Possible murder weapons in Mattapan massacre recovered

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Possible murder weapons in Mattapan massacre recovered

By Laura Crimaldi and Dave Wedge | Thursday, September 30, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage

Photo by Mark Garfinkel

Police may be closing in on the killer in a deadly Mattapan rampage that claimed a toddler’s life as cops have recovered an SUV and guns possibly tied to the bloodbath, officials said.
Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis said today police have located the Ford Edge which witnesses saw Tuesday fleeing the scene of the Woolson Street massacre that claimed the lives of four people, including a 2-year-old boy.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino, meanwhile, said the vehicle’s recovery led cops to weapons possibly used in the shootings, confirming a report in today’s Herald.
“That information has led to different information that police have followed through on . . . and led us to the guns just this morning,” the mayor told reporters this morning.
The Herald reported in today’s edition that cops found a gun in a bag in the home of a man driving a vehicle believed to be connected to the slayings.
The driver was not arrested and was still being tracked last night, a source said.
Davis said the vehicle, which belongs to one of the victims, was found in Grove Hall. Also, police executed a search warrant at an undisclosed location overnight and recovered significant evidence, the commissioner said.
The massacre claimed the lives of Eyanna Flonory, 21, her 2-year-old son, Amanihoteph Smith, Simba Martin, 21, and Levaughn Washum-Garrison, 22.
Marcus A. Hurd, 32, was also critically injured and remains hospitalized.
Boston police today are guarding Martin’s home on Sutton Street, located about a half-a-block from the crime scene. Officers have been trying to obtain a search warrant to go into the house since yesterday. Davis said the department is still building its case, so it can obtain the warrant.

View Massacre in Mattapan in a larger map Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1285452

Boston man charged in fatal stabbing at Regis College

By Associated Press | Thursday, September 30, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage

WESTON - Authorities say they have made an arrest in connection with the fatal stabbing of a Waltham teenager on the campus of Regis College.
The district attorney’s office said in a statement that 20-year-old Robenson Daniel of Boston was arrested Thursday morning. He is scheduled to be arraigned later in Waltham District Court on charges including murder and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Eighteen-year-old Elhadji Ndiaye and a 22-year-old man were found stabbed in a parking lot at the Roman Catholic school in Weston at about 4 a.m. last Friday. Ndiaye was pronounced dead at the scene. The other man survived. Neither victim was a student at he school.
Authorities say the suspect and victims were visiting friends and had a verbal confrontation inside a dormitory that spilled outside and became physical.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1285465

Four lives, one horrific ending Young mom ‘wanted to stop the violence’

Four lives, one horrific ending
Young mom ‘wanted to stop the violence’

By Laura Crimaldi, Richard Weir, O’Ryan Johnson and Laurel J. Sweet | Thursday, September 30, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage

