By Callum Borchers
The Boston Globe
WATERTOWN, Mass. — The manhunt for suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had reached its climax. Tsarnaev, who eluded police for 17 hours after an early morning gunfight, had been located aboard a trailered boat in Watertown. The question was how to take him into custody.
“We had to assume he was heavily armed, based on what he’d done,” said Robert Duprey, a member of the State Police SWAT team. “If you approach on foot and he throws a bomb, you’re dead.”
Instead, police drove up to the vessel in a BearCat, a SWAT truck made by Lenco Armored Vehicles of Pittsfield that has been alternately heralded as an essential piece of safety equipment and derided as a waste of money.
The use of BearCat trucks during the search for Tsarnaev — at least nine of the vehicles prowled the streets of Watertown throughout the day — was “rewarding as a validation for us and our equipment,” said Len Light, Lenco’s chief executive.
Full Story: Armored truck maker sees validation in manhunt