Meet the hero off-duty cop who brought down Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in intense shoot-out from just SIX FEET away despite having never fired his gun in 34 years on the job
Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese thought the terrorists were car jackers until a massive pressure cooker bomb was hurled at him on a residential street
DURING his 34 years serving the quiet town of Watertown in Massachusetts Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese had never had to fire his gun.
That changed when he was greeted by an earth shattering mushroom cloud as a massive pressure cooker bomb was hurled at him by the Boston marathon bombers on a residential street.
Even though the then 56-year-old Sergeant was off duty he continued into the fray to take on the armed men whom he believed to be car jackers.
During the eight minute shoot out Jeffrey found himself looking direct into the eyes of the lead terrorist Tamerlan Tsarnaev as they fired at each other from just 6ft away.
It was the brave officer who tackled Tamerlan to the ground and brought his reign of terror to an end.
The Chechen Islamic fundamentalist and his younger brother Dzhokhar had murdered three marathon bystanders, including an eight-year-old boy, shot a police officer dead in cold blood and injured over 260 people in 2013.
When the police stopped them in Watertown the Tsarnaev brothers were on their way to bomb Times Square in New York.
Now a movie about the massive manhunt for them - Patriots Day, starring Mark Wahlberg – has hit cinemas.
Sgt Pugliese is played by JK Simmonds in the incredibly detailed and gripping film.
Speaking to The Sun at a hotel in London, the experienced officer can’t explain how he lived to tell his tale.
How chief plotter Tamerlan didn’t kill him as they stood shooting at each other from just six feet apart is a mystery to him.
He smiles: “Afterwards I couldn’t believe what I had just been through.
“The next day I went to the house and there were half a dozen bullet holes right around where I had been standing, kind of like a shield protecting me.
“It was incredible he missed me so many times. My wife likes to say it was my mother and mother-in-law protecting me, one on each shoulder.”
The 60-year-old sergeant, whose job is to supervise patrol officers, had been sitting in his van smoking a cigar an hour after his shift had finished when he heard that a car jacked SUV had been traced nearby.
As he drove to the scene at 1am in the morning the radio crackled with the shocked voice of an officer reporting coming under fire.
When Jeffrey got there, Sgt John MacLellan and officer Joseph Reynolds were pinned down in a firefight with the Tsarnaev brothers.
He recalls: “One of the officers said ‘Sarge, Sarge get down they are shooting at us’ and I said ‘no s***.’”
Former military man Jeffrey, who had been stationed in Berlin during the 1970s, decided to outflank the shooters by climbing over fences so he was to the side of the car which was shielding them.
He says: “I went in-between two houses and that’s when the pressure cooker went off.
“When they threw that it was a big bright flash and almost like a big white mushroom cloud going up.
“I tell you, that stopped me in my tracks.
“I could feel the debris, one piece scraped past my face. There were pieces of shrapnel raining down on us.”
After regaining his composure the officer got to within 20 yards of the terrorists and started to fire at them.
The brother didn’t relent, so he aimed at the pavement making his bullets bounce up towards Tamerlan from underneath the vehicle.
The Sergeant says: “That’s when he realised where I was. He left his position of cover and came running up the street.
“He is firing at me and I am firing back and then he came up a driveway and we are about six feet away from each other exchanging bullets and I had to reload while we were doing this, then his pistol ran out of ammunition or jammed.
“He looks down at his gun, he looks at me, we make eye contact, and then he threw the gun at me and hit me in the left bicep.”
Jeffrey felt no fear in this moment of confusion; instead years of training took over and he was “acting on instinct”.
The now unarmed Tamerlan turned and ran, with Jeffrey giving chase.
He rugby tackled the 26-year-old, well-built shooter to the ground and needed MacLellan and Reynolds to keep him down.
The Sergeant says: “He is still resisting even though he has been shot nine times.”
Before they could draw breath Dzhokhar had got into the stolen car and was driving towards the officers, intending to kill them.
Jeffrey remembers: “I dropped onto my back and I felt the breeze of that vehicle go by my head and probably missed me by an inch or two.
“I am laying there on my back and I see the front wheels go over the older brother Tamerlan and he bounced up and down between the pavement and the undercarriage a few times.
“He got caught up in the rear wheel and dragged about 25 ft.”
Even at this point the officers did not know the evil men they had been up against.
They did not know that the brothers were the men who had placed pressure cooker bombs next to young families watching the Boston marathon and had later shot a policeman sitting in his car.
The Sergeant says: “One officer walked up and said, ‘Do you know who you guys got here?’ We replied, ‘A couple of carjacking assholes.’
“And he said, ‘No you guys got the Boston Marathon bombers.’
“We said, ‘No, come on we ain’t got the bombers.’ We were all in disbelief that it had culminated in Watertown, this small suburban community.”
Amazingly, despite his extensive injuries Tamerlan was still breathing. He had lost so much blood that Jeffrey's hands were covered in it.
Jeffrey recalls: “After we handcuffed him he is still trying to get away.
“We didn’t know if he had any other explosives on him, like a suicide vest, so I stood there and buried my heel in his back to hold him down.”
Tamerlan was taken to hospital and died on the operating table.
Dzhokhar managed to escape under a barrage of police gun fire and for the next day the residents of Boston and Watertown were told not to leave their homes until he was apprehended.
He was found cowering in the back of a boat a day later and was persuaded to give himself up.
Cannabis dealing, university student Dzhokhar, 23, was found guilty of four murders and using a weapon of mass destruction in April 2015.
The unlikely jihadist is currently on death row awaiting death by lethal injection.
Some people argued that Dzhokhar was under the influence of his older brother, but Jeffrey didn’t see any remorse for the pain he’d inflicted on his innocent victims.
He explains: “In his cell he made a single finger gesture to the camera. He still had no remorse for what he did.
“When I went into testify he looks at me and locks eyes at me and tries to stare at me. So I stare him down and he eventually averts his eyes.”
Sgt Pugliese, Sgt MacLellan, officer Reynolds, two other police officer and two firefighters were all awarded the Medal of Valour.
It is the highest award for bravery that can be given to non-military men in the United States.
Jeffrey was also given the Congretional Medal of Valour and Congretional Badge of Valour.
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He can’t understand why these two men, born in the former Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan, and given a home in the United States could do turn on the people of Boston.
The officer comments: “They were immigrants who came to the United States, as far as I could determine they were welcomed by the United States.
“They were getting assistance with housing, they were getting welfare funds, food stamps and the younger brother was going to a prestigious school and tuition for college.”
And he sympathises with President Donald Trump’s decision to stop people heading to the United States from seven mainly Muslim countries for 120 days.
Although Kyrgyzstan and Chechnya are not among the nations facing that ban.
He says: “I don’t have a problem with him wanting to do more background investigations.
“If it’s a matter of prolonging immigration security to make sure they’re going to be good US citizens then that is sensible.
“They are not banned forever. ISIS is encouraging lone wolf attacks.”
Patriots Day is in cinemas now.