As ‘Patriots Day’ opens, officer’s family seeks recognition
BOSTON — The mayor and others are pressing for recognition for a police officer who died a year after being wounded in a confrontation with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, because the new Mark Wahlberg film about the attack doesn’t mention him.
Officer Dennis “D.J.” Simmonds was injured when a pipe bomb exploded near him days after the bombing. The explosive device was thrown by brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Watertown on April 19, 2013, as they tried to escape. A year later, Simmonds, 28, suffered a fatal brain aneurysm while working out at the Boston Police Academy gym.
The state retirement board later awarded the Simmonds family a $150,000 line-of-duty benefit after a medical panel found that the aneurysm most likely was related to the injuries he suffered during the confrontation with the bombers.
Simmonds’ family believes he should be recognized as the fifth fatality caused by the Tsarnaev brothers. Three people were killed when the Tsarnaevs detonated two pressure-cooker bombs near the marathon finish line. Several days later, the brothers shot and killed MIT Officer Sean Collier hours before they engaged in a shootout with police in Watertown.