Dorchester
Tyrone Antoine Taylor, 18, allegedly got into the Fourth of July spirit a bit early Tuesday when he ignited a roman candle from a porch on Stonehurt Street.
Unfortunately for Tyrone, two cops happened to be driving by and stopped to watch the show before approaching the lad on the porch.
The officers found a backpack full of fireworks but when they located a handgun in the bag the festive mood disappeared.
Taylor was charged with illegal possession of a firearm along with the fireworks, which will spend the holiday in evidence rather than soaring over the city.
Violence claims two more lives in Boston
Homicides rise to 29 this year
By Cristina Silva, Globe Correspondent June 30, 2005
A 19-year-old man was killed in the hallway of his grandmother's home in a drive-by shooting Tuesday night in Roxbury, and five hours later another man was found fatally stabbed on a Dorchester street corner, police and relatives said yesterday.
City officials plan to announce today Mayor Thomas M. Menino's summer antiviolence strategy, including a new squad of about 10 police officers on bicycles patrolling Mattapan, Roxbury, and Dorchester; the return of city-sponsored midnight basketball; and 14 new youth workers.
ALBANY, N.H. --A 45-year-old man was arrested after a teenage girl found him staring at her from below an outhouse seat, police said. Police said they pulled Gary Moody, from Gardiner, Maine, from the waste tank under a log cabin outhouse on Monday.
Monday, June 27, 2005
Mr. Chip Meany
Code Enforcement Officer
Town of Weare, New Hampshire
Fax 603-529-4554
Dear Mr. Meany,
I am proposing to build a hotel at 34 Cilley Hill Road in the Town of Weare. I would like to know the process your town has for allowing such a development.
Although this property is owned by an individual, David H. Souter, a recent Supreme Court decision, "Kelo vs. City of New London" clears the way for this land to be taken by the Government of Weare through eminent domain and given to my LLC for the purposes of building a hotel. The justification for such an eminent domain action is that our hotel will better serve the public interest as it will bring in economic development and higher tax revenue to Weare.
As I understand it your town has five people serving on the Board of Selectmen. Therefore, since it will require only three people to vote in favor of the use of eminent domain I am quite confident that this hotel development is a viable project. I am currently seeking investors and hotel plans from an architect. Please let me know the proper steps to follow to proceed in accordance with the law in your town.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Logan Darrow Clements
Freestar Media, LLC
The gun was already there, under a couch, while people were sitting around smoking marijuana, Buso said. At some point, Welch saw the weapon and decided to try to make sure the gun did not accidentally discharge, Buso said.
Welch had no formal training in handling handguns and instead relied on what he had seen in movies...
Shots rang out across the city Saturday night and Sunday morning -- from the Far North Side to the Far South Side -- with preliminary reports of nearly two dozen people shot.
The overnight tally -- which is unofficial -- included two shootings on the same corner, a fatal shooting near the Taste of Chicago and several on the West Side, where detectives were swamped.
"We're just spinning up here," one detective said.
Numerous incidents of gunfire and related injuries were reported overnight Saturday. Among them:
*At 9:45 p.m. Saturday, 20-year-old Christopher Sanders of Chicago was fatally shot during a fight one block from the Taste of Chicago.
*At 6:06 a.m. Sunday near Damen and 38th, a man was shot in the shoulder, police said.
In between:
*A man was shot in the head at 11:52 p.m. at 4129 W. Van Buren.
*A 38-year-old man was shot and killed at 3:15 a.m. in the street in the 1400 block of West Carmen.
*And a man was left in critical condition after a drive-by shooting at 5:30 a.m. at 12434 S. Wentworth, police said.
There were two shootings at the corner of 52nd and Mozart.
*The first came at 9:47 p.m. when a man was shot in the foot.
*Hours later, at 1:38 a.m., two men sitting on a porch at the corner were shot by someone who pulled up in a dark Ford Escort wagon, police said.
