Cop: Tsarnaev shootout 'non-stop' for 8 minutes

G. Jeffrey MacDonald | Special for USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Jurors see boat evidence in Boston Bombing trial Jurors in the Boston Bombing trial went to see the bullet-ridden boat where Dzhokar Tsarnaev hid from police which was brought to a location in South Boston. (March 16)

BOSTON — The police officer who confronted the Boston Marathon bombing suspects while on patrol three nights after the attacks took the witness stand Monday to describe a harrowing, eight-minute shootout, punctuated by a massive explosion from a pressure-cooker bomb that rattled the suburban neighborhood.

"It was non-stop," recalled Watertown, Mass., police officer Joseph Reynolds, who said the shooting ended when he and other officers managed to tackle the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Just as quickly, they heard an engine revving and saw younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev at the wheel of a stolen SUV and heading straight for them.

The cops managed to scramble out of the way, but Tamerlan died when the SUV struck him.

"It was very violent," Sgt. John MacLellan said. "The car was jumping back and forth with the body stuck up under the wheels."

The four-day manhunt ended hours later when police arrested a wounded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was hiding in a boat stored in a nearby backyard.

The officers' testimony came Monday morning in the trial of Tsarnaev, 21. He is charged in a 30-count indictment, including 17 counts that could carry the death penalty.

When Reynolds began his regular patrol on the night of April 18, 2013, his supervisor told him to be extra vigilant because an MIT campus security officer had been killed just miles away, Reynolds testified.

At 12:38 a.m., the patrolling Reynolds got word to be on the lookout for a carjacked Mercedes SUV. He saw a vehicle that matched the description and plate number.

"He was driving slow, very suspicious," Reynolds told jurors. "We locked eyes."

Moments later, Reynolds said, the SUV stopped and Tamerlan got out. He moved toward the cruiser, pulled a gun and fired on Reynolds, who took cover under the dashboard and threw his Ford Escape into reverse.

For the next eight minutes, Reynolds said, a ferocious battle ensued. Reynolds used his driver's door for cover and fired on Tamerlan, who took cover and kept firing from behind the Mercedes door.

Reynolds called for backup and sought cover in a yard behind a tree with another officer.

"We continued the gunfight with the two suspects," Reynolds said. "I could see two men. I could see muzzle flashes, a lighter being lit and what looked like a wick burning."

It was the first of four pipe bombs that the suspects would toss in their direction. Three exploded; one was a dud.

The officer taking cover with Reynolds, MacLellan said the first bomb wasn't too impressive, resembling an M-80 firecracker. But then came more power, as both officers recalled.

"I saw a larger type bomb being thrown at us — a cylinder, like a big cooking pot, a big pan," Reynolds said. Prosecutors called it a pressure cooker bomb, similar to the ones that exploded near the marathon finish line and killed three people.

"It was incredible," MacLellan said. "It was horrendous. A lot of debris — I thought shingles were coming off houses. … A lot of smoke, car alarms, people screaming."

The suspects fired dozens of rounds, MacLellan testified. Reynolds said he reloaded his 40-caliber Glock twice with fresh magazines and emptied everything he had.

More officers arrived to provide backup. Reynolds said he thought at one point that he had a good angle on Tamerlan and moved out from behind his cover to "end the threat" by firing on the older brother. Still armed, Tamerlan rushed him from about 30 yards away. When he was just 10 feet away, Sgt. Jeffrey Pugliese tackled him.

All three officers then tried to wrestle the 6-foot-3 Tamerlan to the ground. Then Reynolds heard an engine revving.

"Get off! Get off! He's coming back toward us!" Reynolds recalled yelling. Dzhokhar was driving the SUV, he said, and heading straight for them.

The officers were able to get out of the way in the nick of time. The SUV ran over Tamerlan.

The Mercedes' front end smashed into the Ford Escape cruiser that Reynolds had been driving, and the two vehicles were briefly stuck together. When the Mercedes broke free, it disappeared into the night, with Dzhokhar at the wheel. Officers rushed to answer an "officer down" call and tended to Dick Donahue, who had been severely injured in the gunfire.

Neighborhood residents also testified Monday, telling jurors that they heard gunfire and peeked out of windows to witness the shootout.

Andrew Kitzenberg said he saw two men crouching by a Mercedes SUV and reaching periodically into a backpack at their feet. He said he could hear and feel the bomb blasts. "I could actually feel my room shake with those explosives," Kitzenberg said. He felt two bombs go off, followed by a third, much larger one. When he saw one of the figures light that one, he dove to the floor.

