martial arts skills combined with grappling and wrestling moves to defeat their opponent. The introduction of the Ultimate Fighting Championship brought mixed martial arts to greater attention in the United States in the early 1990s.

A matchmaker who organized the 2009 fight in New Hampshire, Gary Marino, said he remembered Todashev from the Wai Kru gym and the weigh-in before the bout.

“I remember that kid, the way he looked at me was weird, he kind of looked right through you,” Marino said. “He was very quiet but he kind of looked right through you like he didn’t know what you were talking about.”

Palmquist also trained MMA fighter Evan Scott, who fought Todashev in his last sanctioned amateur MMA bout. Scott beat the 5-foot-9, 160-pound Todashev with an armbar submission in the second round.

“You get a fair mix of guys who come from solid backgrounds, and then you get guys who probably shouldn’t be fighting already but just kind of jump in there,” Palmquist said. “He was definitely a pretty good amateur fighter. He definitely came from some kind of wrestling background.”

Todashev fought a total of six sanctioned amateur matches, winning four and losing two, according to his official MMA record. He fought one unsanctioned amateur bout in February 2012, and one sanctioned professional bout in July of that year, winning both.

Todashev applied for a mixed martial arts license with the Florida State Boxing Commision on July 26, 2012. On an application for a national MMA identification card filed on the same day, he wrote that he had four years of experience in the sport. The Florida license was issued in August 2012 and expired in December of that year, according to the state department of business and professional regulation.

He spent at least some of that time training at The Jungle MMA and Fitness, a gym that bills itself as “Central Florida’s Premier Spot” for MMA training. He did not fight any matches through the gym, according to staff there.

AP Photo / Orange County Corrections Department

In this May 4, 2013 police mug provided by the Orange County Corrections Department in Orlando, Fla., shows Ibragim Todashev after his arrest for aggravated battery in Orlando. Todashev, who was being questioned in Orlando by authorities in the Boston bombing probe, was fatally shot Wednesday, May 22, 2013 when he initiated a violent confrontation, FBI officials said.

“He was here for about maybe two months about a year and a half ago,” said gym manager John Morehouse.

Todashev was “pretty unmemorable,” Morehouse said. “You know, your basic guy, come in, take a class. I don’t think he had any friends here.”

Law enforcement sources have said Todashev had two prior run-ins with the law and had confessed to involvement in a 2011 triple murder before he was shot. People familiar with MMA said if he did have a violent past, it’s not typical of the sport’s practitioners. Most amateur and professional fighters are no more violent outside the ring than anyone else, they said.

Mark Tullius fell into the world of amateur MMA after graduating with a degree in sociology from Brown University. After being active in the sport from 1998 to 2002, Tullius abandoned it because he was “turned off by the violence,” he said. Over the past year, he has traveled to 15 states and interviewed more than 250 mixed martial arts fighters to figure out what makes them tick.

“Ninety-five to 97 percent of them are just awesome people,” Tullius said of the fighters and their coaches.

“I think when a lot of people go to the gym, they’re looking for something they’re missing,” Tullis said. “There are lots of different kinds of fighters. Lots of today’s fighters are wrestlers who are just super competitive and are looking for another way to compete.”

While pro MMA matches are regulated, amateur competition often goes on with little oversight, according to Gregory Sirb, executive director of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission and former president of the Association of Boxing Commissions. Amateur mixed martial arts competitions are banned in West Virginia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Colorado, and North Dakota, according to the ABC. Bouts at the amateur level go on completely unregulated in 11 states, the organization says.

“It’s horrible,” Sirb said. “For a sport that’s so violent – this sport screams for oversight.”

While amateur match-ups may not be heavily regulated by the states, experienced fighters tend to have their own code of conduct, Tullius said, an ethic Todashev violated in at least two incidents when he appears to have used his fighting abilities well outside the ring.

"Some places will say if you get into a fight you're not training here," Tullius said. "And a professional would not want to do that."

Todashev was arrested in Boston in 2010 after aggressively confronting two women following an accident involving his van and their car, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office told NBC affiliate WHDH. There were no injuries and no charges were pressed, authorities said.

He was arrested a second time this year, for aggravated battery on May 4, after allegedly getting into a fight with a man and his son over a parking space in Orlando, according to an Orange County Sheriff’s Office arrest affidavit. Todashev told officers he was a mixed martial artist before being transported to the booking and release center, according to the affidavit.

