Photo of White Cops Posing With Smiling Black Suspect Sparks Outrage—'It's a Trophy'

A photo of a group of armed white police officers surrounding a detained Black suspect has sparked a backlash on social media.

The photo depicted Eric Boykin, a suspect in a bank robbery in Prentiss, a small town in Mississippi's Jefferson Davis County.

Investigator Richard Browning of the Prentiss Police Department told the station that Boykin, of Gulfport, entered the Hancock Bank armed with a handgun and robbed it.

He fled the scene, but was captured on Tuesday in a wooded area around 600 yards from the bank after a manhunt involving multiple law enforcement agencies, including the ATF, FBI, Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

He is being charged with armed robbery and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

After Boykin was arrested, police officers posed for a photo with the man that was later posted online. Boykin, who is shirtless, is seen smiling on the ground with his arms behind his back with four white officers and two dogs.

The photo was criticized by some Twitter users.

"So either 1) none of the people involved, from the officers to the news station to the staffer who posted this, realized what a bad look this is or 2) they do know how it looks, and that's why they posted it," tweeted Josie Duffy Rice, a journalist and the former president of non-profit news website The Appeal, wrote alongside a now-deleted tweet from WLBT. "Those are the only two possibilities! and they are both very very bad."

"I am sitting here in utter disbelief. NO WORDS," a Twitter user wrote in response.

Others likened it to the kind of images shared by hunters of big game trophies.

"This isn't evidence, it's not proof of anyone's injuries (or lack thereof). It's a trophy," one Twitter user wrote.

Some suggested that race was not a factor in the issue as the suspect was smiling.

"Pretty damn sure the guy with the dogs and guns on him didn't think he was in a position to object or refuse a request to smile… hence the awkward grin," one tweet said in response to another that argued the image was "not racist."

"It's not about race as it's about the police acting like big game hunters from a begone era," another Twitter user added.

It was not immediately clear which agency the officers were from.

The Prentiss Police Department and other agencies involved in Boykin's arrest have been contacted for comment.