Boston Bombing Suspect’s Throat Injury Prevents Dzhokhar Tsarnaev From Talking To Police

After being captured Friday evening in a Watertown, Mass., backyard, Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been unable to speak to police due to a throat injury he suffered during the daylong manhunt that had the entire city of Boston locked down. However, some reports indicate he has been communicating by writing.

Tsarnaev, 19, remains in critical but stable condition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, reports CNN. The other suspect, his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed in a firefight with police early Friday morning, four days after the pair allegedly planted two bombs that killed three and injured scores of others near the Boston Marathon finish line.

Further details on the younger Tsarnaev’s condition have not been revealed by law enforcement officials. Doctors were treating him at Beth Israel in a heavily guarded room. The suspect is believed to have suffered two gunshot wounds, one to the leg and one to the throat. Some reports indicate the leg wound occurred during a firefight, and some officials believe the wound to the throat was a possible suicide attempt.

Charges against Tsarnaev have not been publicly announced, but a U.S. official speaking to CNN on the condition of anonymity believes the Boston Bombing suspect could face terrorism charges as well as state murder charges stemming from the shootout at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., which lead to the death of campus officer Sean Collier.

With the manhunt over and Boston returning to normal, many want Tsarnaev to recover in order to understand a possible motive for the Boston Marathon bombing. An interview with Tsarnaev will not only provide a better understanding of the Boston bombing but could also help officials determine if more individuals were involved in the bombing in addition to the Tsarnaev brothers.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said in a meeting with reporters on Saturday, “I, and I think all of the law enforcement professionals, are hoping for a host of reasons that the suspect survives, because we have a million questions, and those questions need to be answered. There are parts of the investigation, in terms of information and evidence, that still need to be run to ground.”