bostonbombing

Editor’s Note: This is first of two articles written by Mr. Hoenk about the Boston Marathon. This post was written …

Tragedies happen. We weep. We grieve. And then, life moves on. I suppose it’s good that it stands still …

In response to the highly controversial Rolling Stone cover of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev revealed earlier this week, tactical photographer Sgt. Sean Murphy of the Mass. Police Department released a set of haunting images showing what Boston Magazine is calling "the real face of terror."

The jarring images were taken during Tsarnaev's manhunt and arrest, and have resulted in Sgt. Murphy's being relieved of duty as he awaits a status hearing to determine his professional fate.

Rolling Stone magazine unveiled the cover of their August 1st issue yesterday, and immediately felt the Internet's wrath. That's because the cover -- often reserved for celebrities, rock stars, etc. -- features a photo of the infamous Boston Bomber #2 in the white hat: suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

When Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger of the two Boston bombing suspects, was discovered hiding in a man's boat just outside the perimeter police had set up to search for him, the cops took no chances. Rather than sending officers right in and risking injury, they enlisted the help of an impressive aerial camera to confirm his location and then keep watch as police tried to coax him out.

The camera, developed by the FLIR corporation, is called the Star SAFIRE III, and it's the one behind all of the infrared shots of Tsarnaev in the boat that spread like wildfire all over the Internet this weekend.

In 2010, then BU journalism student Johannes Hirn put together a photo essay titled "Will Box for Passport." The essay was based around a boxer by the name of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, better known now as "Suspect #1" or the "Black Hat bomber" from the Boston Marathon bombing.

According to an NPPA report, once Tsarnaev and his younger brother were listed as suspects, several publishers both large and small found and began using content from the essay without ever ascertaining Hirn's permission. All the while, Hirn was on the phone with his former BU professor Peter Southwick to figure out how he could properly license the images before websites and blogs began stealing them -- it was already too late.

Yesterday we reported that the online communities of Reddit and 4chan were attempting to identify the attacks behind the Boston Marathon bombings by crowdsourcing publicly available photographs from the scene. We blurred the faces in the photos we shared, since it was likely the people in them are completely innocent.

At least one (much larger) news source didn't. The New York Post actually took one of the photographs being circulated by vigilant photo detectives and ran it on the front page of its newspaper. The headline: "Bag Men: Feds seek these two pictured at Boston Marathon."

The Boston Marathon bombing was a horrific event that took three lives and left more than 170 people injured; the idea that somebody would try to profit from that is unthinkable. And yet, someone already has.