Sean Murphy, the 48-year-old Massachusetts state police sergeant who published the photos of the surviving Boston bombing suspect, has retired from the force and says he has 'no regrets.'
Murphy released the pictures after Rolling Stone magazine put Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover, a move that outraged Murphy who felt it glamorized the true face of terror.
Sergeant Murphy was disciplined for his actions at the time and made the decision to retire just days ago after 25 years of service on the force.
Murphy told CNN's Chris Cuomo on Thursday he would release the photos again if given the chance to change his actions.
'There's no way that I couldn't do it... What Rolling Stone did was wrong,' he said. 'That image hurt a lot of people who are still hurting. And I knew that the image I had was the true face of terror.'
Murphy’s retirement comes after a brief suspension, then a transfer to an out of the way patrol job and a negotiated settlement in which he gave up five days of vacation pay, he said Thursday.
Critics claimed that the Rolling Stone portrait made Tsarnaev look like a young rock star, but in Murphy's on-the-scene pictures Tsarnaev instead looks dazed and bloody with a police sharpshooter’s laser sight trained on his forehead.
'That was the reality,' Murphy said. The image of that guy in the boat was the true image of terror, not the one that was fluffed and buffed for the cover of Rolling Stone.'
According to "Fox Now" Murphy rejects claims that the leaked photos could have harmed the case against Tsarnaev, who faces two federal charges in connection with the bombings.
Murphy was not acting as a crime scene photographer and his photographs were never part of the criminal case he said.
On Thursday Murphy said he does not hold anything against the police department. 'They had to do something,' he said. 'I have nothing but high respect for the Massachusetts State Police and the men and women I’ve worked with for 25 years,' he said.
Murphy told the press he doesn’t know what he’ll do next.
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