“This skill puts his fighting ability way above that of a normal person,” the arresting officer wrote in the affidavit.

Todashev was released the next day on a $3,500 surety bond.

Related:

• Father of slain man linked to Boston bombing suspect maintains son's innocence
• Man with ties to Boston bombing suspect admits role in 2011 murders; shot during FBI questioning

By Bill Dedman and Matthew DeLuca
NBC News

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Two young men about the same age apparently crossed paths last Thursday night in the Kendall Square area, on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One was an MIT police officer known for his extraordinary ease at building relationships with foreign students. The other was an immigrant from the Caucasus.

Perhaps if they'd met in a different circumstance, Tamerlan Tsarnaev would have taken a liking to Officer Sean A. Collier. Everybody else seemed to.

On a campus where 40 percent of graduate students are from other countries, where their experience with police officers may be limited to violent confrontation, students found an exuberant friend in the 27-year-old Collier. In only 15 months on campus, he found a place in its heart. Collier joined the Outing Club to learn winter hiking, and trained with students by running stairs at night, sometimes in his uniform if he was on duty. "When we did a day hike in plaid flannel to yodel off of a mountain, Sean was the most enthusiastic yodeler of all of us," recalled alumnus Maddie Hickman. When he worked security at a school dance, he decided he'd better take dancing lessons, so he wouldn't be embarrassed the next time he showed off his footwork.

TODAY

Officer Sean A. Collier, 27, of the MIT Police was killed April 18 in Cambridge.

Collier was shot dead in his police car on April 18, apparently as the Tsarnaev brothers made a failed attempt to get another weapon. The killing of Collier and a carjacking eventually led to the death that night of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, during a shootout with police in neighboring Watertown. It also eventually led to the capture on Friday afternoon of his 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar, who is facing federal charges in the April 15 bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

The MIT community mourned Collier on Wednesday with a powerful midday memorial service on the baseball and softball facility, Briggs Field, about a five-minute walk across campus from where he died. Fifteen thousand chairs were filled with a sea of blue caps worn by law enforcement officers from around the nation. A huge American flag waved from the tips of two fire department ladders. Collier's casket was placed on a bier.

The service began with mournful bagpipes and ended with the playing of taps, then a flyover by police helicopters. Vice President Joe Biden spoke, paying tribute not only to Collier and his family, but to the families of all law enforcement officers. James Taylor sang the folk song "The Water is Wide" with the MIT Symphony Orchestra and then his "Shower the People" with MIT a cappella ensembles. A handmade sign displayed prior to the memorial proclaimed "Collier Strong," a play on the "Boston Strong" meme. Students who couldn't get into the memorial gathered around campus to watch the live video feed.

Related: Family of Officer Collier on TODAY: "Sean was such a good person"

How could a police officer meet so many students in barely a year on campus? MIT Police Chief John DiFava offered his explanation.

"He was the same person in uniform then when he wasn't wearing the uniform," DiFava said. "He was able to achieve a level of trust with people of many different backgrounds that was truly remarkable. ... Many of our students come from countries where the police really are not their friends. ... Sean understood this right away. He made it his mission to achieve their trust."

Young Officer Collier, fresh out of the state police academy, applied his own brand of community policing. He lived in neighboring Somerville, where he had worked as a civilian for the police department and was planning to begin a job as an officer this summer.

"People have asked me, if Sean were here, what would he think?" said his stepbrother Rob Rogers. "Are you kidding me? He would love this. You’ve got sirens. Flashing lights. Formations. People saluting. Bagpipes. Taps. The American flag. He would have loved it. He was born to be a police officer, and he lived out his dreams."

Hickman, the former student, posted her memories of Collier along with other students on the Outing Club's website.

Slideshow: Aftermath and reaction following Boston bombings

Dominick Reuter / Reuters

Heightened security, empty streets, and memorials mark the the day after the Boston Marathon bombings.

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"He wanted to get involved in countless other student organizations across campus," Hickman wrote. "He loved the MIT community, and loved getting to know students and becoming a part of the MIT culture. ... He was good at making lasting connections, not just at striking up conversations, and we became close friends. I ran into him regularly on campus, and stopped by often to chat through the window of his police cruiser, or on his patrols. Sean cared a lot about his job, and he cared intensely about people; he worked long hours, but always made time to stop and chat. He was incredibly easy-going and friendly, and we'd talk regularly - about life and the world, or just being silly.