City officials are using new technology that recognizes the sound of a gunshot within a two-block radius, pinpoints the source, turns a surveillance camera toward the shooter and places a 911 call. Officials can then track the shooter and dispatch officers to the scene.
In Chicago, police hope the gunshot detection systems will add momentum to a technology-fueled crackdown on guns and gang violence. The city in 2004 reduced its homicide rate to its lowest level since 1965 and police seized 10,000 guns -- successes that were in large part credited to a network of "pods," or remote-controlled cameras that can rotate 360 degrees and feed video directly to squad-car laptops. The SENTRI systems are an addition to that network.
Approached by a masked gunman who demanded his gold chain early yesterday on River Street, a 27-year-old Hyde Park man handed over the jewelry only to get shot in the right foot and thigh.
Trust Fund Set Up For Teen Injured In Blast
BOSTON -- A trust fund was established Friday for a local teen who was making a sparkler bomb in a friend's Lancaster, Mass., home on Mother's Day when the pipe exploded.
Ricky Cataldo, 18, lost his eye, two fingers on his left hand and had to undergo 10 hours of brain surgery to remove the piece of the pipe that was lodged in his brain. His hand eventually had to be amputated.
"I actually respect people's right to protest, even if they're stupid."
- U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Somerville)
"Gasoline is $2.35 a gallon, we're fighting two wars in the Middle East and we're spending our way into bankruptcy, but for the 15th year in a row the politicians in Washington are focused on changing the Constitution to stop something that almost never happens."
U.S. Rep. Martin Meehan (D-Lowell)
"There are many other forms of nonviolent protest that remain available to protesters who seem to have no shortage of creativity," Lynch said. "This is one they can do without."
U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-South Boston)
A Quincy woman is calling for MBTA officials to step up security on the trains and at stops after she and her young son were attacked by a group of teenage girls.
Diane Camillo, 27, was riding the Orange Line inbound after a Memorial Day outing to the Franklin Park Zoo in Dorchester with her son Ryan, 5, and a friend. When a group of boisterous girls crammed into the already-crowded subway car, they bumped violently into Ryan's stroller several times, she said. Camillo asked them to apologize.
Instead, she said, as she turned to sit down, they jumped her and began kicking, punching and pulling her hair. No one on the crowded subway car did anything to her aid and the assault lasted several minutes, she said.
"They just attacked me. All I asked is that they say, 'Excuse me,'" Camillo said. "You think you're safe riding these trains and you're not."
The beating continued until the train reached the Roxbury Crossing stop, she said. Camillo tried to leave with her son and friend, but the girls followed them out. The beating spilled out onto the subway platform.
Camillo and her friend, Elizabeth Feliciano of Boston, said they tried to get an MBTA worker to intervene, but he did nothing.
Although Camillo said she pressed an emergency call button while inside the train, MBTA police weren't waiting at the stop as she expected. An EMT showed up at the scene after the gang had already sauntered off, laughing about the incident, she said.
Camillo and her son were taken to Children's Hospital in Boston, where Ryan was treated and released. The boy's lip was cut during the fray, Camillo said.
"He never wants to ride the train again," said the young mother, who uses the train daily because she doesn't have a car.
Feliciano, 40, said she was also attacked and was stabbed in the hand several times with a sharp instrument.
"I'm not taking the train anymore," she said. "I'll take the bus."
MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said transit police are investigating the incident. The train operator was interviewed yesterday and gave a description of the assailants.
Pesaturo said the conductor did try to break up the fight on the subway platform and went beyond what is expected of an MBTA employee in such a volatile situation.
"He put himself in harm's way, and that is not something we encourage of transit employees unless they're police," Pesaturo said. "The train crew did everything they were supposed to do."
Camillo and Feliciano say that isn't how it happened. They say no one from the MBTA helped.
Feliciano said she begged the train conductor to do something about the girls but he responded: "What do you want me to do? Hold them one by one? That's not my job."
