The New York Times has reported that, according to the Boston police commissioner, the target of the manhunt, suspect #2 Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was inside the 20-block search perimeter all along, not outside:
Police officials initially said the boat was in the backyard of a house just outside the perimeter of the area where investigators had conducted door-to-door searches all day. But Commissioner Davis, of the Boston police, said this week that the boat had been inside the perimeter.
“It was an area that should have been checked,” he said. “We are not sure how long he was in the boat. There was a pool of blood near where the car was dumped about four or five blocks away from the boat.”
http://www.nytimes.com/...
I posted a diary a few days ago arguing that the official explanation as to why they didn't find Tsarnaev during the manhunt didn't make sense. There was some vigorous discussion. Chalk one up for the fog of war. Or people making stuff up.
2:10 PM PT: Point A on the map below is where the abandoned SUV was found. Point B is where Tsarnaev was found. The distance is roughly 0.2 miles, about 3 blocks.
googlemaps
2:38 PM PT: The Times article includes conversation about the manhunt picked up by police scanners. It's labeled “Hunting for the Suspects” and is 1 minute and 59 seconds long:
These excerpts confirm that the abandoned getaway car (the hijacked SUV) was found at the corner of Lincoln and Spruce.
Someone advises officers not to investigate around Lincoln Street (in the vicinity of the SUV) without a partner.
Then someone relays an order to set up a perimeter between Mount Auburn and Arsenal Streets, an area that includes 67 Franklin Street (where Tsarnaev was captured) and the SUV, but also extends eastward past Dexter and Laurel (scene of the gun battle) all the way to Arlington Street on the east.
A senior officer then states that he is at 98 Spruce Street, a few houses south of the abandoned SUV. He says that the search perimeter needs to be expanded in 4 directions, centered around 98 Spruce. He wants a perimeter in a 3-block radius from that location (a relatively small area within the larger Mount Auburn-Arsenal-Arlington perimeter).
The same officer then says the perimeter should be “at least 2-blocks deep for now”, which might leave 67 Franklin out of the immediate search, “and then expand it”, presumably putting 67 Franklin back in.
Another officer relays an order to maintain the perimeter at the Mount Auburn and Arsenal boundaries, but to move the boundary on the east side to School Street (which runs parallel to Arlington). This eliminates the area around the gun battle, which happened east of School Street, and tightens the perimeter around the the SUV and Franklin Street. This appears to be the 20-block search perimeter that was mentioned in media reports.
This officer then goes on to say “2 blocks away [from 98 Spruce] is also Walnut Street, which runs from School to Mount Auburn”. This indicates that the 2-block radius mentioned above (which was supposed to be expanded to 3-blocks later on) was bounded by Walnut Street and did not include Franklin Street.
The senior officer who spoke before then says “O.k. Once we have officers complete that, expand it 2 more blocks [i.e. from 2 to 4] from those areas [meaning 4 blocks from 98 Spruce]… We have plenty of police officers here. Let’s start utilizing them. From 98 Spruce, 2 blocks and then 4 blocks”.
That’s where the audio ends. There isn't any discussion of the larger search that encompassed 20 blocks and didn't locate Tsarnaev..