"Sean used to stop by the student center while on shift, and often came by the MIT Lindy Hop dance in uniform," Hickman said. "At first, some of the dancers were nervous at the 'police presence' in the room, but Sean made friends quickly and stood by the door to hang out and chat. In the spirit of trying new things, he even started taking swing dancing lessons in his time off, so he could participate in future dances 'without being embarrassed,' as he said."

Chief DiFava said he saw Collier about 9:30 last Thursday night, and pulled alongside his police car. He said Collier said he was "just making sure everyone is behaving." An hour later, DiFava said, he got the phone call.

As the memorial continued, police snipers held positions on the tops of buildings.

Biden called the perpetrators of the marathon bombing "twisted, perverted, cowardly, knockoff jihadis." He said he's often asked why terrorists do what they do. "They do it to instill fear," he said. "The irony is, we read about these events, we experience them, but the truth is, on every frontier, terrorism as a weapon is losing. It is not gaining adherents." He called for Americans to hold firm to their values. "The moment we get in a crouch and are defensive, is the moment they win. ... We have not yielded to our fears. We have not compromised our values. We have not weakened our constitutional guarantees. We have not closed our borders. ... We will not hunker down. We will not be intimidated."

DeLuca reported from the memorial in Cambridge.

MIT has created a Sean A. Collier Memorial Fund, which will support a Collier Medal to be awarded to people who demonstrate Collier's values. And his family has suggested that memorial gifts be made to the Jimmy Fund of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

Justin Lane / EPA

A moment of silence is marked on the steps of the Massachusetts State House one week since the bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Boston observed a moment of silence at 2:50 p.m. Monday – exactly one week after an annual springtime rite in the city was shattered by a pair of explosions that killed three people and injured more than 200, including some who lost legs.

From the Watertown police department whose officers searched their town for a bombing suspect to the Massachusetts State House to the neighborhood where a little boy who died in the attack had lived, the city remembered those it lost.

A full minute of silence was observed at the request of Gov. Deval Patrick, Mayor Thomas Menino, and charitable organization One Fund Boston. The White House announced that President Obama marked the occasion, as did the New York Stock Exchange. Governors in Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut asked residents of their states to take a minute to commemorate those killed and injured as well.

Earlier Monday, a funeral for victim Krystle Campbell, 29, at St. Joseph’s Church in Medford was packed to overflowing, with a thousand more people standing outside. Gov. Patrick was joined inside by Attorney General Martha Coakley and Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley.

“The great irony was it was so peaceful, loving, and supportive, and we were all there for a senseless, angry, horrific tragedy,” Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn said after the ceremony. “Everybody knew her as someone with a great sense of humor. They say at times she was a little loud but everybody loved her for it.”

About one thousand members of Teamsters Local 25 gathered at St. Joseph’s Church earlier in the day after the Westboro Baptist Church said they planned to demonstrate, according to local president Sean O’Brien. But no members of Westboro showed up, he said.

PhotoBlog: Mourners pause for moment of silence

On Sunday, a wake was held for Campbell, and lines stretched out the door and down the street from the funeral home. The memorial, which was scheduled to last an hour, went on for five, WHDH reported.

Medford draped a 45-by-90-foot American flag across the front of city hall on Monday morning in honor of Campbell and the other victims. McGlynn said he had the flag commissioned after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Jim Bourg / Reuters

Two-year-old Wesley Brillant of Natick, Massachusetts kneels in front of a memorial to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings near the scene of the blasts on Boylston Street in Boston, Massachusetts, April 21, 2013.

At Boston University, where Chinese graduate student Lu Lingzi, 23, was working toward a master’s degree in statistics before being killed in the explosions near the marathon finish line, a public memorial was planned for 7 p.m. Monday night.

A memorial scholarship has been instituted in Lu’s memory.

“There isn’t an individual at BU who didn’t have some connection to people who were there,” university trustee Kenneth Feld said in a release from the school.

Over the weekend, more balloons and teddy bears were added to a makeshift memorial for 8-year-old Martin Richard of Dorchester, who died last Monday as well. His mother Denise and sister Jane, 7, were wounded in the blast; Denise required brain surgery and Jane lost a leg to the pressure-cooker bombs set off on the race sidelines.

The Richard family thanked law enforcement for “a job well done” in a statement released after the capture of bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Richard was remembered at a packed mass on Sunday at the family’s St. Ann Parish in Dorchester, where neighbors have said his parents are active community members.

“Our entire community shares the grief and suffering felt by our young family,” the parish’s Father Sean Connor said in a letter on the church’s website. “We can only imagine the suffering that the Richard family carries today, as a result of the Boston Marathon tragedy, will be with them each day of their lives.”

Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

Running shoes are placed at a makeshift memorial for victims near the finish line of the Boston Marathon bombings at the intersection of Newbury Street and Darthmouth Street.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology mourned the loss of a popular campus safety officer who only got to enjoy a little more than a year on the job. Officer Sean Collier was shot and killed by the suspected bombers late on Thursday night, police said. The men shot the 26-year-old Collier multiple times while he was sitting in his vehicle, according to authorities.

A memorial service for Collier has been planned for Wednesday, April 24, at noon, according to a release from MIT police. Collier’s family has requested that his wake and funeral services remain private.

The proceeds from a Brahms performance at MIT on Sunday that drew hundreds of singers from local choruses were donated to One Fund Boston. The school also created the Sean Collier Memorial fund, which will support an award for individuals “who demonstrate the values of Officer Collier,” according to a letter from University President L. Rafael Reif on Monday.

On Monday, the areas where the blasts occurred were transitioning from crime scene to street scene. Mementos left at a makeshift memorial on Boylston Street are being moved to a park at nearby Copley Square; city workers on Sunday began removing the running shoes, flowers, and notes left by friends, family, and strangers with the goal of having all pieces of the memorial moved by the end of the week.

Students and faculty at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, where alleged bomber and Suspect 2 Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was enrolled as a sophomore, planned to observe the minute of silence. A student vigil on campus was planned for 5 p.m.

The mayor’s office released a five-step plan on Sunday to reopen the area around the finish line on Boylston Street that included testing buildings near the blast sites and removing debris.

“Nearly a week ago our city took a deep breath and was forced to dive into a pool of uncertainty and fear,” Menino said in a press release. “Friday as our officers reported to the world ‘we got him,’ a huge sigh of relief was felt across our great city and nation so now it is time for us to start moving our city forward.”

Slideshow: Boston bombings

Dominick Reuter / Reuters

Cheers filled the streets after a Boston Marathon bombing suspect was captured alive but wounded Friday night — following a daylong manhunt that shut down the city.

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Related:

• 'Adorable' boy, 8, mourned after Boston Marathon blasts
• Second Boston Marathon bombing victim identified as 29-year-old woman
• Outpouring of grief for third Boston victim, Chinese university student

This story was originally published on Mon Apr 22, 2013 10:39 AM EDT

Polaris

Katherine Russell, the American wife of alleged marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, leaves the house where he lived on Norfolk street in Cambridge, Mass.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Federal authorities have asked to speak with the wife of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and her lawyer said Sunday he is discussing with them how to proceed.

Amato DeLuca told The Associated Press that Katherine Russell Tsarnaev did not speak to federal officials who came to her parents' home in North Kingstown, R.I., Sunday evening, where she has been staying since her husband was killed during a getaway attempt early Friday.

Slideshow: Boston’s week : mayhem, manhunt … and a takedown

John Tlumacki / Boston Globe / Getty Images Contributor

Police officers with their guns drawn hear the second explosion down the street. The first explosion knocked down a runner at the finish line of the 117th Boston Marathon.

Launch slideshow

Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother, Dzhokhar, 19, two ethnic Chechen brothers from southern Russia, are accused of planting two explosives near the marathon finish line Monday, killing three people and injuring more than 180. A motive remains unclear.

DeLuca said he spoke with the officials instead, but would not offer further details.

"I spoke to them, and that's all I can say right now," he said. "We're deciding what we want to do and how we want to approach this."

DeLuca also offered new details on Tamerlan Tsarnaev's movements in the days after the bombings, saying the last day he was alive that "he was home" when his wife left for work. When asked whether anything seemed amiss to his wife following the bombings, DeLuca responded, "Not as far as I know." He said she learned her husband was a suspect in the bombings by seeing it on TV. He would not elaborate.

DeLuca said his client did not suspect her husband of anything, and that there was no reason for her to have suspected him. He said she had been working 70 to 80 hours, seven days a week as a home health care aide. While she was at work, her husband cared for their toddler daughter, DeLuca said.

