Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Seen At UMass Dartmouth After Boston Bombing, Discussed Attack: Officials, Students

Suspect Discussed Boston Bombing At College Campus In Days After Attack, Students Say

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Following the Boston Marathon bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev spent several seemingly typical days on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth before the FBI released photos of him as a suspect, according to friends and school officials.

Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old UMass Dartmouth student, was arrested Friday night as a suspect in the Boston attack following a massive manhunt. Tsarnaev's alleged accomplice and 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, was killed during a shootout with police early Friday morning. The brothers are believed to be responsible for last Monday's bombing in Boston, but the FBI didn't release photos of the two until Thursday afternoon. During that gap, the younger Tsarnaev was spotted on his campus acting normally, according to several students who say they know or spoke with the suspect.

Zach Bettencourt, a UMass Dartmouth student, told NBC News when he spoke with Tsarnaev on campus Tuesday, the bombing suspect looked him "straight in the eye" and commented on the Boston Marathon attack.

"I went up and said hi to him, I talked about how it was crazy we had a bombing in Boston. ... He was saying 'Yeah, you know, it's really a tragedy it's happening right now, it's a sad thing,'" Bettencourt said.

A female student who said she is a friend of Tsarnaev and asked not to be named told the Boston Globe she saw him at a party Wednesday night with some of his soccer friends.

Multiple students said they saw Tsarnaev during the week in the Pine Dale dormitory, where he lived on campus.

School officials have only confirmed that according to card swipes, Tsarnaev used the campus gym and slept in his dorm Wednesday, ABC News reports. A UMass Dartmouth official told CNN that Tsarnaev attended classes and was on campus every day until Thursday. On Thursday afternoon the FBI released photos of the brothers, and a shooting on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that night in Cambridge, Mass. would lead to a day-long manhunt for Tsarnaev. It remains unclear what may have led to the MIT shooting.

University officials evacuated the Pine Dale dorm Friday morning after learning that one of the suspects was a student, then shut down the campus.

Other than Tsarnaev missing soccer practice Monday, as WBZ-TV reported, it appears that he acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary for him.

Andrew Glasby, who says he lived in the same dorm as Tsarnaev, told ABC News "I can't believe he had the balls to come back and act like nothing happened."

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