The classmates and friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are very much victims of this tragedy too. Imagine a friend that you knew since you were ten being accused of mass murder. All those school memories are still there. Talking about girls, hanging out at the mall. You can’t forget that stuff.
Their social media comments are very interesting. This guy was well liked in school. It’s a shame how he was changed. I’ve seen that changed behavior in cults all my life. Starting with the Manson family when I was a kid. Then Rev. Jim Jones massacred his followers at Jonestown. David Koresh’s Branch Davidians burned down their compound with their own kids inside. These cults all had normal middle class people that got twisted and warped by exposure to delusional and charismatic leaders. Today similar leaders spread their insanity on youtube and social media. I’d argue that these fanatical Imams are just as bad. They are ruining lot of good people.
This is just one comment from his former classmates. They are all pretty interesting.
I just found out that a friend’s friend’s son was on the same wrestling team, and was very surprised that such a good guy could do something like this.
(My personal opinion is that his brother talked him into it.)
A good friend’s daughter was good friends with him at CRLS, and my upstairs neighbor’s son was too. They both have described him as a good kid and talk about many kind acts (like escorting the daughter up and down stairs after she had a concussion as was a bit unsteady).
His acts have essentially forfeited his life, and I don’t see possible redemption for him. But I can recognize the tragedy of the situation. Whether it’s due to the influence of his brother, or because he was really twisted inside matters little in the end, I guess.
That’s the most puzzling thing to me about this story, that one of the two was this Americanized kid who was popular and had lots of friends. I can understand an outcast doing this, because it’s harder for them to empathize with their victims.
No doubt it was the older brother’s plan, but that still doesn’t entirely explain it to me.
So his classmates can’t imagine that he would do something so unimaginable and can’t comprehend why he would do something so incomprehensible? I’m shocked.
This reminds me of the times people say “He/she can be nice” when talking about someone who is often disliked. Who can’t be nice? The same can be true of people who seem nice and normal, but have a really dark streak. I’ve met several people in my life that were shitty people, but were loved by many. It’s not that hard to imagine someone who’s well liked having a really dark side, but I admit it may be a huge shock to those who never saw that side of him before.
The guy was a lifeguard. Tasked with saving people. He may have even gotten First Aid training with his lifeguard training. The All American immigrant success story.
I skimmed through most of his Twitter feed, and if that reflected his public persona then I can see why people thought he was a nice and normal guy.
Reading it, he comes across as a totally normal teenager with a good sense of humour. Yeah, I’ll admit it, some of his tweets made me chuckle. He seemed like a funny guy. No sign of obsessiveness that I can see - a wide mix of teenage philosophising, bitching about school, teasing his friends, retweeting humorous pics and memes, you name it.
He rarely mentioned religion, although he did denounce people who equate Islam with terrorism in one post.
I’m not trying to defend him, by the way, just pointing out that if this was the personality he displayed to others, I can see why nobody would ever have thought him capable of doing this. If he had this dark side all along then he kept it pretty well hidden.
The onion has a pretty funny commentary written from the perspective of this kid, being in shock that anyone could think he was a good person and that he’s really disappointed that all his friends could be such a bad judge of character.
I thought it was pretty funny.
I don’t think there’s anyone, anyone in the world, that I personally know, that I would think it was impossible for them to do something like this or worse. Human beings are always capable of heinous shit. Maybe I’m just too pessimistic but I’d never say, “Oh no not James! He could never do something like this. He was such a good person!”
“Can you ever really trust another human being Greg?”
A kid who I was at school with is currently in Broadmoor prison for setting off nail bombs in London 14 years ago. Obviously it’s not something you expect to happen, but with hindsight most of my friends agreed that it wasn’t truly surprising. He’d gone from being a pretty normal kid to being a bit of a loner. Not that he’s have even figured in the top 5 weird kids at my school.
I’m going to go with “too pessimistic”. You really have not one friend or loved one where you’re willing to say “I’m sure they aren’t going to blow up any marathons”?
The fact that he was a popular teenager makes me think that he would be more susceptible to the kind of social pressures his brother could exert to make him go along with the plan. I would be surprised if a guy like that was masterminding a bombing, but I could totally see him being “on the team” because he looked up to the mastermind.
Hasn’t Dzhokhar essentially already admitted he did it? Early reports from his interrogation are saying that he stated that he and his brother were the only guys and that it was his brother’s idea. There’s also little doubt he engaged in a firefight with police, including explosives, and carjacked a guy at gunpoint (while admitting to the bombings). There’s not a lot of wiggle room here for the Tsarnaevs being innocent, so I find the friends who are protesting his innocence to be a little odd.
Very few people are protesting his innocence, they believe he really did it. They are expressing confusion at how someone who seemed so caring and nice in one aspect of their lives could be so heartless and cruel in another aspect. It’s tough to wrap your brain around that dichotomy.
Some people are in denial - it is somewhat common for parents to believe their children are innocent - despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It doesn’t surprise me that some friends would feel the same way.
People believe what they want to believe - and then find evidence to support that belief - while finding reasons to dismiss all the evidence that goes against their belief.
That being said - if I was there friend - I think I’d be pretty convinced they did it at this point, but rI think I’d want to read actual court documents providing probable cause rather than just media reports. If memory serves - evidence in this case seems pretty overwhelming - even without court documents - what’s he doing in the boat? I guess you could argue he was an innocent man on the run, but at some point you have to be realistic.
I was referring to the links above showing two of his friends mounting a “freeJohar” campaign on twitter. I love the one guy saying "This video of the firefight, you can hear him saying “Chill Out…we didn’t do it!”
That’s great and all…but then why do you a) have a bunch of guns, b) have pressure cooker bombs like the ones at the marathon that you then throw at the police and c) return fire?
