Boston Police investigating double shooting

Boston Police investigating double shooting

June 20, 2011 3:11 PM
By Globe Staff

Boston police are investigating a double shooting in Dorchester this afternoon that has left one person with life threatening injuries, police said.

One of the victims was driven to Boston Medical Center for treatment of gunshot wounds.

The site of the original shooting is at Talbot Avenue and Blue Hill Avenue, a law enforcement official said. The call came at 2:38 p.m., police said.

FULL STORY HERE:
http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/06/boston-police-investigating-possibly-fatal-shooting/8ryK5TvMOVR3JHG3XoRwiO/index.html?p1=News_links

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Blackstonian on Greater Boston WGBH. Apr. 25, 2011: A controversial flier on police brutality

Blackstonian on Greater Boston WGBH. Apr. 25, 2011: A controversial flier on police brutality

Was it research, or an excuse to gang up on police? The Boston Herald's Michele McPhee and Jamarhl Crawford of the Boston Black Men's Leadership Group join Emily to talk about a controversial flier distributed at Suffolk University.

READ MORE - Blackstonian on Greater Boston WGBH. Apr. 25, 2011: A controversial flier on police brutality

Police call Suffolk student project ‘cop-hate baiting’

Police call Suffolk student project ‘cop-hate baiting’

‘REGRETTABLE’: This flier for a Suffolk student project drew the ire of Boston police.
By Michele McPhee  |   Monday, April 25, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

Boston Police brass and union officials are furious at a Suffolk University Law School student project that the patrolmen’s union is calling “cop-hate baiting at its worst,’’ while the university has moved to distance itself from the initiative.

Fliers for the “Police Misconduct Documentation Project” and the “Police Complaint Assistance Project” were posted at the university’s campus, asking: “Have you been abused, brutalized or mistreated by the Boston Police ... ?”

Late last week, after an inquiry by the Herald, Suffolk University ordered the fliers taken down, saying the collaboration between Suffolk Law students, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Boston Black Men’s Leadership Group should not have used the law school’s logo.

Suffolk University spokesman Greg Gatlin said, “The university does not take a position on public policy issues that are addressed in the many academic programs throughout the institution.’’

Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association President Tom Nee said, “We don’t have a problem with righteous complaints, and the department has several transparent ways to file a complaint. But this project is cop-hate baiting at its worst and the language on the flier is offensive. This is essentially ‘how to sue the BPD.’ ”

BPD Commissioner Ed Davis called the project a disservice to both police and students.

“The department thoroughly investigates legitimate criticisms and encourages community feedback. We enjoy a strong collaboration with local colleges and universities, therefore a school project intimating a widespread presence of misconduct does a disservice to both the student population and the officers,’’ Davis said.

Suffolk University professor Karen Blum of the Rappaport Law Center — whose pro bono program pairs students with the ACLU to file police-abuse complaints — said the language on the fliers is “regrettable” and had them removed.

“The Police Complaint Assistance Project is not a seminar in how to sue police officers, nor is it meant to be an indictment of the Boston Police Department,’’ Blum said. “The school has removed the fliers because we certainly would not endorse the word brutalized.”

Blum said the project pairs students with people who have police-abuse complaints solely for the purpose of navigating the police department’s Internal Affairs Bureau, not to encourage civil suits against the city.

ACLU lawyer Sarah Wunsch said police are sometimes unresponsive to complaints and that people are sometimes afraid to come forward, problems the project is designed to address.

Jamal Crawford of the Boston Black Men’s Leadership Group said, “We know that there is harassment and intimidation going on. But what gets to Internal Affairs is a very small percentage of what’s happening. There are some great cops out there but there are some ... officers who break the law and blur the line of civil rights.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1333026

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Location, location, location for police

Location, location, location for police

By Natalie Sherman  |   Saturday, April 23, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

New tracking technology is making police work more efficient, even as it creates gray areas in the legal code, experts say.

“This is the wild, wild west,” said Tom Nolan, an associate professor of criminal justice at Boston University and a 27-year veteran of the Boston Police Department. “Legislative bodies and courts are years away from being able to establish any body of law to deal with this.”

Nolan and other experts expressed concern amid a furor over research revealing that what Nolan refers to as “too-smart phones” — such as the Apple iPhone and the Motorola Droid — store user location data.

Such data has long been a boon to cops, who routinely petition cell phone companies for access to customer information.



In Burlington, mapping technology allowed police to predict the next time and location in a string of home burglaries with almost 70 percent accuracy, said Glen A. Mills, president of the Massachusetts Association of Crime Analysts.

“In the past, we would have flooded the area for weeks at a time, and it would have cost massive amounts of money,” Mills, a lieutenant in the Burlington Police Department, said. “Now we can make predictions on the dates and time when crime is more likely to happen.”