"When this allegedly was going on, she was working, and had been working all week to support her family," he told the AP.

He said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was off at college and she saw him "not at all" at the apartment they shared with her mother-in-law.

Earlier story: Family of slain bombing suspect's widow: 'Our hearts are sickened'

Katherine Russell Tsarnaev was attending Suffolk University in Boston when friends introduced her to her future husband at a nightclub, DeLuca said. They dated on and off, then married in 2009 or 2010, he said.

She was raised Christian, but at some point after meeting Tamerlan Tsarnaev, she converted to Islam, he said. When asked why she converted, he replied: "She believes in the tenets of Islam and of the Koran. She believes in God."

Related:

• Badly wounded Boston Marathon bombing suspect responding to questions
• Classmates of suspected bomber suggest 'brainwashing' by older brother
• Terrorists may leave 'digital breadcrumbs' for investigators

The screams and cries of bloody marathon bombing victims still haunt the nurses who treated them one week ago. They did their jobs as they were trained to do, putting their own fears in a box during their 12-hour shifts so they could better comfort their patients.

Only now are these nurses beginning to come to grips with what they endured, and are still enduring as they continue to care for survivors. They are angry, sad and tired. A few confess they would have trouble caring for the surviving suspect, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, if he were at their hospital and they were assigned his room.

And they are thankful. They tick off the list of their hospital colleagues for praise: from the security officers who guarded the doors to the ER crews who mopped up trails of blood; the doctors and, especially, the other nurses.

Nurses from Massachusetts General Hospital, which treated 22 of the 187 victims the first day, candidly recounted their experiences in interviews with The Associated Press. Here are their memories:

THEY WERE SCREAMING

Megann Prevatt, ER nurse: "These patients were terrified. They were screaming. They were crying ... We had to fight back our own fears, hold their hands as we were wrapping their legs, hold their hands while we were putting IVs in and starting blood on them, just try to reassure them: 'We don't know what happened, but you're here. You're safe with us.' ... I didn't know if there were going to be more bombs exploding. I didn't know how many patients we'd be getting. All these thoughts are racing through your mind."

SHRAPNEL, NAILS

Adam Barrett, ICU nurse, shared the patient bedside with investigators searching for clues that might break the case. "It was kind of hard to hear somebody say, 'Don't wash that wound. You might wash evidence away.'" Barrett cleaned shrapnel and nails from the wounds of some victims, side by side with law enforcement investigators who wanted to examine wounds for blast patterns. The investigator's request took him aback at first. "I wasn't stopping to think, 'What could be in this wound that could give him a lead?'"

THEIR FACES, THEIR SMILES

Jean Acquadra, ICU nurse, keeps herself going by thinking of her patients' progress. "The strength is seeing their faces, their smiles, knowing they're getting better. They may have lost a limb, but they're ready to go on with their lives. They want to live. I don't know how they have the strength, but that's my reward: Knowing they're getting better."

She is angry and doesn't think she could take care of Tsarnaev, who is a patient at another hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "I don't have any words for him," Acquadra says.

THE NEED FOR JUSTICE

Christie Majocha, ICU nurse: "Even going home, I didn't get away from it," Majocha said. She is a resident of Watertown, the community paralyzed Friday by the search for the surviving suspect. She helped save the lives of maimed bombing victims on Monday. By week's end, she saw the terror come to her own neighborhood. The manhunt, she felt, was a search for justice, and was being carried out directly for the good of her patients.

"I knew these faces (of the victims). I knew what their families looked like. I saw their tears," she said. "I know those families who are so desperate to see this end."

On Friday night, she joined the throngs cheering the police officers and FBI agents, celebrating late into the night even though she had to return to the hospital at 7 a.m. the next day.

Related:

Rapid strides in limb technology offer hope to Boston victims

Crowdfunding raises cash for victims 

Despite a serious throat wound preventing him from speaking, the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect is beginning to respond to questions from investigators, federal officials tell NBC News.

Nearly 48 hours after he was taken into custody following an intense gun battle and manhunt, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was communicating with a special team of federal investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. He was responding to questions mostly in writing because of the throat wound, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The suspect remains in serious condition. 

The throat wound may be the result of a suicide attempt, investigators said.

