Thanks to a debatable Rolling Stone cover, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is back in the news. A photographer who was angered by the music magazine’s decision to put the teen-aged terrorist on its cover has shared graphic images of his capture, including a snapshot where there’s a sniper’s red dot trained on his forehead.
Sgt. Sean Murphy, now a former a tactical photographer with the Massachusetts State Police, share the photos with Boston magazine. Murphy has since been fired from his gig.
From Boston magazine:
Here, in his own words, Murphy shares his thoughts on the Rolling Stone cover. He stresses that he is speaking strictly for himself and not as a representative of the Massachusetts State Police:
“As a professional law-enforcement officer of 25 years, I believe that the image that was portrayed by Rolling Stone magazine was an insult to any person who has every worn a uniform of any color or any police organization or military branch, and the family members who have ever lost a loved one serving in the line of duty. The truth is that glamorizing the face of terror is not just insulting to the family members of those killed in the line of duty, it also could be an incentive to those who may be unstable to do something to get their face on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
“I hope that the people who see these images will know that this was real. It was as real as it gets. This may have played out as a television show, but this was not a television show. Officer Dick Donohue almost gave his life. Officer Sean Collier did give his life. These were real people, with real lives, with real families. And to have this cover dropped into Boston was hurtful to their memories and their families. I know from first-hand conversations that this Rolling Stone cover has kept many of them up—again. It’s irritated the wounds that will never heal—again. There is nothing glamorous in bringing more pain to a grieving family.
“Photography is very simple, it’s very basic. It brings us back to the cave. An image like this on the cover of Rolling Stone, we see it instantly as being wrong. What Rolling Stone did was wrong. This guy is evil. This is the real Boston bomber. Not someone fluffed and buffed for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.”
Check out the graphic images of Tsarnaev’s capture, as well as pics of the manhunt, in the gallery.
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Photos: Sean Murphy