But civil liberties experts warned of a dark side.

“Our phone carries so much data about us — where you go, what you do, who you know,” Massachusetts ACLU privacy rights coordinator Kady Crockman said. “The exposure of this really private information could lead to all sorts of privacy nightmares.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1332709

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Ex-gangbanger helps rid Dorchester of his shooter

Ex-gangbanger helps rid Dorchester of his shooter

VALIANT: Tramane Smith struggles to maintain his emotions inside Suffolk Superior Court yesterday prior to the sentencing of Donald Williams, inset.
Photo by Patrick Whittemore
By Peter Gelzinis  |   Saturday, April 23, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Columnists

The good people of Dorchester will not have to worry about Donald Ray Williams haunting the Greenwood Street area for the next 35 or 40 years.

Should he survive prison to return one day, the gang leader called “Mann” will be nudging 70. By then, maybe he will have outgrown the desire to shoot people in the back, the way he did to Tramane Smith.

“I know there is no honor among thieves,” Smith wrote in his victim impact statement, “but what you did to me was beyond that. I loved you like a brother.”

The 24-year-old Smith declined to read those words aloud yesterday. He opted to remain in the back of a Suffolk courtroom, confined to the wheelchair that Mann, once his best friend, put him in.

Though Tramane was two years younger and a bit shorter than the skinny friend who ruled over the Greenwood Street Packers, he functioned as Mann’s true muscle.

“(Tramane) was a tough kid who could handle himself,” one cop noted yesterday. “Williams couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag. But he’d shoot you in a second.”

“Everywhere I was,” Smith said, during two full days on the witness stand, “he (Mann) was.”

On the night of Nov. 24, 2007, Tramane Smith told Mann he was leaving the gang. To prove it, he returned the .40-caliber pistol his friend had given him.

For a couple of hours, Tramane thought he’d actually made it out, until the moment he heard a shot and couldn’t feel his legs. Mann fired two more bullets into his friend’s back, then moved in closer. Just before shooting him in the face, Mann sneered over the friend he thought was about to die, “(expletive, expletive) ... that’s what you get.”

All of 20 at the time, Tramane Smith managed to grab his cell phone and call his girlfriend to say he was dying. He then instructed her to get a message to his brother: “Tell my brother that Mann shot me.”

It’s not every day that Suffolk DA Dan Conley and Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis sit side-by-side at a sentencing hearing. But then, it’s not every day a paralyzed ex-gangbanger helps rid the city of a one-man crime wave.

Conley called it a “watershed moment,” one that could help change the landscape of intimidation that has held places like Greenwood Street hostage.

Davis suggested that perhaps Tramane Smith’s resolve went beyond his paralysis. Before he was gunned down and left for dead, his cousin, Charles Bunch, was killed.

Two weeks earlier, Bunch had stepped out of a car Smith was sitting in, walked a block to randomly gun down the first person he saw on rival turf — and wound up shooting innocent 13-year-old Steven Odom. Tramane Smith told this jury that he was disgusted with his cousin’s act, calling him a “kid killer” to his face.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Davis sighed, “if that was one of the prime reasons this kid wanted out of the gang life. He’d had enough.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1332716

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SJC: Odor of marijuana not enough to order suspect out of car

SJC: Odor of marijuana not enough to order suspect out of car

By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

The odor of burnt marijuana is no longer enough for police officers to order a person from their car, now that possession of less than an ounce of marijuana has been decriminalized in Massachusetts, the state's highest court ruled today.

"Without at least some other additional fact to bolster a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, the odor of burnt marijuana alone cannot reasonably provide suspicion of criminal activity to justify an exit order," the court ruled in a decision written by Chief Justice Roderick Ireland.

The court said the people's intent in passing the ballot question decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana was "clear: possession of one ounce or less of marijuana should not be considered a serious infraction worthy of criminal sanction."

FULL STORY HERE
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/04/sjc_odor_of_mar.html

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AG Coakley says wiretap laws need updating to fight 'disorganized crime'

AG Coakley says wiretap laws need updating to fight 'disorganized crime'

April 18, 2011 02:35 PM
By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

Attorney General Martha Coakley today called for updating wiretap laws so law enforcement can attack the “disorganized crime’’ behind street gangs, human trafficking and shoplifting rings – all of whom are untouchable under current state wiretap laws.

Coakley spoke in reaction to comments by two Supreme Judicial Court justices, who declared that wiretap laws enacted in the late 1960s wrongly limit the reach of police and prosecutors.
“The SJC couldn’t have been blunter,’’ Coakley said today in a telephone interview. “Things have changed. The whole face of crime has changed totally and technology has changed.’’