Officials are hoping to glean more information about the twin blasts Monday at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, which killed three people and injured more than 170,  and determine whether Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed in a firefight with police after a wild chase into the Boston suburb of Watertown on Thursday night, received assistance from others.

Word that the wounded suspect is able to communicate with authorities came as a surprise, especially after details about the severity of his injuries began to emerge earlier in the day. 

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino told an interviewer that “we don’t know if we’ll ever be able to question the individual."

Law enforcement sources had said earlier they were putting the final touches on charges against Tsarnaev and would announce them Sunday. However, Justice Department officials said late in the day that charges would not be announced until Monday at the earliest. They did not give a reason for the delay.

Authorities have told NBC News that a special high value detainee interrogation team will question Tsarnaev without advising him of his Miranda rights. A “public safety exemption” allows investigators to question a suspect without being informed of his right to remain silent and to have an attorney present during questioning when it is thought that he or she might have vital information about a threat to public safety.

Other details on the Tsarnaevs emerged Sunday.

NBC News contacted the driver of an SUV who allegedly was carjacked by the brothers hours before the shootout. The driver, who asked that his identity not be revealed, said he escaped after the brothers drove his car to a gas station in Watertown. He described them as “brutal and cautious.” 

Also on Sunday, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said that surveillance video clearly puts Tsarnaev at the scene of the attack, acting suspiciously.

Slideshow: Boston’s week : mayhem, manhunt … and a takedown

John Tlumacki / Boston Globe / Getty Images Contributor

Police officers with their guns drawn hear the second explosion down the street. The first explosion knocked down a runner at the finish line of the 117th Boston Marathon.

Launch slideshow

"It does seem to be pretty clear that this suspect took the backpack off, put it down, did not react when the first explosion went off and then moved away from the backpack in time for the second explosion," Patrick said on “Meet the Press.” "It's pretty clear about his involvement and pretty chilling, frankly."

Patrick noted that while he had not personally viewed the video recordings, he was briefed by law enforcement on their contents.

More details about the Thursday night chase surfaced over the weekend.

The brothers hurled a pressure-cooker bomb similar to the two that went off at the marathon during the firefight, Watertown Police Chief Edward Deveau said on Saturday. The men were in two cars when confronted by a lone police officer, Deveau said, and later threw four grenade-like explosives at pursuing officers.

Still, much remained unknown on Sunday about what might have driven the two suspects to violence. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said on “Meet the Press” that Tamerlan may have traveled under an alias when he took a trip to Russia in 2012.

That trip may have been when Tamerlan, who the FBI identified as Suspect 1, “got that final radicalization to push him to commit acts of violence and where he may have received training,” said committee chair Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich.

Also, crime scene units returned to the scene of Monday’s twin explosions that brought an annual springtime rite to an end in screams and smoke. Debris and trash not far from the bomb site on Boylston Street were taken away in garbage trucks on Sunday after being sifted for evidence.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said Sunday he has not seen evidence to link the bombings to any militant or terrorist group, and declined to speculate on whether or not Tsarnaev could be sent to Guantanamo Bay.

“We just don’t have the facts, and until we get the facts, then it will be the responsibility of law enforcement, DOJ, and other institutions to make some determination as to how that individual should be treated, detained, charged, and all that goes with it,” Hagel said. “But right now we just don’t know enough about it.”

Investigators are taking a look at Tsarnaev’s behavior after he returned to the campus of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth after the Monday bombings, Gov. Patrick said Sunday on “Meet the Press.”

“There is evidence of some frankly kind of normal student behavior in those ensuing days, which when you consider the enormity of what he was responsible for certainly raises a lot of questions in my mind and as I say more to the point in the minds of law enforcement as well,” Patrick said. “Those are the kinds of leads that still have to be pursued and run to ground.”

Classmates of suspected bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev suggest 'brainwashing' by older brother

In Boston, the hunt for the suspected perpetrators gave way to a time to mourn a week after the attacks. A funeral for marathon victim Krystle Campbell, 29, a restaurant manager, is scheduled for Monday at St. Joseph Church in her home town of Medford, Mass.

Menino and Patrick along with the central charitable One Fund Boston called for a minute of silence at 2:50 p.m. Monday to mark a week since the bombings. Bells will ring throughout the city and Massachusetts after the minute’s passage, according to a statement from the mayor’s office.