After the fight was over, one passenger even blamed the two women for confronting the girls' on the train and setting off the fight, Feliciano said.
Only one passenger, an elderly woman, had the courage to chastise the girls as they pummeled Camillo, she said.
Pesaturo said the subway is "100 percent safe," and that there is no indication that this was anything more than an "isolated incident."
"It's not like we had a group of girls out wilding," he said.
Camillo, who said she suffered bruises and scrapes and had a headache that lasted two days, said the MBTA must do more to protect its passengers.
Feliciano, too, said the T needs to do more for passenger safety.
"All I want is for them to watch out for people," Feliciano said. "Respond to calls. Do something. How can they say there's nothing they can do?"
"Casablanca" led the list with six quotes, including Bogart's "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" (No. 20) and "We'll always have Paris" (No. 43), and Bergman's "Play it, Sam. Play `As Time Goes By'" (No. 28).
Other highlights include Sidney Poitier's "They call me Mister Tibbs!" (No. 16), "In the Heat of the Night"; Roy Scheider's "You're gonna need a bigger boat" (No. 35), "Jaws"; Arnold Schwarzenegger's "I'll be back" (No. 37), "The Terminator"; Renee Zellweger's "You had me at `hello'" (No. 52), "Jerry Maguire"; Peter Sellers' "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" (No. 64), "Dr. Strangelove"; and Charlton Heston's "Soylent Green is people!" (No. 77), "Soylent Green."
The oldest line was Al Jolson's "Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet" (No. 71) from 1927's "The Jazz Singer." The newest was Andy Serkis' "My precious" (No. 85) from 2002's "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers."
Rowdy comedy was represented (John Belushi's "Toga! Toga!", No. 82, from "National Lampoon's Animal House"), along with horror (Jack Nicholson's "Here's Johnny!", No. 68, from "The Shining"). So was musical comedy (Barbra Streisand's "Hello, gorgeous," No. 81, from "Funny Girl"), and epic romance (Leonardo DiCaprio's "I'm king of the world!", No. 100, from "Titanic").
Single words made the list, Orson Welles' "Rosebud" (No. 17) from "Citizen Kane" and Walter Brooke's "Plastics" (No. 42) from "The Graduate."
Super-spy James Bond scored with lines that began with original 007 Sean Connery: "Bond. James Bond" (No. 22) from "Dr. No" and "A martini. Shaken, not stirred" (No. 90) from "Goldfinger."
NEWTON -- Police said they are searching for a suspect in the latest home burglary, a man who got away with a small amount of cash while the homeowner's son slept alone in their Kodaya Road home early yesterday.
The burglary occurred about 4 a.m., after the suspect entered through a first-floor window, Lt. Bruce Apotheker said.
He did not know if the window was unlocked or open.
He said the burglar -- who was seen briefly by the homeowner's son when the suspect shined a flashlight in a third-floor bedroom -- is described as white, about six-feet-tall with a heavy build.
[snip]
According to Apotheker, there have been 50 to 60 break-ins in Newton since May 1.
He said the number of home burglaries this year is nearly double over last year. Business break-ins have increased 58 percent, leading to a 37 percent increase in crime so far this year.
Tim Carlson, 45, of Gloucester and New York, was arrested last Monday after he broke into a Lower Falls home while a woman was putting her children to bed.
[snip]
Apotheker said that break-in is under investigation. He said it is not yet known if Carlson is linked to any of the other burglaries.
"In Newton you don't get crimes against the person, you get crimes against the property," he said. "We remind all (residents) to make sure their homes and cars are locked."
Merline Port-Louis knew she was a woman in danger.
In the weeks before she was shot to death early Saturday morning, her estranged boyfriend, Marlon Fann, called and threatened to kill her and her family three times, Nassau police said.
Port-Louis took the appropriate measures: She made copies of the threats, filed charges with police and got a panic button to press in case of emergency.
