Posted on 04/30/2015 6:16:08 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
BOSTON (AP) — Teachers who knew Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a child described him as a hardworking youngster who seemed to have a bright future.
Catheryn Charner-Laird, his third-grade teacher, said Tsarnaev was just learning English after moving to the U.S. from Russia in 2002 and cared very much about his school work. She said he “always wanted to do the right thing.”
Other teachers said he got nearly all As in his classes, made friends easily and was an excellent soccer player.
The testimony came Wednesday during the third day of the defense case in the penalty phase of Tsarnaev’s trial. He was convicted earlier this month in the 2013 bombing that killed three people and injured more than 260.
The same jury is now hearing evidence to decide whether he should be sentenced to life in prison or the death penalty.
Tsarnaev’s lawyers on Wednesday shifted the focus away from his older brother, Tamerlan, who they have portrayed as the mastermind of the attack and a domineering influence on Dzhokhar.
Prosecutors have said the brothers were partners in the bombing, which was designed to retaliate against the U.S. for its actions in Muslim lands.
Rebecca Norris, one of Tsarnaev’s teachers in seventh- and eighth-grade, said he was very bright and well-behaved.
“He wasn’t a rebel. Basically, if you asked him to do something, he would do it,” she said.
Norris said Tsarnaev was one of the school’s best students and soccer players.
“I thought we would get him into a really good college with a full ride, and he would be very successful,” she said.
The defense also showed the jury two photographs of a cherubic-looking Tsarnaev when he was about 9 years old.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
Aspiring rapper, no doubt.
And Charley Manson only killed bugs and puppies that really deserved it when he was growing up - had the sweetest enigmatic smile/smirk on his face and looked so precocious....
Leave it to teachers to validate America’s enemies!
Let’s hear it from the multitude of people/families that were affected by this “kind child”.
They are just friendly and kind neighbors until the signal is given. And then they become killers.
This was written about extensively in analyses of the Armenian genocide.
He may very well have been all that.
If so, an investigation should be conducted by someone as to what influenced him to become a killer.
(we know)
He may have been kind as a child. I don’t find that surprising. I’ll bet many serial killers and psychopaths were also kind children.
In this case, we know what went wrong. Look what the teachings of Islam did to this ‘kind child’.
Coincidentally, teachers said the same thing about Martin Richard.
Fun fact; Martin Richard was killed by the bomb Dog Turd set off. You may know Martin Richard by the name the media gave him: 8 year old boy.
WAIT! I REMEMBER!
If you're willing to kill for the "cause" you should be willing to die for it too.
Annikin Walker started out as a good guy, too.
Hitler was an artist in his youth. I’ll bet even Jeffrey Dahmer was cute when he was a toddler (before he started killing neighborhood pets and later worked his way to people).
Yeah yeah yeah and Hilter loved his mother. No, scratch that. Hitler hated his mother.
America was kind to him, he didn’t appreciate it.
Teachers who knew Adolph Hitler as a child described him as a hardworking youngster who seemed to have a bright future
as an artist or community activist.
A comparative sentence.
About the same age as the child he murdered in cold blood.
So what.
How lovely for him. Now fry him.
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