One person injured in the marathon blast was released from the hospital on Sunday, though 52 are still receiving treatment in Boston hospitals, with three in critical condition.

About 36,000 runners participated in the London Marathon on Sunday amid heightened security, many of them wearing black ribbons to commemorate the victims in Boston or carrying “For Boston” signs.

NBC News’ Tom Winter, Michael Isikoff and Jeff Black contributed to this report.

Related: 

• Police, citizens honor officer killed during hunt for Boston bombing suspects
• 'Rapid strides': Limb advances offer hope for Boston amputees
• London Marathon competitors, spectators defy security fears

This story was originally published on Sun Apr 21, 2013 10:53 AM EDT

Updated with video:

Massachusetts State Police

Massachusetts State Police

Above: Infrared images released by the Massachusetts State Police Air Wing appear to show Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Friday, April 19, hiding in a Watertown, Mass., resident's boat in the resident's backyard. Below: A police vehicle uses a boom to inspect the boat.

Related story: Secret weapon? How thermal imaging helped catch bomb suspect

Massachusetts State Police

Massachusetts State Police

Slideshow: Search for suspects in Boston Marathon bombings

Jared Wickerham / Getty Images

Cheers filled the streets after a Boston Marathon bombing suspect was captured alive but wounded Friday night — following a daylong manhunt that shut down the city.

Launch slideshow

Courtesy of the Tripathi family

Sunil Tripathi and his mother, Judy Tripathi.

The family of missing Brown University student Sunil Tripathi, whose name was repeatedly blasted across social media as a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, said it has been emotionally staggered by the erroneous reports.

His sister, Sangeeta Tripathi, said the family was forced to temporarily freeze its "Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi" Facebook page after that site — beginning Thursday evening — was peppered with a flurry of harsh and untrue posts about the student, who has been missing without a trace since March 16. The family is eagerly awaiting official word from law enforcement clearing Tripathi.

NBC News, via correspondent Pete Williams, reported on Twitter shortly after 2 a.m. Friday: "Speculation that one of the bombing suspects is a missing student is not correct," citing law enforcement sources. 

"It seems this is just the ugly underbelly of viral social media," Sangeeta Tripathi said. "But a lot of stir can be created through just a complete accusatory and unsubstantiated effort." 

"It’s had a huge cost on our family. We are all very depleted right now, just baseline over the past 34 days, and this has been very, very difficult," she added. "Without Sunil in our life, it's been very hard to have that publicity. 

"We are absolutely convinced, with no question at all, it’s not Sunil. We are eagerly awaiting formal public news to calm the pain on my family. We have not received a public apology at all. The FBI is incredibly busy as you can imagine in the investigation. The second law enforcement releases complete information on the suspects, it’s going up on our Facebook page." 

Twitter was ablaze overnight with tweets from users who said they'd heard Sunil Tripathi's name mentioned on Boston police radio frequencies in connection to the bombing investigation and during the massive manhunt that quickly unfolded Thursday night. The Tripathi family said it has no information corroborating that Boston police mentioned Tripathi's name. 

'Intense and ugly comments'
On Twitter, ‏‪@YourAnonNews tweeted overnight: "Police on scanner identify the names of ‪#BostonMarathon suspects in gunfight, Suspect 1: Mike Mulugeta. Suspect 2: Sunil Tripathi." That was retweeted more than 3,000 times. On the twitter account for "Kevin Michael TV," which lists him as "behind the camera at WFSB news Channel 3 Eyewitness News" in Hartford, Conn., a similar tweet came at roughly the same time: "BPD scanner has identified the names : Suspect 1: Mike Mulugeta Suspect 2: Sunil Tripathi."

As with Tripathi, no one named Mulugeta has been named as a suspect by the police. 

Meanwhile, the social news and entertainment website Reddit became overnight, Sangeeta Tripathi said, "one of the more ugly and disgusting places that had a lot of traffic ... There were very intense and ugly comments throughout the last 12 hours. A moderator posted an acknowledgement that without formal evidence, accusations should stop."

On Friday afternoon, the Tripathi family received an email from Erik Martin, the general manager of Reddit, “to apologize personally and on behalf of all our employees for … some of the people on our site's role in the spreading of this false idea about Sunny.” The Tripathi family immediately forwarded that email to NBC News.

“It's an extreme situation and we are deeply sorry that your family got caught up in it,” Martin wrote in the email. “I can't imagine what it must be like for your family to deal with this on top of what you must already be going through.”

