I recently covered a confrontaton (see immediately below this post) between white supremacists and counter demonstrators.  A reader who attended the event, e-mailed to say that I did not indicate that Max Waldroop had been hit in the eye with a police baton, and that he was crying because of his injury.

Furthermore, the reader noted, photographing from the teenager's right side did not show the blood trickling down his face.  The conclusion was that my editing - of information and photo angle - allowed me to fit Mr. Waldroop into the role of "teary teenager" to make a point, and was therefore irresponsible journalism.

Here's my thinking:  Here at the Monitor, we shy away from sensational images of blood and gore.  So I framed the image as I did because I knew that we would not publish the bloody photo.

The first pictures I took of Waldroop shouting and crying were just after the riot cops initially moved in to protect the White Revolutionists.  It was a rough moment - I was nearly knocked to the ground. Going by the time embedded in my digital images, this happened at 1:45pm

At 2:00 pm, I snapped a picture of Waldroop, appearing calm and pensive.  About a minute later, I took the picture of Waldroop (see above) that I posted on my blog.  I was moved by the depth of Waldroop's emotion, which I interpreted to transcend any physical pain.  I felt his expression symbolized the intensity of the event.

I was trying to make a point about protected speech, and had to focus my observations. However, the reader makes a valid observation.  Waldroop told me that he had been hit by a cop, although I had not seen the event.  Omitting this information was a distortion.

It was a rough transition from vacation.  I had just spent four days in the Berkshires at Kripalu, seeking inner peace on a yoga and meditation retreat, and the first day back on the job was confrontation city. 

Inside Boston's Faneuil Hall, holocaust survivors, Governor Romney, and other officials commemorated the holocaust.  Outside, backed by bricked history and under the gaze of Samuel Adams, a coalition of anarchists, labor unions, anti-war groups, and socialists created a racket protesting the planned arrival of white supremacists.

Like rebels during the revolutionary war, these anti-Nazis had a system of intelligence and scouts, monitoring the movements of their adversaries.

Up the street, members of the White Revolution geared up to march.  Once underway, they were encircled by riot police.  Mounted officers kept the counter demonstrators at bay, preventing violence.  15-year-old Max Waldroop, wearing a yarmulke and shouting about concentration camps, liberally shed tears.

Once in their heavily protected pen, the White Revolutionists traded taunts with the anti-Nazis.  Billy Roper, their leader, used his constitutional right of free speech to brandish provocative signs and  rub a piece of ham on an Israeli Flag.

At one point, the mounted police moved in formation against the counter demonstrators.  A man next to me shouted into his cell phone, "I'm right here and there's a riot going on."  A cop hit my knee with his baton to move me back.

Despite the jarring scene, some of my vacation's serenity clung to me.  I tried to stay in the moment, occasionally concentrating my attention on a single individual, and wondering what was it about their life experiences that brought them to this moment, whether a teary teenager, a stoic riot policeman, or a tattooed White Revolutionist.