0 public on play may 1. >> i'm looking forward to visiting that library. thank you very much for watching. i'm w blitzer in "the situation room." erin burnett's "outfront" starts right now. "outfront" next. i'm erin burnett live in times square where the mayor of new york said today the suspected marathon bombers were headed to stage yet another attack. plus, we have the latest on the investigation. friends of dzhokhar tsarnaev are now being held in federal custody tonight. and the mother of the two alleged bombers, she says the whole thing was staged, there was no attack. the bizarre conspiracy in her own words. let's go "outfront." ♪ >> "outfront" tonight. this was the next target on the boston bomber's hit list. the surviving suspect has told investigators that he and his brother were headed right here to times square in new york city to detonate more explosives before they were stopped. i'll have a lot more on this story from right here in times square. and we have all the other angles of the investigation covered tonight. in boston, drew griffin, david mattingly and brian todd. in rhode island, erin pike. nick robertson with new in fact on the suspect's parents. here's what we know. obviously you get a sense of how loud and busy it is here in times square. sit an incredibly busy place. hundreds of thousands come here today. here's what we know about the alleged plot to bomb times square. the younger son, dzhokhar, told investigators he and his brother tamerlan were driving to new york the night they ended up in a gun fight with police after they killed a police officer and carjacked an suv. at first, he told investigators this trip was just to celebrate. but in later interrogations, when he was more lucid, he said they made a quote unquote spontaneous decision that night to use the bombs they had right here in times square. but even if it was a last-minute decision, new york city mayor michael bloomberg and police commissioner ray kelly said the attack could have been horrific. >> the two brothers had at their disposal six improvised explosive devices. one was a pressure cooker bomb similar to the two that exploded at the marathon. the other two were pipe bombs. >> mary snow is here with me tonight. when you see all the people here, you realize this is the center of this city, if not beyond. what do you know about the details of the plan? >> there aren't many details, and the way the police commissioner and mayor described this, they were briefed by the fbi wednesday night. they said this was talk of targetingimesre. and the police commissioner said that the way he described this plan was that it was spontaneous. but he was told that the brothers had talked about this after they had, you know, carjacked a car that mercedes suv, and that is when this discussion came up. let's take a listen to what he had to say. >> that plan, however, fell apart when they realized that the vehicle that they hijacked was low on gas and ordered the driver to stop at a nearby gas station. the driver used the opportunity to escape and call the police. that eventually led to the shootout in watertown, where the older brother was killed in an exchange of gunfire with the police. >> and, you know, the police commissioner and mayor say there are no specific threats to the city and knew of no specific targets, only that it was times square. >> again, you see all these people here. did the police say there's a lot of police presence here and those cameras helped to get the details from someone who tried to bomb times square a few years ago. how safe is this place, really? >> you know, you look around and in the heart of times square where we are, it's estimated close to 400,000 people pass through here every day, and there is an increased police presence and after the boston bombings, new york city stepped up the police presence. if you have people acting on their own, how safe can you be? as you mentioned, in 2010, a person was caught in that thwarted attempt to bomb times square just a few blocks from here and it was a street vendor that stopped police. >> all right. mary snow, thank you very much reporting from times square. i want to go to boston and drew griffin. drew, i know you learned today that two strenfriends of the yo brother, dzhokhar tsarnaev, have been detained. do you know why they're being held? >> reporter: we do now, erin. there's been a lot of speculation about these two russian speaking students from kazakhstan at the university of massachusetts at dartmouth. last friday whine dzhokhar tsarnaev was still on the loose, agents staged a raid near that college. they put two russian students in handcuffs. those two students are still being held. they believe at the time that dzhokhar tsarnaev may have been in that apartment. that is why this raid was so quote unquote heavy handed. and we know why they thought he was there, because tsarnaev was sharing a cell phone with one of these two russian speaking students. the fbi able to trace the cell phone records and work with social media to find out the location apparently of that cell phone. and they thought they were about to capture him. those two students now are being held on immigration visa issues with immigration enforcement control. as far as we can tell, there is no evidence they have anything to do with this plot. but they are being held and continue to be held on those immigration violations in the abundance of caution. basically, they're asking them questions. they're tracing all their electronic trails to make sure they know everything that dzhokhar and his brother tamerlan were doing before and after that bombing at the boston marathon. erin? >> drew, thank you very much. an interesting part of this investigation, as you heard drew, as of now they are not saying they were involved. but still in custody many days later. i want to go to the russian republic where the suspect's parents live. huge developments there today. nick robertson is there. i know today the suspect's mother said she called an ambulance and the father or husband needed to go to the hospital. what's going on? >> reporter: yeah, the husband has health issues. he was at the press conference today or yesterday, thursday as it was. and he said no, i'm going to go to the united states today. i talked to him as he left that press conference, he said he was going to go and try to talk to his son in the hospital. but later on in the evening, we found out from his wife he had become too ill to travel. there was a thought he might travel on friday. that now seems unlikely. so it's all up in the air. but that's kind of the narrative we've had from these parents in the situation so far, erin. >> i know the suspect's father said he's going to cooperate with investigators, but at the least i think i'm underselling this. the parents seem to be shooting down negative comments about their sons, the mother saying their sons were framed. are other parents really cooperating? >> it's hard to tell. they wouldn't answer specific questions about that and certainly the mother was saying some of those images you've seen with the backpack, you know, one of the sons leaving the backpack, she said that could have been changed by computers. so in denial, in confusion about the situation. they can't accept it. but we've heard about this character that so influenced tamerlan. when she described meeting him, she said, i was ashamed. he came in, washed his hands, he prayed twice. she said after he left, not only was tamerlan influenced, but the mother also. she said she, after that meeting, that first meeting, was so impressed by this man, that she began regular and routine prayers as she said as a devout muslim. >> all right. thank you very much. and nick referencing the mother. we have late breaking news on the fact that the russians may have thought she was also a problem. we have that, and her denial of what happened last week in boston in her own words. because nothing can really capture it. i want to play it for you. that's coming up. and the distrust between the u.s. and russians, did it prevent americans from following up on tips from russia? 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