The Tripathi family's Facebook page, set up to help locate Sunil and, until Thursday, filled with messages of hope and pictures of the student, began being hit with posts Thursday evening "from individuals who for whatever reason were making the association between what happened (at the Boston Marathon) and him, Sangeeta Tripathi said. 

The Tripathi siblings — there are three, with Sangeeta being the oldest and Sunil the youngest — grew up outside Philadelphia, Sangeeta said. The family has been huddled in Providence, R.I., home of Brown University, since Sunil disappeared last month. His nickname is "Sunny." 

Asked if the viral nature of the misinformation was racially fueled, she responded: "I’m not going to comment on that."

The spread of false rumors online is nothing new, but the combination of confusion and breaking news can create a particularly toxic situation.

In the immediate aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., school shootings, when local officials incorrectly identified the shooter as Ryan Lanza, thousands of Twitter and Facebook users swarmed to repeat the accusations. Meanwhile, after the theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., Facebook users who shared the suspect's name, James Holmes, found dozens of false accusations left on the pages.

Related links:

• Suspects to carjack victim: We are the bombers
• Who are the brothers accused of the Boston Marathon bombing?
• An empty metropolis: Photos show deserted streets of Boston  
• What we know: Timeline of terror hunt
• ‘Dedicated officer’ gunned down by Boston Marathon suspects at MIT
• Slideshow: Bombings at Boston Marathon
• Boston bombing spurs Senate debate on tighter immigration screening
• Photos from Bostonians locked down amid terror hunt 
• Tweeting police chatter creates confusion over Boston suspect

Courtesy of Pete Damon

Pete Damon and one of his many works, a depiction of a wounded warrior on a monoski.

An open letter from an armless Iraq War veteran to the amputee victims of the Boston Marathon bombing has gone viral thanks to his succinct, stirring words which offer a crisp portrait of post-injury life and unbridled hope.

His written depiction of human resilience is entirely within character: without arms, hands or fingers, Pete Damon, a Boston-area resident, later became a painter whose works have been displayed in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.

“Although it's undeniably tragic, you will recover,” Pete Damon posted on his Facebook page this week. “In fact, this will be a defining moment in your life. In the coming days, weeks, and months, you will find a strength and resilience you never knew you had.”

That sentiment was shared by his Facebook friends, ultimately landing on a military website, picking up fresh social traction from there.

“I just want to make sure they know this isn’t a life-ending event for them. This may be something that brings out the best in them,” Damon said in a phone interview from his home in Middleborough, Mass., about 40 minutes south of Boston. “I'm sure many of them are having doubts and worries about the future. But they can look to us, to the veterans like me, for strength and that everything is going to be fine.”

Courtesy of Pete Damon

An oil painting by Pete Damon called "A Time for Honoring."

A former Massachusetts Army National Guard sergeant who grew up in the Boston area, Damon was inflating Black Hawk helicopter tire at a base in Balad, Iraq in 2003 when the wheel and its rim exploded. The blast severed his left wrist and right arm above the elbow. The accident killed Alabama Army National Guard Specialist Paul Bueche, who was 19 at the time.

An amateur sketch artist whose wife once shipped him colored pencils to help fill the lulls of war, Damon later taught himself how to paint in oil and watercolor — with his remaining left arm and a prosthesis. That craft initially made him feel normal, and then became tranquil therapy. His images are peaceful: moonlit harbors, autumn shadows on a white, New England home, a man fishing a rocky point. His pieces do not reflect the ugliness of combat.

“Watching the scene unfold on the streets of Boston Monday afternoon shook me to the core,” Damon said. “In particular, seeing the graphic images of the wounded. Even though I had been through the experience of seeing my own limbs torn to shreds, those images of other victims weren't easy to process. I immediately felt a sense of kinship with those people."

Courtesy of Pete Damon

A view of East Boston, in oil, by Pete Damon

He immediately flashed back on a hospital visit he'd received weeks after his horrific injury from a Vietnam veteran without arms, Jerry Miserandino. He watched a video of that same man climbing a rock wall using prosthetics. Damon realized anything was possible in his new body.

“That attitude lit a great fire of hope inside me,” Damon said. “I want to let (the Boston victims) see all the other great examples of veterans who have suffered similar wounds and have gone on to excel at many things. I want them to experience that same hope."