Eyanna Flonory and Amani Smith
Eyanna Louise Flonory, 21, was a loving woman who wanted to become a cop to help others and who doted on her 2-year-old son, Amanihoteph Smith, her family recalled yesterday.
“Everywhere she went, she had her son. If the father didn’t have the baby, she had the baby,” said Delorise Flonory. “She was a very loving mother.”
Delorise Flonory, Eyanna’s biological grandmother, said she had adopted Eyanna. She last saw her granddaughter on Saturday when Eyanna visited with Amani - “a very loving kid,” she said.
Eyanna, a graduate of Brockton High School, had been studying to become a cop at Bunker Hill Community College, but never returned to classes after the spring semester, spokeswoman Colleen Roach said.
“The reason why she wanted to be a police officer (was) she wanted to help young kids on the street,” said her sister, Ebony Flonory, 22. “She wanted to stop the violence.”
The young mother lived a clean life, her grandmother said.
“Eyanna wasn’t involved in drug dealing. Eyanna don’t do drugs,” Delorise Flonory said. “I raised them the right way. The girl was putting her life together. She’s never been in trouble, going to college, trying to be a lawyer. You know, it’s a disgrace. And I hope to God that they catch them.”
Simba Martin
Simba Martin, 21, was described yesterday as a bright, articulate young man with “an unquenchable thirst for knowledge” whose promise was belied by his checkered criminal history.
In May 2006, Martin was busted by Boston cops with a friend for brandishing a BB gun and beating a man in the South End, stealing his iPod.
Martin, who was charged with armed robbery and assault with a dangerous weapon, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was sentenced to three years probation.
While he was serving his term, Larry Green Jr., dean of discipline at the Muriel Swoden International School, which Martin attended, petitioned a judge to modify the terms of his student’s probation to allow him to go on an expense-paid, six-day “cultural immersion trip” to Paris, France.
“This is not Simba’s first trip abroad with our school, as his first trip with us was to the Netherlands. This trip yielded for him challenging experiences that have exercised his intellect, created an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and made him a more capable, connected, and contributing member of our society,” Green wrote the court in 2008.
“Green thought enough of him to show up in court,” recalled Martin’s attorney, Steven Sack, adding that Snowden Assistant Headmaster Bennie Walker spoke at a hearing at which a judge granted the request. “(Simba) was a very likeable kid. He was bright, he was articulate.”
Levaughn Washum-Garrison
Levaughn Washum-Garrison, 22, of Roslindale was facing charges for threatening the mother of his baby girl and menacing his cousin with a fork, but relatives yesterday said he was was trying to pull his life together when he was gunned down in Mattapan.
“He was a great kid,” said his mother, Patricia Washum-Bennett. “He was never uptight. He would always say something to make you laugh. He was a very humble kid.”
Washum-Bennett last saw Levaughn two months ago, when he moved out of the family’s comfortable Roslindale home in a falling-out over rules.
“Sometimes boys don’t want to hear that preaching,” she said.
Hours after the stocky, 240-pound Washum-Garrison was arraigned Oct. 19, 2009, on a domestic violence charge for physically assaulting his girlfriend - the mother of their 2-month-old girl - he was busted again for threatening their lives.
“ ‘You know I’m a grim (racial slur). I’ll murder you and the baby,’ ” police quoted the shaken, crying girlfriend recounting Washum-Garrison’s threat, according to court documents. “Victim further stated . . . that he is a known drug dealer who carries guns for protection.”
The hotheaded Brighton High School dropout was already in legal hot water after being locked up May 9, 2009, for threatening his cousin, Tara Bailey, 38, after cornering her against a stove and menacing her with a fork.
Though he was no longer living with the family, his mother said he still cared deeply for his three younger siblings, and on Monday, the day before he was killed, he called to talk to his sister.
“He was checking in on her,” she said. “Making sure she was OK.”
Marcus Anthony Hurd
The Dorchester man who has defied the odds by surviving Tuesday’s Mattapan massacre was slated to go on trial next Thursday for allegedly choking his girlfriend.
Marcus Anthony Hurd, 32, who authorities said remained hospitalized yesterday in critical condition, has been free on $2,000 cash bail since the July 1 incident. His 31-year-old girlfriend alleged Hurd grabbed her by the throat after they quarreled about his coming home at 5:30 a.m., according to records at Dorchester District Court.
Hurd’s heartbroken 25-year-old sister, who asked not to be identified because she fears for her life, said her big brother was a father figure to her daughter and didn’t “start trouble or look for trouble.”
But the domestic dustup was not the first time police had come between Hurd and his girlfriend, whose name the Herald is withholding.
On Feb. 25, Hurd, who law enforcement sources said did a five-year stint in state prison for cocaine possession, was accused by his girlfriend of choking her because “she no longer wanted to date him,” court documents state.
The matter was dismissed in June when “a critical witness” failed to cooperate with prosecutors, the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office said.

