US Police Photog Suspended for Releasing Tsarnaev Capture Pictures

WASHINGTON, July 19 (by Karin Zeitvogel for RIA Novosti) – A Massachusetts State Police officer who gave a Boston magazine scores of pictures that he took of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev during his capture has been suspended from the force, the editor of the magazine that published the photos said.

“Sgt. Sean Murphy has been relieved of duty,” John Wolfson, the editor of Boston Magazine, which published 14 of the hundreds of pictures taken by Murphy of Tsarnaev and the police effort to find him, said on Twitter late Thursday.

“Took his gun, badge, computer and more. He has been ordered not to talk to media or anyone else about events at Watertown,” Wolfson said in a series of tweets.

Boston Magazine published the images Thursday, including some that showed a battered and bloody Tsarnaev emerging from the tarpaulin-covered boat that he hid in for hours as a massive police manhunt closed down the city of Boston and the nearby suburb of Watertown.

Murphy, a tactical photographer for the Massachusetts State Police with 25 years of service under his belt, said he had handed over the pictures because he was furious that “Rolling Stone” magazine had put Tsarnaev on its cover this week.

“What ‘Rolling Stone’ did was wrong. This guy is evil,” Murphy was quoted by Boston Magazine as saying.

“This is the real Boston bomber. Not someone fluffed and buffed for the cover of ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine.”

“Rolling Stone,” which for decades has mixed rock ‘n’ roll journalism with stories about current affairs and investigative articles, stoked controversy this week when its coveted cover spot featured a picture of Tsarnaev with tousled hair, sleepy eyes, and looking like the rock stars that usually get their pictures on the cover of “Rolling Stone.”

The same image of Tsarnaev has appeared in the “New York Times” and in other media, but did not stir up the same firestorm of controversy.

“Rolling Stone” has defended its decision to feature Tsarnaev on the cover, saying that while “our hearts go out to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, and our thoughts are always with them and their families… the cover story we are publishing this week falls within the traditions of journalism.”

The story in the magazine, which hit US newsstands on Friday, tells how a teenager who was a promising athlete and seemed to have a bright future ahead of him was radicalized and became “a monster.”

Other countries that publish their own editions of “Rolling Stone,” including Russia, chose to run with a different cover picture.

Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen who came to the United States as a child, pleaded not guilty earlier this month to charges including murder and using a weapon of mass destruction in connection with the deadly April 15 attack at the finish line of the Boston Marathon that he is accused of carrying out with his older brother, Tamerlan.

Three people were killed and more than 260 injured when homemade bombs that the two brothers allegedly left near the finish line of the marathon blew up about four hours into the storied race.

Three days later, the Tsarnaev brothers are alleged to have killed a police officer at the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed during a shootout with police in Watertown that same night, and Dzhokhar was taken into custody after eluding police for hours by hiding in a boat parked behind a house.

Massachusetts State Police spokesman David Procopio was quoted by the ABC television station in Boston as saying that the release by Murphy of the photos of “Tsarnaev and police activity related to his capture was not authorized by the Massachusetts State Police" and an internal investigation is being held into his conduct.