Bombing Suspect to Friend: ‘Terrorism Isn’t a Serious Issue’

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving Boston bombing suspect, once said that terrorism isn’t “a serious issue,” a friend told CNN.

Eric Machado, a long-time friend of Tsarnaev’s, said the suspect told a mutual friend that “if you come from a place I come from” that terrorism wasn’t a big deal.

When photos of the Tsarnaev brothers were circulated by the FBI, Machado remembers thinking that the younger of the two looked like Dzhokhar, 19, because of the way he wore his hat.

“Once I saw those photos I had an idea that it was him but you know I didn’t want to throw someone I knew personally under the bus and kind of assume it was him,” he said. “It was more of a joke like, oh, that looks like Dzhokhar, but clearly it was not a joke.”

“He’s just a normal kid and to think that he’s capable of something like this is beyond belief.”

The Tsarnaev brothers were identified by the FBI as suspects in the Boston bombing on Thursday afternoon and by late night the older brother, Tamerlan, 26, was dead in the streets of Watertown, a suburb of Boston, and a massive manhunt was underway for Dzhokhar.

"We believe this to be a terrorist," Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said of the Dzhokhar, who was still at large Friday afternoon. "We believe this to be a man who has come here to kill people. We need to get him in custody."