But neither her efforts nor those of police were enough to stop Fann from pulling out a gun and shooting Port-Louis in the driveway of her New Cassel home, and then calling her mother and threatening to do the same to her and police if they tried to arrest him, police said.
Yesterday, Fann was still at large, and police moved Port-Louis' mother and 3-year-old daughter to an undisclosed location. That nearly every means of protecting Port-Louis was exhausted but insufficient is the frustration of police.
"I think she did everything she could," said Det. Sgt. Richard Laursen of the Nassau Homicide Squad. "There's only so much a court order will do. If the person wants to disregard it, he's going to."
LYNN - The number of guns seized in the first five months of 2005 is up 133 percent from the number recovered in the same time frame last year, according to statistics provided by Lynn Police.
[snip]
Twenty-one guns have been seized from January 1 to June 1, according to Lynn Police Lt. Dave Brown, compared to the nine guns in 2004, and 16 in 2003.
Many times the guns recovered were determined to be stolen.
Among the guns that have been seized this year is a .357 magnum, a .22 caliber pistol and a Tec-9 submachine gun.
The regions with the 10 highest and lowest rates of marijuana use by residents 12 and over, according to a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration:
Highest
Boston, 12.16 percent
Boulder, Colo., 10.3 percent
Southeast Massachusetts, 9.53 percent
Portland, Ore., region, 9.48
Champlain Valley, Vt., 9.37 percent
San Francisco region, 9.24 percent
Hawaii Island, 9.22 percent
Central Massachusetts, 9 percent
North Central California, 8.93 percent
Washington, R.I., 8.81 percent
Lowest
Northwest Iowa, 2.28 percent
Northeast Iowa, 2.53 percent
Southern Texas, 2.59 percent
Central Iowa, 2.63 percent
Lake region and south central North Dakota, 2.65 percent
Northern Nebraska, 2.65 percent
Southeast Oklahoma, 2.77 percent
Eastern central South Dakota, 2.78 percent
Badlands and west central North Dakota, 2.81 percent
Central Nebraska, 2.88 percent
BOSTON -- Police are searching for three men after they allegedly tried to rob an armored truck robbery in Boston's North End.
The incident happened at about 11:30 a.m. on Hanover Street. No one was injured, and no money was stolen.
The suspects, described as three white men, are believed to be armed with AK-47's and are considered armed and dangerous.
...several homes and businesses were reportedly evacuated as police search for three white men they believe are carrying AK-47’s, according to Boston.com sources.
All three were described as masked and heavily armed.
The suspects in the attempted robbery were armed with "long weapons," (FBI spokeswoman Gail) Marcinkiewicz said.
"I saw what I believed to be a semiautomatic rifle fall on the ground from the passenger side" of the van, Bloomer said. "They picked up the rifle, closed the door and proceeded down Hanover Street."
A gift certificate to a Sears Tool Store, or Home Depot, or Lowe's, or Cabela's, or Bass Pro. You may think that a gift certificate is an unromantic gift for The Man You Love, but trust me, it isn't.
[snip]
And if you think he has enough tools already, trust me on this: he doesn't.
A partial criminal history of Raymond Diamond.
May 15, 1980: Convicted of kidnapping and assault with intent to rape a teenage girl in Dorchester. Sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Oct. 18, 1985: Convicted of kidnapping a 6-year-old and trying to extort money from her mother. Sentenced to three to five years in prison.
Oct. 18, 1989: Convicted of abducting and raping a Charlestown woman. Sentenced to five to seven years for rape and a concurrent eight to 10 years for kidnapping.
Jan. 29, 2003: Charged with raping an Atlanta woman in Dorchester. Charges dropped after prosecutors cannot find the woman.
Dec. 26, 2003: Charged with violating a restraining order after allegedly threatening to kill his mother in Dorchester. Charges dropped after prosecutors learn the authorities had failed to notify Diamond of the restraining order.
