If you turned on the news over the last weekend, you know what happened in Boston. The two men who bombed the marathon were chased over two days, ending with one of them captured and the other one dead. The entire city of Watertown, Massachusetts was shut down and scoured in an attempt to find a suspect, which eventually ended with another gunfight and the man in custody.
The biggest issue with these sorts of tragedies, whether it be the attack on Sandy Hook, September 11th, or the shooting at the opening of the Dark Knight Rises, is that the people who get the most attention are the criminals. Their names, faces, and entire life story are posted all over the internet, covered on national news, and printed in newspapers. In a word, they become famous.
Anybody who was paying attention to the chase now knows everything about the two suspects in the case. The suspects names, pictures, origin, race, religious beliefs, and life stories were released on television. News channels released everything about these two men they could find, including school pictures and pictures from sports teams. Interviews with anyone who was related to them or interacted with them were big news. One of these interviews included a mechanic who worked on the car of one of the suspects, who didn’t really have much to say at all. The point is, everything that happened to the bombers became headline news, whether it was worthy or not.
The people we need to be focusing on are the heroes– the Boston policemen who ran towards the explosions and searched an entire city for the suspect, the paramedics that were rescuing the injured, the people of Boston who have opened up their homes to those caught in the catastrophe, and anyone else who has given their time to help those affected. It is completely disrespectful of these people’s actions to leave them in the dust and put these killers in the limelight.
The people who were caught in the explosion have been covered much less than the actual killers. The public knows little to nothing about the three who were killed while running the marathon or the young MIT police officer who was killed in cold blood. The four families whose lives have been changed forever by these events have been ignored, while the two killers are famous.
In the next coming weeks, the captured suspect should only be referred to as “suspect two.” As a terrorist, he doesn’t deserve to have his name remembered by an entire nation. While his name is forgotten, we should spend time remembering and respecting those who, because of his actions, lost their lives simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
