By Reuven Fenton and Laura Italiano
The New York Post
BOSTON — The Boston Marathon bombers were hell-bound for New York City, carrying enough firearms and bombs to kill scores of innocents — until eight small-town cops stood bravely in their way.
In an exclusive interview, the heroes of the Watertown Police Department sat down with The Post to describe their takedown of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
“You think about 9/11 all the time,” said one of the heroes, Sgt. John MacLellan. “New York’s had their share. It’s nice to give them a break for once.”
The two brothers had already killed three and injured 264 marathon-goers and fatally shot an MIT cop, according to federal charges, when police radios at 12:41 a.m. on April 19 alerted officers to their presence on a quiet, tree-lined street in Watertown.
Officer Joseph Reynolds was the first cop to lay eyes on the brothers — and the first to take fire.
“Tamerlan got out and started walking toward me. He lifted up his arms and started firing at me. I could hear [the bullets] going off my cruiser,” Reynolds said.
The cop returned fire as MacLellan came around the corner.
“I saw [Reynolds’] car in reverse coming back toward me. I’m still gliding down, looking at this, saying, ‘Is this really happening?’ ” MacLellan remembered.
The sergeant put his cruiser in drive, jumped out and sent his empty vehicle rolling toward the brothers. That’s when they began lobbing four pipe bombs at the officers — two of which detonated.
“We got down. The bomb blew up and blew out the windows on that side of [my] cruiser . . . If you saw the shrapnel on the side of the vehicle, we got very lucky,” MacLellan said.
Shortly after, Officers Miguel Colon and Tim Menton and Sgt. Jeffrey Pugliese, 57, arrived.
The brothers’ last bomb was the same kind of pressure-cooker bomb they had used at the marathon.
“Car alarms were going off. Things were shattering,” said Officer Michael Comick, 25, who arrived moments after.
Sgt. Pugliese, meanwhile, was exchanging gunfire with Tamerlan at close range.
“He then had a problem with his firearm — I don’t know if it jammed or ran out of ammunition,” he said.
Tamerlan threw his empty pistol at the sergeant and then ran. Sgt. Pugliese jumped him, and Sgt. MacLellan cuffed him.
Then the Mercedes, with the younger brother at the wheel, began barreling toward them.
“The next thing I knew, the headlights were right here in my face, and I had to let go of Tamerlan,” Pugliese remembered.
Dzhokhar plowed over his brother and dragged him about 25 feet before speeding off.
“I’m wondering, what were they gonna do in New York?” Sgt. MacLellan said. “Were they going to some random place, try to kill whoever they could kill and then go out in a blaze of glory?”
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