Sept. 17, 2004: Charged with assault and battery in the beating of his girlfriend, an MBTA employee. Charges dropped after she declines to cooperate with authorities.
Feb. 15, 2005: Charged with failing to register as a sex offender in Dorchester. Charges dropped after Diamond agrees to register.
Man with gun arrested inside Stoughton bar
Charged with receiving stolen property in excess of $200, carrying a firearm without a license...
A Canton man, who police said was armed with a gun stolen from a...
A Canton man, who police said was armed with a gun stolen from a Boston police officer's home...
How many more innocent, hard-working residents of your city will need to be brutally stabbed, beaten, raped, and robbed before you abandon your progressive, liberal, socialist, "common-sense" (or whatever the fuck you call it these days) approach to "fighting crime" through gun control, which serves only to deprive the people of Boston of their right to defend themselves and their loved ones?
Caught in the act: Cops: Woman flees rapist - then ID's him from predator posting
By Michele McPhee
Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - Updated: 03:10 AM EST
A Dorchester woman who was allegedly kidnapped and raped by a registered sexual predator staggered naked and bleeding into a police station yesterday after leaping from her attacker's car and racing several blocks for help, cops said.
As police called for an ambulance, the woman spotted a board festooned with mugshots of Level 3 sex offenders and began to scream, pointing at a picture of Raymond V. Diamond, 43, who has been arrested for rape seven times and convicted of three sexual attacks. "That's him!" the woman, who is in her 30s, hollered through hysterical tears around 6:40 a.m., pounding her fists on the glass case holding the felons' pictures. "That's the guy who raped me!"
Her identification led District B-3 cops to nab Diamond just minutes before he was allegedly set to rape a second victim he had picked up while posing as a gypsy cab driver, said Deputy Superintendent Margot Hill, the commander of the Boston Police Family Justice Division.
"These officers not only captured a suspect wanted for rape," Hill said, "they also prevented another rape from happening."
Smart, menacing coyotes in Quincy - and they're here to stay
By JESSICA VAN SACK
The Patriot Ledger
QUINCY - They've been spotted yipping through Squantum and eating kittens at Marina Bay.
But when chickens started disappearing from a neighbor's coop, Anne Haigh hadn't considered coyotes were the culprit.
That is until she saw a furry wanderer walking through the beach in her Germantown back yard.
It was a wild wake-up call for Haigh when she and her husband spotted what she called an easily recognizable coyote about 100 feet from her Prescott Terrace home on a recent Saturday morning. The situation became even wilder when she learned that almost nothing could be done to contain or trap the omnivore.
"This is an honest safety issue and not just for our animals," Haigh said.
Quincy's animal control officer responded to Haigh's call quickly, she said. He handed her a "living with wildlife" brochure. And, as he told her, "his hands were tied."
[snip]
Anyone with coyote concerns should call Quincy animal control at 617-376-1364.
Why can’t The Globe be just as forthcoming with Kerry’s purportedly complete military records as it was with forged documents used to slander a sitting president in a time of war 50 days before an election?
The Pledge of Allegiance
The last change in the Pledge of Allegiance occurred on June 14 (Flag Day), 1954 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved adding the words "under God". As he authorized this change he said:
"In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource in peace and war."
This was the last change made to the Pledge of Allegiance. The 23 words what had been initially penned for a Columbus Day celebration now comprised a thirty-one [word] profession of loyalty and devotion to not only a flag, but to a way of life....the American ideal. Those words now read:I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation under God, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.
- June 14, 1954
Poll: 38 Percent Of French Men Wish They Could Be Pregnant
POSTED: 12:15 pm EDT June 12, 2005
NEW YORK -- Forget sympathy pains -- nearly 40 percent of French men said they want to go through the real thing.
According to a poll published in the current issue of Children's Magazine, 38 percent of French men questioned said they wish they could be pregnant instead of their wives.
