The bombings at the Boston Marathon just happened yesterday, so I’m reluctant to start talking about any single photo being the iconic image of the tragedy, but clearly this shot, captured by Boston Globe photographer John Tlumacki, is powerful and hard to forget.
I’m hardly an expert in art or symbolism, but there’s a reason this image in particular is going viral — we can see the smoke from an explosion, the man in need, the gun drawn, and the police officers ready to help keep people safe.
But Saeed Jones highlighted a detail that I found noteworthy: there are three main officers seen in the foreground of this image, and the one on our right is Javier Pagan, who is Latino, gay, and the Boston Police Department’s LGBT liaison.
His husband is a retired NYPD sergeant, who helped rescue people on September 11, 2001. As Adam Serwer joked, maybe Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito can explain to the officer why he shouldn’t be married because same-sex marriage is younger than cell phones.
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