A tactical photographer working for the Massachusetts State Police hasn’t taken too kindly to the recent front cover picture on Rolling Stone magazine of suspected Boston Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The Police photographer, Sgt. Sean Murphy is unhappy about the glorification the magazine gives to Tsarnaev by featuring him so prominently on the front cover of the edition.
Sgt. Murphy said that the image of Tsarnaev is an insult to the families of the Boston bombing victims. He sent graphic photos to bostonmagazine.com showing the bloody capture of the bomber as kind of counter to the Rolling Stone edition.
You can see the photos published so far by clicking this link .
In his own heartfelt words Sgt. Murphy talks about what motivated him to publish the graphic images and about his feelings regarding the Rolling Stone cover:
“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.”