Judith: [on Stan's (Eric Idle) desire to be a mother] Here! I've got an idea: Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb - which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans' - but that he can have the *right* to have babies.
Francis (Michael Palin): Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother... sister, sorry.
Reg (John Cleese): What's the *point*?
Francis: What?
Reg: What's the point of fighting for his right to have babies, when he can't have babies?
Francis: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
Reg: It's symbolic of his struggle against reality.
A Dorchester woman was found stabbed to death yesterday after working the late shift at a Geneva Avenue gas station, her throat slashed and her body badly beaten with a soda crate, police and horrified family members said.
The woman was identified as Lourdes Hernandez, a 39-year-old Dominican Republic native who was working the 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift at Lukoil gas station.
[snip]
Rodriguez said Hernandez was married last November and was working at the gas station while studying to get her accounting license. He said he had worked at the gas station before Hernandez and had once been hospitalized for a week after being beaten during a robbery.
The family was worried about another attack and had helped to buy Hernandez...
...a Honda Accord so she could stop riding her bicycle to work late at night.
Police do not have a suspect or a motive for the killing, but investigators said they are looking for a white 1996 Honda Accord that was stolen from Hernandez after the murder.
Dear Mayor Menino,
In light of the recent vicious slaying of Lourdes Hernandez at the Dorchester gas station where she worked, I have a very simple, straightforward question for you.
How many more innocent, hard-working residents of your city will need to be brutally stabbed, beaten, raped, and robbed before you abandon your progressive, liberal, socialist, "common-sense" (or whatever the fuck you call it these days) approach to "fighting crime" through gun control, which serves only to deprive the people of Boston of their right to defend themselves and their loved ones?
Just give me a number, that's all I'm asking for here. I'm quite curious as to what your cutoff point is.
Signed,
Bruce [last name edited]
Boston
WASHINGTON - A musician long before she became an academic and then a world-famous diplomat, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took to the Kennedy Center concert stage Saturday to accompany a young soprano battling an often-fatal disease.
Rice's rare and unpublicized appearance at the piano marked a striking departure from her routine as America's No. 1 diplomat. A pianist from the age of 3 she played a half-dozen selections to accompany Charity Sunshine, a 21-year-old singer who was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension a little more than a year ago.
The soprano is a granddaughter of Rep. Tom Lantos (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., and his wife Annette, who Rice has known for years. The Pulmonary Hypertension Association, formed in 1990, presented the concert to draw attention to the disease from which more than 100,000 people are known to suffer.
AMHERST, Mass. --Two middle school students who spent months working on a science project to prove how dangerous BB guns can be were disqualified from the state middle school science fair -- because BB guns are too dangerous.
Amherst Regional Middle School eighth-graders Nathan C. Woodard and Nathaniel A. Gorlin-Crenshaw spent seven months researching and testing their hypothesis that BB guns can be deadly and shouldn't be used by children. Minors can't purchase BB guns, but they can receive them as gifts.
The students said they proved that BB guns can penetrate a human to cause a fatal injury; pellets can penetrate farther than BBs; and clothing affects how far a BB and pellet will penetrate.
The boys spent about $200 on ballistics gelatin, which has the same density and consistency as human flesh, to use during their ballistic tests, which were done under the supervision of science teacher Jennifer D. Welborn and Nathan's mother, Sharon L. Downs.
"We put a lot of time into this -- every Monday and Thursday since November," Gorlin-Crenshaw told The Republican of Springfield. "We devoted a weekend to the actual testing."
But 10 days before the June 4 event at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, they were told not to bother attending.
"We had everything ready except gluing the poster," Woodard said. "We got an e-mail that the project was hazardous and it couldn't be shown because they didn't want to encourage kids to use ballistics."
'Serial rapist' still on the run
Johannesburg - Johannesburg police continued their search on Thursday for a suspected serial rapist preying on female hairdressers on the streets of the city centre.
