Struggling To Understand

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

Man, 40, dies in Roxbury shooting

The family of Michael Etheridge, a social butterfly who managed to stay on good terms with his many former girlfriends, struggled to understand yesterday how a man with such an exhaustive list of friends could have died so violently on a Roxbury street.

Where's the struggle here? The city leadership, with help from our kind, caring, compassionate, and "progressive" state legislators, have have adopted the "disarm the innocent" strategy, calling it an effective "crime fighting" measure. Thanks, guys. I'm sure Mr. Etheridge's family really appreciates your hard work.

The out-of-touch, grossly removed from reality politicians that run the Commonwealth still believe in their hearts that someone with absolutely no regard for the laws against murdering people in cold blood will give a rat's ass and a half about a law telling them that carrying a handgun without a license is illegal.

Dismissing reality and embracing ignorance - it's not just for breakfast anymore.

Etheridge was walking from a club or party where he had been celebrating a friend's birthday, said Chavalette Harris, 41, one of his former girlfriends and the mother of his 18-year-old son, Michael. He was shot four times -- in his chest, back, leg, and side, she said.

Glassford said he saw a black car drive down the street just before the shooting, and another Seaver Street resident said he heard the sound of a car screeching away after shots were fired. Police said that there was no body when they arrived. Etheridge had managed to get to Boston Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

Police spokesman John Boyle said he could not call the killing a homicide yet because he had not seen the results of the autopsy. If it is ruled a homicide, it will be the city's 53d.

I'm a gambling man. I'll put five bucks on that "if" coming through.

Yesterday, city officials, including Mayor Thomas M. Menino, mingled at the Carleton House, a new affordable housing complex on Columbus Avenue [with his armed security detail and adoring media entourage in tow - ed.]. The brick building, which sits behind an iron fence about 100 feet from the scene of the fatal shooting, was once vacant and an eyesore, but officials and residents marveled at the restored grand structure.

"One incident will not cast a pall over the revitalization of a building that stood empty for 20 years," Menino said after he finished cutting the ribbon. "We're all concerned, even when it's one incident, but it's not going to cast a pall over those who live here. There's a bright future."

ONE incident? Ex-fucking-cuse me!!! Now, taken at face value, I have to say I'd agree with the mayor's words there, but we passed the one incident mark a long fucking time ago, Tom - 53 homicides in the city this year, not to mention all the non-fatal shootings, stabbings, and sexual assaults that have taken place on the Mayor's watch in his "safe-city".

But there's no reason for concern, people. This killing was only ONE killing. I guess we're still under the Mayor's acceptable violent crime threshold level. Everything's fine.

As a little refresher course for the mayor (and the rest of the useless twits wasting otherwise perfectly good oxygen in City Hall and up on Beacon Hill), I present these previous posts highlighting the recent incidents of violent crime in the City of Boston from the last two months. Remember, this is not a "crisis situation", it's just a series of "issues". Everything's under control, folks. We're still well below the mayor's "crisis situation" threshold. Now, isn't that comforting?

Three women abducted and raped in one weekend
A dozen women mugged (one stabbed) in Chinatown
Newspaper deliveryman stabbed, beaten, and carjacked
Young father shot to death in car
Woman robbed downtown, face beaten with a rock
East Boston woman stabbed to death in foyer
Six violent crimes in Brighton - in four days
Elderly woman stabbed for her lottery winnings
ER nurse stabbed by knife-wielding nutjob
Southie Shopkeepers terrorized by armed thugs

I'm still struggling to understand this asshole.