FULL STORY HERE
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/04/ag_coakley_says.html

READ MORE - AG Coakley says wiretap laws need updating to fight 'disorganized crime'

Boston police officer sues city

Boston police officer sues city

By Associated Press  |   Tuesday, April 19, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

BOSTON - The former president of a Boston police union has filed a lawsuit against the city and Mayor Thomas Menino alleging he has been passed over for promotion in retaliation for supporting Menino’s former opponent.

Lt. Joseph Gillespie says in his federal suit filed Monday he has been passed over for promotion to captain three times even though he has the top civil service score of eligible candidates.

The Boston Globe reports that he alleges his First Amendment rights were violated because he supported Menino’s opponent, City Councilor Michael Flaherty Jr. during the 2009 mayoral race.

Gillespie is a 29-year veteran who was president of the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation union from 2001 to 2009.

Spokeswomen for Menino and the police department said they could not comment on pending litigation.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1331806

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YouTube video eyed for clues in bus attack: VIDEO HERE

YouTube video eyed for clues in bus attack

By Richard Weir and Laura Crimaldi  |   Wednesday, April 13, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

T Police are analyzing a YouTube video of the chaotic aftermath of Monday’s MBTA bus crash as they continue their criminal probe into the gang attack on a bus driver who was pummeled after asking a group of young male passengers to stop smoking.

“We’re certainly taking a good, hard look at that video and others,” said a police source with knowledge of the investigation, who described one of the men seen in the clip “as a person of interest.”

Police said yesterday they had made no arrests in the assault on the 39-year-old driver, who lost control of his bus, which jumped a curb, knocked down a crosswalk pole, rammed a vacant barbershop and pinned the foot of a man whom cops suspect was with the group that attacked the driver. It took firefighters with a hydraulic jack 40 minutes to free the teen, who was cheered by onlookers as he left on a stretcher.

“We have a very active investigation. We’re interviewing all witnesses. It was a crowded bus,” said Transit Deputy Police Chief Lewis Best.

The bus driver called for police help just before he was jumped, according to radio calls released yesterday.

“I got a situation I need to deal with right away . . . I got a couple of unruly passengers. I got a couple of kids smoking cigarettes. I’m at Dudley Street and Hammond Street. Please get ‘em down here right away,” the unidentified driver told a Bus Operations Control Center operator.

Moments later, he told the operator: “I was just assaulted. Got knocked out. Got my head smashed into the window. I’m still at the same location. There’s a kid with his foot underneath the bus. About 10 of these kids jumped me.”

A passenger who called 911 said, “He’s being assaulted by a bunch of teenagers on the bus. . . . They were hitting them. I left the bus because they were smoking. I have asthma.” After the 911 operator told the woman police were en route, she said, “Oh my God. It was unbelievable.”

Monday’s attack comes among a rise in assaults on T bus and subway operators, with 66 total assaults reported in 2010, including 31 against bus drivers, compared with 58 overall assaults in 2009, including 29 against bus drivers. And assaults this year are on pace to exceed last year’s, with 20 reported so far, 10 of which involved bus drivers.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1330308

READ MORE - YouTube video eyed for clues in bus attack: VIDEO HERE

Police search Dorchester for naked suspect

Police search Dorchester for naked suspect

Boston police say a traffic stop gone awry led to a struggle in which Peterson Joseph, 27, shed his clothing and fled the scene. He was found in a Whitman Street yard last night. (Yoon S. Byun/ Globe Staff)
By Stewart Bishop
Globe Correspondent / April 12, 2011

A naked man eluded police for more than an hour in Dorchester yesterday evening, as scores of officers and state troopers descended on the area to search for the au naturel fugitive.

It all began with a traffic stop gone awry at about 5:30 p.m., when police pulled over a car with three men inside, said Officer Eddy Chrispin, Boston police spokesman. After observing one of the men behaving suspiciously, police ordered him out of the car and discovered he had a handgun, Chrispin said. The man began to struggle with officers, and during the the altercation the other two men sped off. The suspect ended up shedding his clothes and gun in the struggle, and fled the scene, Chrispin said.

FULL STORY HERE
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/04/12/police_search_dorchester_for_naked_suspect/?p1=Local_Links

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Past haunts alleged drug-dealing driver Records reveal run-in with law

Past haunts alleged drug-dealing driver
Records reveal run-in with law

By Richard Weir  |   Saturday, April 9, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

The head of the MBTA is launching a “full investigation” into the background of an accused drug-dealing bus driver after court records revealed she was charged several years ago with impersonating a police officer, negligent driving and refusing to produce her license — all while she was employed by the T.