Spokesperson Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said the man, who escaped from police custody last month, apparently approached female hairdressers working on the city's streets.
The man, believed to be carrying a firearm, is accused of rape and attempted rape of a number of women in separate attacks since March.
Outraged Menino comes to the rescue
By Kimberly Atkins
Friday, June 10, 2005 - Updated: 03:43 AM EST
Mayor Thomas M. Menino lashed out at the Archdiocese of Boston yesterday, less than 24 hours after the church pushed a kindergarten graduation out of Our Lady of the Presentation School in Brighton.
Menino said he was "angry as blazes" at the move Wednesday night to shutter the school. Church officials changed the locks after catching wind of an alleged plan by some parents and students to occupy the building.
The mayor, who invited students to hold today's 6th-grade graduation at Faneuil Hall, said he was "disgusted" by the church's actions.
Massport's union longshoremen have been placing kids as young as 2 years old on the payroll in a long-running scheme to give them bogus seniority that fattens the wages they fetch as adult dock-workers years later, investigators contend.
"We believe the fraudulent activity went on long enough so that people appearing on payroll records as children are now receiving the benefit of the fraud and working there as adults," said David Guarino, a spokesman for Attorney General Tom Reilly, last night.
But one longshoreman defended the practice as a way to keep generations of the same families on the job.
"How is that bad if they can get their son a job?'' said the longshoreman, who declined to give his name.
"I wish my father had done it for me because I am not getting the full pay rate."
The victim said the suspect threatened him saying, "I need a dollar or I will kick your butt." When he took out his wallet, the suspect grabbed it and ran off, police said. When he threw an umbrella at the suspect, he was surrounded by a group of six who threatened and harassed him, the victim said.
At about 2:15 a.m., a resident was robbed at knifepoint by two suspects, who asked him for a cigarette. After he provided one, one suspect allegedly asked him to empty his pockets and threatened him with a knife he said was in his pocket.
At about 6:57 p.m., a suspect walked behind the counter and pushed the victim into the sink area and allegedly held him by the throat.
While walking from Union Square, the victim was suddenly grabbed from behind, asked for her pocketbook and thrown on ground by two unknown suspects. They also hit her 3-year-old son.
Stolen cars, break-ins and suspicious activity in her neighborhood is making one Bigelow Street resident very nervous. Call 911, said police.
According to Mary Johansen, the Bigelow Street area has seen five house break-ins, four stolen cars and some suspicious activity in the last six months.
Her family had their brand-new GMC truck stolen. Another resident watched a man take out the stereo from his car and run off.
Residents have filed police reports and Johansen has e-mailed the Boston Police Department, to no avail.
"We have a lot of elderly people in this neighborhood and absolutely no police cruisers driving by our homes," said Johansen, a Bigelow Street resident for 38 years.
"To my knowledge, no one's called me on this," said Sgt. Bill Fogerty at the District 14 police station. He said he is not sure what crimes she is referring to, but plans to make sure patrolling officers check out the area.
Fogerty said it is hard to respond to crimes which happened a long time ago, and asked residents to contact the police immediately and not wait to file reports in such cases.
Man is arrested after attack in park
A Cambridge man was arrested yesterday, police said, after he attacked a group of men playing basketball at Riverside Press Park about 5 a.m.
[snip]
Gebre approached the group of basketball players with a gun in his hand and threatened them, Pasquarello said. The men, aged 18 to 20, wrestled Gebre to the ground, took the gun from him, and called police. Gebre was taken to a local hospital for minor injuries to his face.
Samson Gebre, 20, is expected to be charged today with unlawful carrying of a firearm, assault by means of a firearm, and unlawful possession of ammunition, said Frank Pasquarello, spokesman for Cambridge police.
Asking Senator Barrios* to abandon his lifelong dream of depriving the law-abiding people of Massachusetts of the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of their families and communities is akin to asking a dog to stop licking its balls.