View Massacre in Mattapan in a larger map Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1285363

Cops zero in on murder victim’s house Manhunt continues in quadruple slay

Cops zero in on murder victim’s house
Manhunt continues in quadruple slay

By Laurel J. Sweet, Christine McConville, Richard Weir, Edward Mason, Dave Wedge an | Thursday, September 30, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage

Photo by John Wilcox

Amid the desperate manhunt for the depraved killers behind the Mattapan massacre, the investigation focused last night on the townhouse of one of the murder victims - a convicted thief who was dating the young mother savagely gunned down as she cradled her baby boy.
The bullet-riddled bodies of Simba Martin, 21, his girlfriend Eyanna Flonory, 21, her 2-year-old son Amanihoteph Smith and Levaughn Washum-Garrison, 22, were discovered early Tuesday morning in front of 40 and 42 Woolson St.
A fifth victim, Marcus Hurd, 32, remained in critical condition last night.
The Woolson Street apartment houses back up to Martin’s pristine townhouse at 23 Sutton St. - a tan-and-mauve building in a hardscrabble neighborhood of century-old triple-deckers.
Boston police had Martin’s home surrounded throughout the day, attempting to execute a search warrant, as neighbors took in the macabre scene from their porches on an unseasonably steamy evening.
The 42 Woolson St. triple-decker was the scene of a similar shooting just one month ago. A man turned up shot in the torso and arms in the front hallway, a police incident report states.
Martin and Eyanna Flonory, a former criminal justice student at Bunker Hill Community College, and the tot were together Tuesday at Martin’s Sutton Street condo, the woman’s family said.
Also yesterday, sources told the Herald that within the past two weeks, Boston police found little Amani Smith wandering alone on Blue Hill Avenue.
A Herald review of court records found that Martin, Washum-Garrison and Hurd had previous run-ins with the law:
At age 17, Martin was arrested for stealing an iPod in the South End while packing a gun. He later pleaded guilty to unarmed robbery and was sentenced to three years probation.
Washum-Garrison, 22, was twice arrested for threatening the mother of his newborn daughter, and also was busted for attacking a cousin with a fork.
Hurd, who sources said did a five-year stint in state prison for cocaine possession, was to go on trial next week on domestic violence charges.
Meanwhile, a source with knowledge of the probe said cops have recovered at least one gun possibly linked to the shooting and that the weapon was found in a bag in the home of the driver of a vehicle stopped around the time of the shootings.
The man was not detained but the officer got the driver’s personal information and some time after the deadly rampage, cops went to his house and found the gun, the source said.
The driver was not home at the time and was still being tracked last night, the source said.
Davis wouldn’t release any more details but said the investigation was “very active.”
Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis and other community officials were knocking on doors in Mattapan yesterday, offering comfort and the promise of justice.
“We’re happy with the (investigation’s) progress,” Davis said. “The police are doing everything they can.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1285359

Possible murder weapons in Mattapan massacre recovered

By Laura Crimaldi and Dave Wedge | Thursday, September 30, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage

Photo by Mark Garfinkel

View Massacre in Mattapan in a larger map Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1285452

Boston Police Officer Resides At House Linked To Mattapan Quadruple Homicide

Published Sep 30 2010, 12:23 AM by Chris Faraone

As the Dorchester Reporter noted yesterday, the quadruple homicide at or near 40 Woolson Street in Mattapan late Monday-early Tuesday occurred directly next door to the scene of an August 28 shooting that left one man wounded.

Now the Phoenix has learned that both of those properties – 40 and 42 Woolson Street, as well as an abutting lot on Wildwood Street – are owned by relatives of a Boston Police Department (BPD) officer who lives at 40 Woolson.

According to city records, the Woolson and Wildwood properties belong to Jack P. Johnson, who claims residence at 40 Woolson, outside of which the latest victims were found. Also listed as a resident at that address is Laurence C. Johnson, a BPD mobile officer who made $97,513.16 in 2009.

Though it was widely reported that this week's slayings went down at 40 Woolson – where ShotSpotter technology directed police – a BPD spokesperson said the murders were not necessarily linked to that address. It has been reported that at least two of the victims were found naked, presumably as the result of an indoor drug deal gone bad in the vicinity.

Police are searching the property at nearby 23 Sutton Street, where victim Simba Martin is reported to have lived. According to the latest Globe report: “A law enforcement official with knowledge of the case has said investigators believe the incident may have begun at the Sutton Street home.” The latest from the Boston Herald also has some revealing new details.

The Phoenix will continue investigating this matter through the week and weekend. Stay tuned.

