News

A return to safety after manhunt ends, fallen MIT police officer remembered

By Leon Lin and Austin Hess Apr. 25, 2013

5855 collier — A steady stream of visitors paid tribute to MIT police officer Sean A. Collier in front of Building 32 on Friday, Apr. 19. Collier was slain near this location on Apr. 18 in his police cruiser.
Ho Yin Au—The Tech

5856 collier 1 — MIT police officer Kevin O’Connor paid tribute to fellow officer Sean A. Collier in front of Building 32 on Friday, Apr. 19. Collier was slain near this location the prior evening.
Ho Yin Au—The Tech

5857 collier 10 — Police officers return to the Cambridge Police Headquarters in East Cambridge after the manhunt on Friday, Apr. 19.
David Da He—The Tech

5858 collier 2 — A steady stream of visitors paid tribute to MIT police officer Sean A. Collier in front of Building 32 on Friday, Apr. 19. Collier was slain near this location on Apr. 18.
Ho Yin Au—The Tech

5859 collier 3 — A steady stream of visitors paid tribute to MIT police officer Sean A. Collier in front of Building 32 on Friday, Apr. 19. Collier was slain near this location on Apr. 18.
Ho Yin Au—The Tech

5860 collier 4 — A makeshift memorial to MIT police officer Sean A. Collier was erected by a steady stream of visitors in front of Building 32 on Friday, Apr. 19.
Ho Yin Au—The Tech

5861 collier 5 — The Green Building at MIT was lit in tribute to slain MIT police officer Sean A. Collier on the night of Apr. 19.
Ho Yin Au—The Tech

5862 collier 6 — Messages and gifts of thanks and in remembrance of slain MIT police officer Sean A. Collier were displayed at the lobby of MIT Police headquarters.
Ho Yin Au—The Tech

5863 collier 7 — Messages and gifts of thanks and in remembrance of slain MIT police officer Sean A. Collier were displayed at the lobby of MIT Police headquarters.
Ho Yin Au—The Tech

5864 collier 8 — Messages and gifts of thanks and in remembrance of slain MIT police officer Sean A. Collier were displayed at the lobby of MIT Police headquarters.
Ho Yin Au—The Tech

5865 collier 9 — The Green Building was lit up in purple on Friday, Apr. 19.
David Da He—The Tech

Boston Police announced at 9:45 p.m. on Friday that the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, had been taken into custody after an intense manhunt that lasted nearly 24 hours, ending the threat to public safety.

The suspect was found under a tarp inside a boat in the backyard of a Watertown residence, and was taken to Beth Israel Hospital following his arrest.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, are believed to be responsible for Monday’s marathon bombings, which killed three people and injured more than 180 others, as well as the fatal shooting of MIT police officer Sean A. Collier Thursday night. The elder brother Tamerlan died after a shootout with the police early Friday morning.

According to MIT police chief John DiFava, MIT and Cambridge police officers paired up to patrol campus while the suspect was still at large.

Most local colleges, including MIT, closed on Friday. A Cambridge alert shortly before 6:30 a.m. encouraged residents to stay home and businesses to close. Many streets and buildings were eerily empty.

The emergency state at MIT was lifted at 9:24 p.m., although as of publication time, businesses in the student center have not yet reopened.

“We believe that our community needs time to recover and refocus,” wrote Chancellor Eric Grimson PhD ’80 in an email to students and instructors, announcing that MIT’s drop date has been moved from Thursday, April 25 to Monday April 29. Test dates and due dates for problem sets for many classes have also been pushed back.

Collier remembered by colleagues

On Thursday night, MIT police officer Sean A. Collier was fatally shot multiple times in his police vehicle while responding to a routine call near the Stata Center and the Koch Institute building.

At a press conference following the arrest, Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis said that the shooting was a “vicious assassination.”

According to a statement released by the Middlesex District Attorney’s office, Collier was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

It was “in [Collier’s] DNA” to serve in law enforcement, DiFava told The Tech. In addition to his duties as an officer, Collier was involved in the Police Department’s IT operations, the MIT Outing Club, and a local homeless shelter.

“Collier was a very, very well liked individual. Right now, everyone is very tired, but I’m afraid that when the tiredness wears off, it will hit us,” DiFava said. “He had a heck of a sense of humor. He was incredibly charismatic. He was very, very dedicated, very hardworking.”

DiFava said he was worried about the toll Collier’s death has taken on other MIT officers. “If students were to approach an officer and just say, ‘How are you doing today? We’re sorry about MIT officer Collier,’ that’d go a long, long way,” DiFava said.

Joanna Kao contributed reporting.