It's what they do.
Robbery stirs fears among residents
Pair, 67 and 71, are latest victims in Jamaica Plain
By Suzanne Smalley, Globe Staff June 8, 2005
A couple coming home from an evening stroll to J.P. Licks ice cream shop was robbed at gunpoint on one of Jamaica Plain's busiest residential blocks last week, stirring fears among residents upset by the slaying of a 97-year-old woman late last month.
The armed robbery on Burroughs Street last Wednesday occurred just five days after the killing of Gerda T. Bissett in her home on St. John Street, which is just two long blocks from the site of the robbery, in a neighborhood where residents are unaccustomed to violent crime.
Conant said Burroughs Street is well traveled because it is one of the only thoroughfares leading to Jamaica Pond. He said police told residents the street's foliage may have contributed to the crime because the street lights are obscured by leaves.
"...the street's foliage may have contributed to the crime..."
Seventeen-year-old Tyrone Smith doesn't see what the big deal is.
"It's not real, but it's fashion," he said yesterday at the Antonio Ansaldi store in Dorchester, seller of the hottest urban teen must-have - fake bulletproof vests.
The "Raid Vest," which is priced from $40 to $109, has drawn fire from some people who say it promotes violence.
After Setback in the Senate, Ban On Pre-1994 Assault Weapons Pushed Again
By Amy Lambiaso for the State House News Service
Lawmakers are renewing their effort this year to ban the sale of all assault weapons in the state, a controversial move that was narrowly defeated in the Senate last year and is likely to face similar opposition this session.
The state last year adopted a law tying certain definitions of assault weapons to federal definitions and extending a ban on the sale of assault weapons, such as AK-47s and UZIs, made after Sept. 13, 1994. Sen. Jarrett Barrios (D-Cambridge) and Rep. David Linsky (D-Natick) led the effort last year to ban the sale of all assault weapons, arguing that guns are equally dangerous regardless of the year they were made.
But opposition to the bill, who argued it would primarily punish law-abiding gun owners, won out last year and gun owners who legally purchased their weapons before the 1994 deadline may continue to sell, rent or transfer the weapons in Massachusetts.
Linsky and Barrios are again sponsoring separate legislation to extend the ban the pre-1994 weapons, and the Legislature’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee heard their bill today.
"...guns are equally dangerous regardless of the year they were made."
Two residents reported being approached by multiple individuals in East Cambridge, strangled with a rope and beaten in attempted and actual armed robberies last Sunday.
The first incident occurred at 2 a.m. at Berkshire and Marcella streets. The victim reported being approached by four suspects, one of whom threw a rope around his neck and choked him. The suspects then allegedly pushed the man to the ground, kicked him in the head and stole his wallet and keys.
At 2:10 a.m. at Cambridge and Sixth streets, another victim reported a similar incident, saying two individuals approached him from behind, hung a rope around his neck, punched him in the face and then fled when he told them he had no money.
WASHINGTON -- The number of murders fell last year for the first time since 1999, according to FBI data released Monday.
It's part of a nationwide decline in all types of violent crime.
Cities with more than 1 million people had the greatest decrease in violent crime, 5.4 percent, while cities under 10,000 saw the greatest decrease in murder, 12.2 percent.
Overall, murders fell by 3.6 percent from the 16,500 reported in 2003. Chicago was largely responsible for the drop.
Criminal justice experts said the decline in violent crime is something of a surprise since gang-related activity is increasing in some parts of the country, the economy is sputtering in some areas, the number of at-risk youth is rising and law enforcement budgets are experiencing cuts.
Opinion and commentary, garnished with a sprig of cynicism, served with a heaping side order of sarcasm, and washed down with a tall glass of common sense, by a gun-toting political refugee from the People's Progressive Republic of Massachusetts, currently residing in New Hampshire and doing what he can to keep the Granite State beautiful and free.
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