Police obtain search warrant to massacre victim’s home

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Police obtain search warrant to massacre victim’s home

By Christine McConville, Laura Crimaldi and Laurel J. Sweet | Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage

Boston police are executing a search warrant at the home of Simba Martin, who family and sources say was one of the five victims of yesterday’s horrific massacre in Mattapan.
Martin, 21, lived at 23 Sutton St. about half a city block from where the bodies were found on Woolson Street - some of them naked, according to police and witnesses.
Investigators have not said today whether they have any suspects for the slaughters of Martin, Eyanna Louise Flonory, 21, of Dorchester and her 2-year-old son Amani Smith, and Levaughn Washum-Garrison, 22, formerly of Roslindale.
A fifth victim, Marcus Anthony Hurd, 32, is in critical condition and not expected to survive, Police Commissioner Edward Davis said yesterday.
Ebony Flonory, 22, today told the Herald her ill-fated sister, a graduate of Brockton High School, called her 45 minutes before the bloodbath went down from the home of her boyfriend: Simba Martin.
“She was like, ‘Do you want to hear something? Your nephew knows his name,’ ” Ebony Flonory said. “I said, ‘Armani, what’s your name?’ He said, ‘My name is Armani, auntie.’
“It made my day to hear it,” she said. “He kept saying it and saying it.”
Her nephew, she said, “was wonderful. It shouldn’t have happened.”
A woman who identified herself only as “Keisha” today visted the scene of yesterday’s carnage at Woolson and Wildwood streets to see for herself where Flonory, a close longtime friend, was gunned down.
“I was in her life for many years,” said Keisha, adding the former criminal justice student at Bunker Hill Community College was “all about her son.”
Keisha’s daughter, Keanna Gregg, 21, said of Flonory, “She was a nice person and she loved her son more than anything in the world.”
Gregg said she heard the victims were robbed and that the killers came into their house “with their guns drawn and we don’t know what happened next.”
Ironically, Flonory had been studying to become a cop at Bunker Hill Community College, but never returned to classes after the spring semester, spokeswoman Colleen Roach said.
In an e-mail statement released today, Jan Bonanno, dean of student affairs, said, “Bunker Hill Community College joins with the entire Boston community in mourning the loss of life in this tragedy. Our thoughts are certainly with the families and friends of those whose lives have been taken.”
Said Ebony Flonory, “The reason why she wanted to be a police officer (was) she wanted to help young kids on the street. She wanted to stop the violence.”
Local and city leaders have visited the crime scene throughout the day. Local ministers have been counseling grief-stricken relatives as they show up to place flowers, balloons and stuffed animals.
Former Boston City Councilor Michael Flaherty also stopped by and denounced the violence that’s staining the city’s streets.
“A murder like this affects the entire city,” Flaherty said.

View Massacre in Mattapan in a larger map Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1285246

Dead end in Dudley Boston's other big hole

Dead end in Dudley

Boston's other big hole

By CHRIS FARAONE | September 29, 2010

September was a sexy month for the future of Boston's landscape. Last week, developers unveiled plans for the magnificent $3 billion Seaport Square — a 20-block, 22-building ode to bourgeois excess to be constructed on the South Boston waterfront. More recently, news broke that owners of the blighted former site of Filene's may take a loss on the Downtown Crossing property, which could activate construction after nearly two years of neglect.

But the Hub's good fortune does not extend to Roxbury, or to residents who filled the Dudley Square public library this past Monday for a hearing with city councilors and Boston Redevelopment Authority Chief Planner Kairos Shen. Many came expecting to hear about new strategies for rebuilding the landmark Ferdinand building after three decades of vacancy, as the facade that remains serves as a morbid, yet metaphoric, "Welcome to Roxbury" greeting post.Instead, with no answers to be had, community members spent two hours expressing frustration over the fact that, despite ongoing construction of a new Dudley police station, plans for the Ferdinand have hardly reached the drawing board.

Once a beloved neighborhood furniture store, and an inviting architectural gateway into Dudley, the Ferdinand is now a broken brick skeleton. Blue boards adorn the windows where beds and couches once were displayed. Behind the original five-story structure, on a 33,000-square-foot lot between Washington and Warren streets, is a ditch to rival the universally scorned crater abutting Filene's.

"We hear a lot about the hole in downtown Boston," said City Councilor-At-Large Ayanna Pressley. "But we need to hear more about the hole in downtown Dudley."