"I could see the cloud of smoke rising from that one," he said. Soon thereafter he heard the SUV racing.

"It seemed like the vehicle was being floored and accelerating as quickly as it could," Kitzenberg said.

Jurors saw a photo, taken before dawn, of the Ford Escape. It had a tire blown out. A large pool of blood had welled up next to the driver's door. MacLellan identified the blood as Tamerlan's.

Dzhokhar was later captured hiding inside a boat stored nearby.

Earlier Monday, jurors saw the bullet-riddled, blood-stained boat on a flatbed at an off-site, undisclosed location in South Boston. Defense attorneys had asked that jurors be allowed to see the entire boat, not just panels or photos of writings Tsarnaev made while hiding in it.

The boat had at least 108 bullet holes in it, according to a pool report, as well as faded blood stains. Jurors paid close attention while Tsarnaev, seated under a canopy tent, looked on.

Jurors last week saw photos of a note Tsarnaev scrawled on the boat's hull. His lawyers want the jury to see the note in context. Prosecutors call the message, which decries the suffering of innocent Muslims at the hands of the U.S. government, Tsarnaev's "manifesto."

Tsarnaev's defense team has acknowledged that he was involved in the April 15, 2013, twin bombings, which killed three people and injured more than 260 at the marathon finish line. But they argue that their client, who was 19 at the time, played a lesser role than his late brother, who they insist was the mastermind behind the plot.

Security was tight when jurors visited the trailered boat on the back of a flatbed tow truck Monday. Boston police, FBI agents and U.S. Marshals kept a close eye on Tsarnaev, who sat under a canopy tent while jurors viewed the evidence: a fiberglass vessel around 22-feet long.

Staging on one side the boat let jurors climb up to a high vantage and peer inside. To view the boat's other side, they took turns riding in what one pool reporter described as a cage at the front end of a forklift.

Jurors saw some details that hadn't been evident before, including writing not made in pencil. Some of what Tsarnaev had written was carved into a wooden fixture on the fiberglass Slipaway II: "Stop killing our innocent civilians."

Tsarnaev was twitchy at times in the courtroom Monday and while jurors viewed the boat. Several witnesses were asked to identify the defendant. When they pointed at him, he briefly looked in their direction before abruptly looking away.

Some of the day's most riveting testimony came from the officer who finally brought Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the ground. Sgt. Jeffrey Pugliese had finished his shift when his radio transmitted an alert: Watertown officers had found the carjacked vehicle that police had been seeking, and now they were facing gunfire in a residential neighborhood. He headed to the scene.

"I wanted to save their lives," Pugliese, a marksman and veteran of 35 years on the force, said.

While other officers battled with the Tsarnaevs, Pugliese moved through backyards, hurdling two fences. He fired a series of rounds. He thought he'd hit the shooter, he said, but he wasn't going down. Instead Tamerlan charged Pugliese, who had to reload his magazine during the firefight. At one point, Tamerlan's gun seemed to jam. He threw it at Pugliese, hitting him in the left bicep and ran in the direction of Reynolds, who had left his cover with hopes of firing one final shot.

Pugliese chased Tamerlan and tackled him. All three officers wrestled him, struggling to handcuff the bleeding shooter who wouldn't give up. Then Reynolds yelled: "Look out!," Pugliese recalled. "The other guy's coming at us!"

Dzhokhar was now driving the Mercedes as horrified neighbors watched from their bedrooms. James Floyd, who also testified Monday, had run upstairs with his three-week-old and watched from the window.

"He just floored it – really floored it," Floyd recalled. "It seemed to be as fast as he could go."

Reynolds jumped back to one side of the street and McLellan to the other. Pugliese grabbed Tamerlan, now handcuffed, by the belt and leaned back to pull him out of the path of the SUV. But all he could do was save himself – and just barley.

"It was right in my face," he said of the speeding SUV, which passed within inches of his feet. "I could feel the breeze of the vehicle go by my face."

Tamerlan got hung up in the wheels, he said, and the vehicle dragged him until it crashed into a police cruiser. He was taken by ambulance to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev fled in the SUV, ditched it a few blocks away and found a hiding spot inside the boat.

Witnesses on Monday recounted fallout from the epic clash between the bombers and the police.

MBTA transit officer Dick Donohue, who had arrived on the scene to provide backup, was injured in the firefight. Emergency room physician Heather Studley found him "essentially dead" at the hospital: no breathing, no heartbeat and too much blood loss to sustain life. She said hospital staff saved him with a combination of CPR, a breathing tube, Epinephrine, two surgeries, 28 pints of blood and an infusion of platelets to make the new blood clot.