Boston Marathon bombing survivor Adrianne Haslet made it very clear that she was upset when Dzkhokhar Tsarnaev won his death penalty appeal this week. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to reconsider Tsarnaev’s sentence on Friday, according to a report by The Associated Press, meaning he may endure life in prison as opposed to execution. Haslet was not pleased.
Haslet posted a photo on Instagram on Friday, showing Tsarnaev giving the middle finger to a prison security camera side-by-side with herself giving the finger to a glass door — presumably the prison or the court. With it, she included a long note in the caption about how she felt about this appeal. Haslet noted that she generally believes the criminal justice system in the U.S. needs reform, but in the case of Tsarnaev, she believes the death penalty is the only logical sentence.
Videos by PopCulture.com
View this post on Instagram
“I’m so livid at today’s ruling by the federal court,” Haslet wrote. “First and foremost, I cannot emphasize enough, without a shadow of a doubt, that the criminal justice system needs a complete overhaul to stop racial profiling, and the death penalty is used in far too many cases of injustice. AND. The death penalty should be used in this particular case.”
Haslet rehashed the severity of Tsarnaev’s crime, reiterating that it was not just murder but a terrorist attack. She also reminded her followers of Tsarnaev’s testimony about his plans to commit other terrorist attacks. To Haslet, it was not her personal loss that made Tsarnaev irredeemable but his philosophy of hatred towards the country as a whole.
“That is why I stood by the death penalty in this particular case,” Haslet wrote. “He is a threat to all of us and he needs to die. I cannot imagine the comments I’m about to get for speaking my mind, but these have been my thoughts since I testified. I’m not a woman with a grudge, I’m a human with a brain.”
Haslet finished by noting that she is “ready to testify again” if she needs to. Haslet was a professional dancer in 2013 when Tsarnaev and his brother set off a makeshift bomb at the finish line of the Boston marathon. Haslet’s left leg was so badly injured that it needed to be amputated.
In the years that followed, Haslet’s rehabilitation was one of the most inspiring stories associated with the Boston Marathon bombing. In 2016, she returned with a prosthetic to complete the marathon on her own terms.
Related Posts
-
"Boston Marathon Manhunt" – When two bombs cut a swath of death and destruction through the crowd of runners and spectators at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the FBI steps up to lead a massive manhunt for the perpetrators. As the nation watches transfixed, the Bureau and its law enforcement partners work against time to find the bombers before they can strike again. When the suspects finally emerge, they lead authorities on a high-stakes chase through the streets of greater Boston. Riveting details are disclosed by two FBI agents and a local police sergeant who knew that time was their enemy: Rick DesLauriers (who retired as Special Agent in charge of the Boston field office and previously worked as director of the counterintelligence division at FBI headquarters), Nancy Aguilar (a retired Special Agent of the FBI who worked extraterritorial threats) and John MacLellan (a retired police sergeant who served as a patrol officer in Watertown, Mass., for 30 years). The agents and MacLellan sit down with Cindy Coppola to talk about the intensity of the bombing and putting their lives on the line, on the CBS Original series FBI TRUE, Tuesday, Oct. 24 (9:01-10:00 PM, ET/PT). Pictured: Unknown. Photo: CBS ©2023 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Highest quality screengrab available.