Dudley residents are used to broken promises. Former governor Mitt Romney bailed on his plan to move the State Department of Public Health to the Ferdinand. After those arrangements were scrapped, in 2004, Boston Mayor Tom Menino pledged to reanimate the lot and build municipal offices. Four years later, Menino made the same promise again, even holding a press conference and forming the Dudley Vision Advisory Task Force.

"I'm embarrassed that I can't be more specific about the time frame," said Shen, who disappointed Dudley residents with his lack of a timeline this late in the game. Shen added that revitalizing Dudley "is one of those hard tasks that the mayor is committed to tackling," but with the caveat that Boston lacks adequate funding for the at-least $110 million Ferdinand project, and needs significant help from outside interests to move forward. Nonetheless, Shen says Menino hopes to make big decisions about Dudley and the Ferdinand by year's end.

Among the concerns voiced by residents and local activists who testified at the hearing: pending development ideas are inadequate ("To put just a city office building in that space is a crime against this community."); City Hall is asleep on the job ("This is the result of a lack of political will."); Dudley will remain scarred unless a high-concept mixed residential-retail-office complex is delivered soon ("There's a sense that this was once a thriving community, and that now it is not.").

"This is such deja vu," said Roxbury native Sarah-Ann Shaw, Boston's first female African-American television reporter. Shaw serves on the Dudley Vision Advisory Task Force, but says the group is unable to form a vision due to stalling on the city's side. "Too many promises have not come to fruition," she continued. "The city has the responsibility to spend whatever is needed to make Roxbury the jewel that [officials] always say it is."

Brutal slayings shock Boston

By Laurel J. Sweet, Edward Mason and O’Ryan Johnson | Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage

Photo by Mark Garfinkel

Boston’s grisliest mass murder in nearly two decades - made all the more horrific by the senseless execution of a baby in his young mother’s final embrace - sent horror rippling yesterday throughout the city, from the most powerful seats of government to the child’s devastated family.
“You don’t see this in Boston or really throughout the country for that matter,” said District Attorney Daniel Conley after the early morning massacre in Mattapan that left four bodies - some naked - and one man clinging to life last night. “A small child was not doing anything. As a parent, as a citizen of the city, it breaks your heart. It’s very troubling to see what man can do to man.”
Investigators yesterday were probing whether the savage crime was drug-related.
The slain woman, who died cradling her fatally wounded baby boy, was Eyanna Louise Flonory, 21, of Dorchester, a criminal law student at Bunker Hill Community College, according to her mother, Delorise Flonory, 67, of Brockton.
Her murdered grandson, 2-year-old Amani Smith, “was everything” to Eyanna, she said.
Delorise Flonory said she last spoke to her daughter about an hour before she died.
“She said she was in bed,” she said.
A grief-stricken woman who identified herself as the toddler’s aunt said “the entire family is devastated.”
Speaking outside the Morning Star Baptist Church, blocks from the murder scene, Avis Springette recalled the baby as “fun-loving with a busy personality,” adding, “I lost my nephew and I just want to know what happened.”
Springette said she’s related to the baby’s father, who was not among the victims last night.
The mass murder unfolded at about 1 a.m., said Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis, when the department’s shot spotter detected gunshots at 40 Woolson Ave. Two men and one woman were pronounced dead at the scene, while a toddler was rushed to the hospital and died shortly thereafter, Davis said. A fifth victim is not expected to survive, he said.
Speaking outside Morning Star Baptist Church last night, Davis said police had positively identified four of the five victims and were “about to make a positive ID on the fifth.”
He added: “we’ve made real progress.”
Gov. Deval Patrick said the FBI is assisting in the manhunt.
“In order to deal with this horrible thing you’re going to have to help,” the governor told an emotional crowd at the church. “If you know something, come forward.”
Authorities were looking for a gray or silver Ford Explorer seen fleeing the intersection of Woolson and Wildwood streets.
The lone survivor of the massacre told authorities the executions erupted from a pot sale gone bad, a source said. Law enforcement officials could not confirm a motive yesterday.
A source and relatives said the gravely wounded victim was Marcus Anthony Hurd, 32, a Dorchester man who according to court papers is currently facing domestic assault and battery charges.
Last night, Hurd’s heartbroken 25-year-old sister told the Herald she was stunned.
“I don’t understand why someone would do that to my brother. This is too much,” the sister said, wiping away tears. “I just want to know why someone would do this.”

View Massacre in Mattapan in a larger map Article URL:http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1285111

District Attorney: Cuts cost crime-fighting

By Dave Wedge | Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage

Photo by Angela Rowlings

Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley said plummeting budgets have led to crippling crime-fighting cuts, including layoffs to community liaisons instrumental in helping prevent violence such as yesterday’s Mattapan slayings.
“Our challenge is to try and stay ahead of this stuff as best we can,” said Conley. “Year after year, this Legislature, this governor, has cut law enforcement budgets and prevention efforts. This has taken a successive toll on what’s going on in this city. As our resources shrink, we’re forced to scale back our efforts. I understand these are difficult times but these are core functions of government.”
An aide to Gov. Deval Patrick declined to comment but highlighted several anti-violence initiatives pushed by the governor, including advocating for tighter gun laws, funding summer job programs and providing grant money to community-based programs. Patrick also used $6 million in federal stimulus money to keep cops on the streets, the aide noted.
But Conley said his office, which has seen its budget slashed by nearly $1.5 million since 2009, has had to cut crucial outreach programs and is scrambling to keep up with increasing caseloads.
“There’s no denying that homicides and shootings are up this year,” Conley said. “It indicates there’s a cohort of intensely violent individuals. They are priority No. 1 - infiltrating these groups, identifying them and targeting them for prosecution.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1285101

Mayor Menino: We’ll hunt down fiends

By Dave Wedge | Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage

Photo by Stuart Cahill

A visibly shaken Mayor Thomas M. Menino yesterday made an impassioned pledge to hunt down the heartless thugs that have soaked his city in blood in recent weeks - and to address the social ills behind the violence.
“To those who have no respect for life and would commit these brutal acts, our streets are not your playground,” the mayor said. “Our kids cannot be your collateral damage. We will not allow you to poison our city. Boston is strong and we will fight.”
The mayor made headlines last week for saying he’d like to “torture” the killers who coldly gunned down Richel Nova, a pizza delivery driver who was the father of two City Hall workers. Yesterday, Menino was again fuming about the slaughter of an innocent - this time railing against the slaughter of a toddler gunned down with three adults in Mattapan.
“Cowards kill. Cowards use guns to settle their scores. Cowards hide,” he said. “We’re gonna get them, we’re gonna to lock them up, we are going to throw the keys away.”
The tough-talking mayor went on to vow to make a deeper commitment to heal a troubled community.
“We’ll continue to take action on the impact players and their families,” he said. “These are deep-rooted issues that go beyond our young people. We must tackle entire families, mental health issues, anger and (having) no regard for life - their own or others.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1285099

Tragedy latest in brutal Boston massacres

By Laurel J. Sweet | Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage

Photo by Courtney Sacco

Yesterday’s massacre in Mattapan - with four dead, including a child, and one on life support - stands as one of the bloodiest days in the city’s recent history.
In 1991, five men were executed in a Chinatown gambling den. Incredibly, a sixth man shot in the head that night cheated death and helped put fugitive killers Siny “Toothless Wah” Tran and Nam The Tham away for life in 2005.
Five was also the body count in 1978, when a shotgun holdup of the former Blackfriars Pub turned deadly. The bloodbath is unsolved.
In other dark moments in Hub history:

Bryan “Blinky” Dyer, a disgruntled ex-employee of Sammy White’s Bowladrome in Brighton, gunned down four men and beat them with bowling pins in 1980.

Reputed father and son mobsters Anthony and Damien Clemente slaughtered four men in 1995 at the 99 Restaurant & Pub in Charlestown.

Calvin Carnes Jr. shot to death three members of a prophetically named rap group Graveside and their friend in a home-based Dorchester recording studio in 2005.

