Cheers and singing as Boston bomb suspect captured

It was early evening when the police in Watertown told people they could come out of their houses where they had been cowering all day. That was when one man saw some blood near a boat in his backyard and called the police.

Within minutes they were there – they had found the suspect – 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (pictured on his Facebook profile).

When we arrived in the neighbourhood people told us that they’d heard gunfire – one man said he’d heard about 20 shots.

People crowded at street corners, excited but also on tenterhooks; not knowing if this would be another violent scene or whether it would be possible to arrest the man.

As we tried to get near, police with blue and red flashing lights tried to block our paths.

We walked through people’s back gardens and came across a bewildered-looking rabbit. At one point we sneaked through a graveyard.

Eventually we made it to the end of Franklin Street where the suspect was holed up.

Then the news came in that he had been captured alive. People started to cheer and shout.

Every time a police car came up the road a woman next to me yelled “Good job! Good job!”

The people in the area said they were proud of the way the Watertown police had handled the situation.

They felt relieved and safe after a day of tension and fear, the like of which the city had never seen before.

People were laughing again – and they were especially pleased that Tsarnaev was captured alive.

“We want to know what he has to say,” said a plump woman waving an American flag.

“We want answers.”

And five hairy bikers started to sing “Sweet Caroline, the good times never seemed so good” – the theme tune of the Boston Red Sox.

Follow @lindseyhilsum on Twitter.