No one, my officers or even myself …every received any training that would prepare us for something like this.”
That is what Ed Deveau, chief of the Watertown Mass., Police Department told Boston radio station WBUR-FM about his police department’s 20-hour search on April 19, 2013, for now-convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Four days earlier, Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan, set off two bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring hundreds of others.
Deveau will share his experience in leading his police officers, state police and federal agencies in their successful effort to apprehend the bomber during a presentation he will give on the campus of Georgian Court University, Lakewood, Oct. 26 at 6:30 p.m. The presentation will be held in the Casino Auditorum.
Although Deveau was leader of the mission, he regards the capture as being a team effort.
“When in rushed to the scene,” he told WBUR, “all I could think and pray is that my officers were going to be OK when I got there. We caught him that day…. We won in Watertown. No one else got hurt. As the police chief in a very tense day, that’s what I take away from that.”
Chief Deveau retired in July 2015 but he posted his retirement in order to attend Tsarnaev’s trial, going to the federal courthouse nearly every day of the proceedings. He served as police chief for 14 years and was a member of the force for 32 years.
Admission to Chief Deveau’s speech at Georgian Court University is free of charge, but tickets are required and can be obtained by registering at Georgian.edu/events.