On April 15, 2013, two explosives placed near the finish line of the Boston Marathon detonated within seconds of each other, killing three people and injuring over two hundred others.

In the days following the attack, a massive manhunt took place. Four days later, police confronted the bombers on a suburban street in nearby Watertown, Massachusetts.

Boston police officer D.J. Simmonds was one of the officers who arrived on the scene. He was injured by a homemade bomb the Tsarnaev brothers threw at police.

Simmonds’ injuries led to his death almost a year later.

At StoryCorps, his parents, Roxanne and Dennis Simmonds, sat down to remember their son.


SimmondsExtra5

Middle photo: D.J. Simmonds. Credit: Boston Police Department, via the Associated Press.
Bottom photo: from left to right, Dennis, Nicole, Roxanne, and D.J. Simmonds. Courtesy of the Simmonds family.

Originally aired April 13, 2018, on NPR’s Morning Edition.