Criminal Control - a novel approach

All I can say is, it's about goddamn time!

A Juvenile Court judge locked up a 16-year-old boy on $1 million cash bail yesterday for allegedly using a Roxbury park as his personal shooting gallery - even as police were flooding the green.

No one was injured by Wednesday night's gunplay, but after two nerve-racking weeks during which a basketball coach was murdered and an 11-year-old boy and 15-year-old girl were shot and nearly killed in or near Boston playgrounds, it may be Judge Paul D. Lewis' extraordinary punishment that proves the shot heard 'round the city.

"If you're a kid in Boston and you carry a gun or fire a gun, that's just not going to stand," said David Procopio, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley.

The Roxbury teen, whose name was not released because he is a minor, is now a two-time loser, having been arrested before for unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition.

Boy, he sure learned his lesson. What was the outcome of his first arrest? a stern talking-to? Ooooh. Let's see how he enjoys the reality of the adult criminal justice system this time around.

Prosecutors asked that the youth be held on $25,000 cash bail. But in demanding 40 times more than that, Lewis cited "additional factors, which I cannot describe because (the suspect is) a juvenile," Procopio said.

Finally - someone within the judicial system who understands the problem.

Procopio declined to say if more charges may be pending against the teen, who police allege was firing a .40-caliber handgun with a large-capacity feeding device inside Highland Park at Fort Avenue and Beech Glen Street about 9:15 Wednesday night.

A 16 year-old kid apparently has NO problem obtaining a high-capacity .40 caliber semiautomatic pistol. But as a 37 year-old father of two, without so much as a grade school playground tussle on my record, I have to subject myself to the obstacle course of Massachusetts' onerous gun control laws, at an out-of-pocket expense to-date of $400+ (and I haven't even written my name on the permit application yet).

Can someone explain the logic here? Yes, that was a rhetorical question.

When will the mayor and the city leaders face up to the truth and admit that their social experiment of gun banning control has failed? Yes, that too was a rhetorical question. Hate to tell you, folks, but it hasn't created the crime-free la-la land you were foolishly and blindly gambling on.