At the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Dzhokhar began to struggle academically. According to a university transcript reviewed by The New York Times, he was failing many of his classes. The transcript shows him receiving seven failing grades over three semesters, including F’s in Principles of Modern Chemistry, Intro to American Politics and Chemistry and the Environment. According to the transcript, Dzhokhar received a B in Critical Writing and a D and D-plus in two other courses.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/u...ston-suspects-emerge.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
(page 2 at link)
Tamerlan studied accounting at Bunker Hill Community College for three semesters as a part-time student between the fall of 2006 and the fall of 2008, according to Patricia Brady, a college spokeswoman.
(page 3 at link) Tamerlan was arrested in
2009 and charged with domestic assault and battery after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend, according to Spotcrime.com, an online source of crime information.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...2c2566-a8e4-11e2-a8e2-5b98cb59187f_story.html
He had, however, taken a keen interest in Chechen history at school. Dr Brian Glyn Williams, who tutored Dzhokhar in the subject, said: "He was learning his Chechen identity, identifying with the diaspora and identifying with his homeland … He wanted to learn more about Chechnya, who the fighters were, who the commanders were."
The boys' paths diverged somewhat – at least for a while.
Tamerlan dropped out after studying accounting at Bunker Hill Community College for just three terms, in autumn 2006, the following spring, and then the autumn of 2008.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-dead-was-on-radar-two-years-ago-8581570.html
Tsarni, Tsarnaev's uncle, told CNN he was so concerned about someone brainwashing his nephew that he called a family friend in the Cambridge area to investigate.
"I said, 'Listen, do you know what is going on with that family? With my brother's family?' Then he says ... there is a person, some new convert into Islam of Armenian descent," Tsarni told CNN's Shannon Travis. "Armenians, I have no intention to say anything about Armenians. It's a neighboring region with North Caucasus," the same area where the Tsarnaev family also hails from.
It started (in) 2009. And it started right there, in Cambridge," Tsarni said of the friendship.
Asked about those reports, Elmirza Khozhgov, a former brother-in-law of Tsarnaev, told CNN Tsarnaev once introduced him to someone by that name who was an Armenian convert. He said he was not told Misha's full name.
"It seemed to me that Misha had influence on Tamerlan," apparently encouraging him to give up boxing because it "is violent," Khozhgov told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
"Tamerlan told me that he quit boxing and music because Misha was teaching that it's not good in Islam to do those things."
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/24/us/boston-brainwash
It was a blow the immigrant boxer could not withstand: after capturing his second consecutive title as the Golden Gloves heavyweight champion of New England in
2010, Tamerlan Anzorovich Tsarnaev, 23, was barred from the national Tournament of Champions because he was not a United States citizen.
Unlike his little brother, who was well integrated into the community by the time he started high school, Mr. Tsarnaev was a genuine newcomer when he entered the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, from which he graduated in 2006. Enrolled in the large English as a Second Language program, he made friends mostly with other international students, and his demeanor was reserved, one former classmate, Luis Vasquez, said.
Jumping right into boxing after his arrival in the United States, he called attention to himself immediately in more ways than one. During registration for a tournament in Lowell, he sat down at a piano and lost himself for 20 minutes in a piece of classical music. The impromptu performance, so out of place in that world, finished to a burst of applause from surprised onlookers.
In
2009, Mr. Tsarnaev won the New England Golden Gloves championship in the 201-pound division, which qualified him for the national tournament in Salt Lake City in May. Introducing what would become his signature style, he showed up overdressed, wearing a white silk scarf, black leather pants and mirrored sunglasses.
Stepping into the ring, as The Lowell Sun described it, Mr. Tsarnaev floored Lamar Fenner of Chicago with an explosive punch that required an eight-count from the referee, and then he seemed to control the rest of the fight.
Bob Russo, then the coach of the New England team, said: “We thought he won. The crowd thought he won. But he didn’t.”
If Mr. Tsarnaev was chastened by the defeat, it did not temper his behavior. During a preliminary round of the New England Golden Gloves in
2010, in a breach of boxing etiquette, he entered the locker room to taunt not only the fighter he was about to face but also the fighter’s trainer. Wearing a cowboy hat and alligator-skin cowboy boots, he gave the two men a disdainful once-over and said: “You’re nothing. I’m taking you down.”
The trainer, Hector Torres, was furious and subsequently lodged a complaint, arguing that Mr. Tsarnaev should not be allowed to participate in the competition because he was not a citizen.
As it happened, Golden Gloves of America was just then changing its policy. It used to permit legal immigrants to compete in its national tournament three out of every four years, barring them only during Olympic qualifying years, James Beasley, the executive director, said. But it decided in
2010 that the policy was confusing and moved to end all participation by noncitizens in the Tournament of Champions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/u...-tamerlan-tsarnaev-reeled.html?pagewanted=all
