Campus Alert Archive
MIT

The Marathon Bombers' Next Target: MIT Officer Sean Collier Killed in His Patrol Car

MAshootingemergency notificationmedium confidence
Confirmed Threat

On the evening of April 18, 2013, three days after the Boston Marathon bombing, MIT Police Officer Sean Collier, 27, was ambushed and fatally shot in his patrol car outside the Stata Center on the MIT campus. The shooters were the Boston Marathon bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who attempted to steal Collier's service weapon. MIT's emergency alert system notified the campus community, and the incident triggered the massive manhunt that locked down the Greater Boston area.

Alerts
3
Response
23 min
Killed
1
Injured
0
Institution
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Private R1 · MA
~11,000 studentsMIT Alert
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

3 messages in sequence · 1 verified verbatim

Some alert texts below are approximate reconstructions from news coverage, not confirmed verbatim transcripts. Reconstructed texts are shown in italic with a dashed border. Verified verbatim texts have a solid border and are marked accordingly.

INITIAL ALERTTwitter/X
Verified verbatimThe Tech (MIT student newspaper) Twitter post relaying the verbatim MIT ALERT, posted at 10:48 PM EDT on April 18, 201398 chars
#MIT ALERT: Shots fired near 32 Vassar St (Stata Center), police officer down. Please stay inside.
Building 32 is the Ray and Maria Stata Center; the alert names the building number, the street, and the building name to maximize identification on a campus where many MIT community members navigate by building number rather than street address
'Police officer down' is a stark, unambiguous formulation that mirrors law-enforcement radio code more than typical campus-alert phrasing
The alert was relayed verbatim by The Tech on Twitter at 10:48 PM EDT, the same moment MIT pushed it through SMS and email channels
UPDATEEmail
Approximate reconstruction229 chars
UPDATE: MIT Police continue to investigate the shooting on campus. The situation remains active. All community members should remain indoors and away from windows. Additional law enforcement agencies are responding to the campus.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

By this time, the Tsarnaev brothers had carjacked a Mercedes SUV in Allston and the situation was rapidly evolving beyond the MIT campus
Harvard's alert system also notified students at approximately 11:33 PM EDT
UPDATEEmail
Approximate reconstruction265 chars
MIT ALERT: In connection with the death of Officer Sean Collier, a massive law enforcement operation is underway in the Greater Boston area. MIT community members are advised to shelter in place until further notice. All classes and campus activities are cancelled.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

The shelter-in-place order eventually extended to all of Boston, Watertown, Cambridge, and surrounding communities on April 19, 2013
This was one of the largest shelter-in-place orders in American history, affecting millions of people
Context

Background

The shooting of MIT Officer Sean Collier on April 18, 2013, was a direct extension of the Boston Marathon bombing three days earlier. At approximately 10:25 PM EDT, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev approached Collier's patrol car outside the Ray and Maria Stata Center and shot him multiple times in an attempt to steal his service weapon. The holster's retention mechanism prevented them from taking the gun. MIT's alert system notified the campus community, and an enormous multi-agency manhunt ensued. Later that night, the Tsarnaev brothers carjacked an SUV, leading to a shootout with police in Watertown in which Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed. The next day, April 19, a shelter-in-place order covering the entire Boston metropolitan area was issued as police searched for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was eventually found hiding in a boat in a Watertown backyard. One week after the shooting, Collier's memorial service was attended by more than 10,000 people, including thousands of police officers from across New England and Canada. The Sean Collier Memorial, designed by J. Meejin Yoon of Höweler + Yoon Architecture, was dedicated on the MIT campus on April 29, 2015. The incident led to the Officer Sean Collier Campus Police Recognition Act, which sought to extend federal law enforcement benefits to campus police officers killed in the line of duty.
Analysis

Key Findings

The shooting of a campus police officer by the Boston Marathon bombers demonstrated that campus security can be targets of broader terrorist operations, not just responders
MIT's multi-channel alert system (email, text, voicemail, website) was activated within approximately 20 minutes of the shooting
The incident triggered the largest shelter-in-place order in Boston's history, extending far beyond the MIT campus
The Sean Collier Campus Police Recognition Act highlighted the unique status of campus officers who serve in law enforcement roles but historically lacked federal recognition
Outcome
Officer Collier was pronounced dead at Massachusetts General Hospital. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died later that night during a shootout with police in Watertown. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured the following day and later convicted and sentenced to death, though his sentence was later vacated and then reinstated. A memorial to Collier was dedicated on the MIT campus in 2015.
Provenance

Sources

  1. Official
    MIT Police: In Memory of Sean A. Collier
    police.mit.edu
  2. Official
    MIT News: He loved us, and we loved him (Obituary for Officer Collier)
    news.mit.edu
  3. Source
    Boston Marathon Bombing (FBI)
    fbi.gov
  4. Source
    IACLEA: Officer Sean Collier Campus Police Recognition Act
    iaclea.org
  5. Source
    Sean Collier Memorial (Wikipedia)
    en.wikipedia.org
  6. Official
    New memorial a labor of love (MIT News, on the J. Meejin Yoon / Höweler + Yoon design)
    news.mit.edu
Tags
shootingofficer-killedcampus-policeboston-marathon-bombingterrorismshelter-in-placemanhuntmemorial2013
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion