After spending the day waiting outside the courtroom where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arraigned Wednesday, and after hours of anticipation to witness his reactions at his first public appearance since his arrest, the smug-looking 19-year-old’s court debut was more than dissatisfying.
To start off, it was disheartening to see the supporters of the #FreeJahar Movement get into the courtroom before most people standing in the public line, a few of which were sporting “Boston Strong” shirts and had run in the marathon. The protestors even got in before two crying girls, who told court officials that they were close friends of one of the victims, because they had a better place in line. Eventually, these girls were let in to the courtroom but more than 20 members of the public were turned away. The media was not too advantaged either, receiving 25 out of approximately 100 seats in the courtroom. Avoiding the media stampede of about 30 journalists battling for the 5 remaining seats in the courtroom, we headed to the overflow room where the arraignment was broadcast live for various news reporters.
When Tsarnaev’s arraignment began at 3:30 p.m., we had managed to grab two seats in the media overflow room. We knew the proceedings had begun when we heard the “all rise” to mark the judge’s entrance. Yet our attention quickly shifted to Tsarnaev when he was escorted, cuffed and clad in an orange jumpsuit, into the courtroom. His left arm was bandaged and the left side of his face was swollen, but the injuries to his eye and cheek weren’t entirely noticeable at first. Tsarnaev did not even flinch when the judge noted “for the record that 30 victims and family members are present today,” he seemed disinterested and apathetic throughout his 7-minute hearing. Tsarnaev waived the reading of his indictment in its entirety, so the 30 criminal charges he is accused of were only identified by numbers followed by the max penalty each carries – 17 of which capital punishment is a possibility. Although the arraignment was brief, Tsarnaev had time to turn around and glance at the gallery multiple times. It looked like he smiled a few times too, but since only half of his face was functional, it looked more like he was smirking. After pleading “Not guilty” in a Russian accent, Tsarnaev walked out of the courtroom cuffed and sluggish, but not before he was able to smile at his sisters.
We left the courtroom and tried to leave the courthouse but we accidentally got on an elevator going up. On our way down, the elevator stopped at the fifth floor and a court official told us to get out. We came face to face with two women wearing muslim garbs and carrying a baby. At the moment we didn’t realize that we had been forced off the elevator to make room for Tsarnaev’s sisters. We only realized why we had been unceremoniously booted from the elevator when we saw the same women being swarmed by reporters outside. I did a little swarming myself and got a video of Tsarnaev’s sisters leaving:
Near the line of MIT officers honoring fellow officer Sean Collier, we heard a women yelling “Don’t you know people died?” at the protestors we had seen in the courtroom. Nearby police officers broke up the conflict almost immediately. Soon after, the protestors began to answer reporters’ questions. The man you may have seen in pictures wearing a mask and holding a “Free Jahar” poster asserted that he is “not a terrorist” but a supporter of “innocent people.” He said, “I was in the courtroom, and I did see him, and he saw me. He smiled. He saw us, he smiled. He knows he’s got support out here. I am not an extremist, I am not a terrorist, I am a supporter of innocent people.”
We decided to call it a day after we saw Dzhokar Tsarnaev’s motorcade leave the Moakley Courthouse:
