Javier Pagan, far right in the photo above, is the Boston Police Department’s GLBT liaison. He is also a CrossFit athlete, below.
Javier Pagan, the Boston Police Department’s liaison to the GLBT community, was nearby when bombs went off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, and appears in one of the iconic photos from the tragedy.
Boston Pride reports that Pagan, who is at far right in the photo above, was standing right behind the flags where the first bomb went off. The photo above, which shows 78-year-old marathoner Bill Iffrig lying on the ground, was shot by John Tlumacki of The Boston Globe, who talks about his experiences here.
Officer Pagan’s husband, Pedro, is a retired sergeant from the New York Police Department who rescued many people when the Twin Towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, according to a recent profile of Pagan by a Boston CrossFit site. Pagan also escorted LGBT civil rights attorney Mary Bonauto to City Hall Plaza on May 17, 2004, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of marriage equality.
Pagan, a native of Puerto Rico who came out at 26 a year after joining the force, was profiled by the Bay Windows LGBT newspaper when he was named to the position in 2002.
Dallas Voice tried to contact Pagan, but a spokesman in the Boston Police Department’s media relations office said officials are not currently granting any individual interviews of officers.
