One Officer Dead After Multiple Standoffs with Police in Cambridge and Watertown

Update: The Watertown stand off appears to have resulted in the death of the first Boston marathon bombing suspect and led to a manhunt for the second one. Follow our coverage here.

Update 9:40 a.m.: The MIT officer killed on Thursday night has been identified as Sean Collier, 26, of Somerville. The Middlesex DA’s office says he joined the MIT police in January 2012.

Updated 2:01 a.m. An MIT police officer was shot and killed near 32 Vassar Street at around 10:45 p.m. Thursday, and the university warned others to stay clear of the area while authorities hunted the MIT campus and Red Line trains for the shooter. Meanwhile, an apparent carjacking led officers to Watertown, where a confrontation with suspects involved gunfire and explosions. (Yes, explosions.)

According to Cambridge Police, the MIT officer was transported to Mass General with multiple gunshot wounds and pronounced dead. For hours, MIT urged people to stay clear of the area and remain indoors until it could be secured. The university’s official Twitter account sent a message late Friday morning, at around 2 a.m., giving people the all clear to resume normal activity.

MIT Police have determined that the suspect in this evening’s shooting is no longer on campus. It is now safe to resume normal activities.

— MIT (@MITnews) April 19, 2013

Meanwhile, in an incident whose connection to either MIT or the Boston Marathon bombing isn’t at all established, police tracked two suspects in a reportedly carjacked SUV to Watertown where the police scanner chatter suggests the suspects confronted them with gunfire and explosives.

Details are evolving fast and furious as the night wears on and they’re pretty hard to parse, but we’ll have more updates as they come. In the meantime, we think The Onion probably puts it best when they say, “Jesus, this week.”