Nashua's SRT Team: 'This Will Be the Call of Their Career'

Editor's Note: You can listen to Part 1 of an interview that aired April 25 on WSMN 1590 AM with Nashua Police Lt. Denis Linehan, co-commander of Nashua's 25-member Special Response Team, and radio host George Russell, uploaded at the top of the story. Part 2 of the interview will air April 26 at 8:21 a.m. 

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What Nashua Police Lt. Bryan Marshall experienced alongside his fellow Special Response Team members last Friday is one for the books. 

"We've deployed for shots fired here in Nashua, or in neighboring towns, but the scope of this – even for the new guys – this will be the call of their career," said Marshall, a 22-year veteran of Nashua's SWAT team.

Responding to the call from Boston April 19, to assist in the hunt for bombing suspect Dzhokhar meant Nashua's special forces team members had to shake off the lingering aftershocks of the marathon bombing, felt by all.

"As we got the call Friday we were all still very much thinking about the events that had unfolded – all of us had friends, or family or coworkers there. It's just 35 miles away. But you have to switch it off and get into work mode," Marshall said.

Every tactical team brought in to assist was tasked with going door-to-door, including Nashua. While the other team leaders remained at the command post, Marshall was deployed with the team, heading into suburban Boston neighborhoods in their armored Bearcat, a sort of hybrid Humvee tank. 

It's a scenario that would otherwise be impossible to imagine, if we hadn't seen it unfolding in real time, via televised newscasts.

"We were extremely well received. As we worked our way down the street, people were peeking out their doors, looking out balconies to see what was happening. These are people who were locked down since midnight the night before, and now it's noon the next day," Marshall said.

"They knew that the bombing had happened three miles away, and now an officer was killed, there had been a massive shootout and hundreds of police cruisers had been flooding their neighborhood all night long," Marshall said.

For Watertown residents, the closest thing they could relate the experience to was the events of September 11, 2001, Marshall said.

"As far as the average person was concerned, these were legitimate terrorists, even though it is panning out to be maybe something less organized, at that moment, they were living on a parallel of 9/11 and their opinion was 'our neighborhood has been attacked by terrorists.' I know the word 'terrorist' is overused, and even trite, but in this moment that is how people were feeling. This was their reality," Marshall said.

"So yes, they welcomed us. They wanted us to check not only their houses, but their garages, their crawl spaces, under their cars. One of the Manchester officers was quoted talking about a little old lady who didn't want him to leave. She hugged him and offered to make him dinner. That's the state of mind they were in," Marshall said.

Marshall has also heard some of the backlash in the days since the bombing and capture of Tsarnaev, including comments made by New Hampshire whether the bombing was in fact staged by the U.S. government.

"You know, all the way from the Kennedy assassination, to this – to whatever the next thing is – there will always be people who just want to prove our government is committing heinous acts to perpetuate funding, or keep people in fear. I would hope the most logical minds among us would rise above that," Marshall said.

"If this surviving suspect was plausibly a pawn in something like that, it would be difficult to figure out how do you get everybody together to orchestrate the manipulation of hundreds of photos, or a multi-jurisdictional pursuit with hundreds of rounds being fired – it would be a logistical nightmare, to think you could orchestrate that on a crowded Cambridge street, and execute a police officer, carjack a stranger, rob stores. Having been there myself, there was definitely no feeling that this was some master manipulated plan," Marshall said. 

After 27 years in law enforcement Marshall sees it differently.

"I can say to anyone with doubts, that bad things happen to good people all the time; that's why we're employed. It's kind of that simple," Marshall said.

"There's always going to be a percentage of the population grasping for a need to believe in something, whether it's right, wrong or indifferent," Marshall said, to make sense of the senseless.

If there is any disappointment at all in the mission, it's that Nashua's SRT team was so close to finding Tsarnaev, Marshall said.

"You have 1,000 Type-A people looking to get the job done successfully – and it's not a chest-beating ego thing – but you're there because you want to be the ones to get him. In the big picture, we were all one team with a unified goal, and so yes, in that respect, the team got him," Marshall said.

"In reality, our guys had just taken a break to eat, because we hadn't eaten for hours, and then we get the call that he's found just outside our search area. We were within about 100 yards of that boat. Our search area was to the right and this was to the left. You can't freelance. You're given an area of responsibility, so you have to do the task. Still, it would've been gratifying for us, after having put in so much effort, to be the ones to find him," Marshall said.

There was plenty of gratification in the end, however, Marshall said, thanks to the outpouring of support from the people of Boston.

"As we we're driving back up 128 to Route 3 to get back to New Hampshire in our seven or eight armored vehicles, people were beeping their horns and waving. That's not the run of the mill response we get. People are appreciative when cases get solved, but when you consider what the city went through –a lockdown, 800-1,000 support personal swarming their city, helicopters needing to land, people stuck in their homes – the massive support we felt is hard to describe.," Marshall said. "But it's something none of us will forget."