Shacora Gaines, Chantal Palmer and Anthony Peoples were shot to death in a car on Mount Ida Road in Dorchester last year. Their accused killer is awaiting extradition from Trinidad.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1285098

Neighbors gather to pray, call for action

By O’Ryan Johnson | Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage

Photo by Stuart Cahill

Stunned by new depths of callous homicide in their Mattapan neighborhood, dozens of heartbroken residents gathered to pray, pay their respects and issue an angry call for action.
“We gotta go into the churches and say, what are you doing for our community?” demanded Rhonda Valburn, 47. “If you aren’t doing anything, you gotta go!”
The mourners held candles and talked about how they could change their small stretch of Mattapan, which was the scene of an Aug. 29 shooting, as well as a July 2006 homicide.
One resident held up a sign calling for politicians and officials to be held accountable - listing the phone numbers for Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Police Commissioner Edward Davis.
Valburn, a longtime resident of the street, passed out fliers earlier yesterday urging people on her street and in her neighbourhood to call police with any information. That effort snowballed into the vigil last night, where 50 people, including state Sen. Sonia Chang Diaz, turned out to urge community action.
The residents are demanding more police patrols after 11 p.m. and more funding for law enforcement. A police commander said police are getting tips but they need witnesses and anyone with useful information to come forward.
Earlier, about 400 grieving community members gathered at Morning Star Baptist Church.
“We offer our prayful support,” said the Rev. William Dickerson. “No one should ever feel unsafe where they live.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1285095

Minister: The carnage must stop

By Laura Crimaldi | Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage

Photo by Angela Rowlings

One of the city’s leading black ministers yesterday said a grassroots community effort is the answer to the violence ravaging the Hub.
“You can’t cop your way out of this,” said the Rev. Eugene Rivers while visiting Woolson Street, scene of a mass murder that left a toddler and three adults dead and another man clinging to life last night. “If we had 10,000 cops or 10,000 more cops, that’s no guarantee that the individual who went into this house wouldn’t have done the same thing.”
The Morningstar Baptist Church, which is located near the crime scene, was open last night to mourners. Temple Salem SDA Church in Dorchester also was keeping its sanctuary open to grieving friends and family, said Hugues Lafond, an elder with the church.
Rivers said the eruption of violence demands a vigorous response from the community.
“We got to get our hands around the culture of violence because our response currently is not adequate,” he said. “There is no organized, systematic strategy or model that’s being deployed on the streets, community wise.”
The violence facing the city now is more chaotic feeling than the drug wars that erupted more than a decade ago by dealers protecting their turf for peddling crack cocaine, Rivers said.
“Younger people are more violent,” he said.
Calling upon members of the black community to share what they know about the murders with police, Rivers pleaded: “Step up.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1285100

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	Locked Up & Innocent Wrongful Convictions in Massachusetts In 20 yrs., 22 Innocent men, mostly Black, served time after wrongful convictions. Since 1997, 9 Innocent Black Men have been freed after serving from 4-30 yrs. Suffolk County, MA is 2nd in the US for wrongful convictions.

	Where Did The Gun Come From? Citizens for Safety
	Homicides in Boston Maps by Boston.com 2011 Murder Map » 2010 Murder Map » 2009 Murder Map » 2008 Murder Map »
	Black/Latino Elected Officials Guide to Black/Latino Elected Officials
	Boston's Historic Campaign '09 Guide to 09 Black/Latino Candidates for Mayor & City Council Globe Magazine Feature
	www.mvheritagetrail.org African American Heritage Trail of Martha's Vineyard
	Slave Master Street Names What Street Do you Rep? Many blocks, streets & hoods of Boston are named after Slave Masters.
	In Jesus Name? » The True Name of Jesus: Yeshua The Black Chuch in Boston Believers4Justice.org
	Their Holidays, Our Hell-I-Days » The truth about Thankstaking, the 4th of U-Lie, Columbus Day and other "Holidays"

	MAMLEO MA Assoc. of Minority Law Enforcement Officials
	NAACP-Boston Boston Chapter of the NAACP
	NAN-Boston Boston Chapter of the National Action Network
	Boston Vulcans
	NBAC National Black Agenda Convention
	NOI Nation Of Islam - Mosque #11 Boston
	MCAD MA Commission Against Discrimination

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