Cynthia D. King, 46, of Brockton was released on $1,000 bail yesterday after being arraigned on charges of possessing crack cocaine and heroin with intent to distribute after her arrest Thursday by Boston police. According to prosecutors, police launched their investigation after an informant tipped them off that she was “selling crack cocaine from an MBTA bus.”

“The general manager wants answers from any and all T departments that were involved,” said MBTA boss Richard Davey’s spokesman Joe Pesaturo. “He has directed the Human Resources Department to conduct a full investigation into the suspended employee’s record and work history.”

King’s prior legal woes began in 2007, when an off-duty Brockton cop repeatedly asked her to move her car after she parked it in a crosswalk near a detail, a police report states.

“She then told me she was a police officer in Boston and that I should know how to act in a uniform,” wrote Detective Michael Damiano, noting King refused to show her license or badge and “snickered” at him.

“It was a misunderstanding,” her lawyer, Michael Doolin, said yesterday of the case. She was acquitted in November 2008.

“The MBTA was not made aware of the 2007 allegations,” T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said.

But after learning from the Herald that Damiano had contacted MBTA police in 2007 to see if King was a cop with them, and even forwarded his report to sergeant in charge of internal employee security for the T, Pesaturo said Davey was launching a probe into King’s past.

Cops arrested King as she arrived for work Thursday and found a plastic bag full of cocaine and three others with crack cocaine, along with $2,636 cash, in her pants pockets, according to a police report.

“I needed the extra money,” she allegedly told the cops who arrested her. “I don’t make enough money.” King’s salary is $62,774.

The officers, the report said, also found in her 2001 Lexus two scales, a tinfoil packet with apparent heroin and a “special” Boston police badge, apparently from when she was a security guard 12 years ago.

Doolin said his client maintains her innocence. “Cynthia King is a real good member of the community,” he said. “She has a wonderful family that supports her very much and she has been a good employee of the T. She looks forward to defending herself in court.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1329436

READ MORE - Past haunts alleged drug-dealing driver Records reveal run-in with law

MBTA driver arrested on drug-dealing charges

MBTA driver arrested on drug-dealing charges

By Richard Weir  |   Friday, April 8, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

A Boston bus driver was behind bars last night for allegedly dealing drugs after cops searched her personal car yesterday and found crack cocaine, police said.

Cynthia King, 46, of Brockton, who has worked for the MBTA since October 2002, was charged with possession and intent to distribute a Class B substance, according to Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll.

Drug control officers arrested King as she arrived for work at the Cabot bus yard in South Boston around 3:40 p.m. and conducted search warrants of her and her car, said Driscoll, noting that King was under prior surveillance.

“King was searched, and officers recovered crack cocaine and an undisclosed amount of U.S. currency,” she said.

The driver has been suspended, the MBTA said.

“The MBTA is very concerned about this,” T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said after King’s arrest.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1329221

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SHOT BY THE POLICE: BOSTON & BEYOND

LOCAL COP SHOOTINGS

This list is a compilation of cases from Boston, Cambridge, Framingham and the Cape. Each incident is the responsibility of that Police Department, but still is indicative of a Statewide and Nationwide epidemic of People of Color being killed by Police.

BPD Killed 5 people in 1988 alone. 4 out of 5 were Black
BPD Killed 6 Between 1995 and Nov. 2000
BPD Killed 8 Between Nov. 2000 and Sep 2002
BPD Killed 2 Between June 2004 and July 2004
BPD Killed 3 from 2005 to present
All Victims were Black, Latino and Cape Verdean

BPD now has a regulation that expressly forbids firing at a vehicle, unless the occupant first displays a weapon. Former commissioner Paul Evans put that rule on the books in 2002, to mollify a public aghast at eight fatal civilian shootings by Boston police officers in a 23-month stretch, culminating in Eveline Barros Cepeda (a 20 yr. old Mother) being shot unarmed in the back of a car. The BPD has a pattern of determining that these shootings are "justifiable" and The Boston Globe stated that the shooting of Willie Murray, jr. 2/12/02 is the first time since 1991 that a Boston Police officer faced criminal charges in a fatal shooting, the city later paid $75,000 settlement (6/29/07).

January 11, 2011 Eurie Stamps, Sr., 68 yrs. old Retired 68-year-old bus MBTA mechanic was shot by a Framingham police officer during a drug raid at his home. According to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office it was an accident. The actions of Officer Paul Duncan ‘‘do not rise to the level of criminal conduct,’’ and ‘‘do not support a criminal charge,’’ the DA said. More coverage of Eurie Stamps, Sr. shooting and death

April 3, 2010 Manuel "Junior" DaVeiga, 19 yrs. old 19 yrs. old Shot by BPD in Dorchester, investigation ongoing, Suffolk DA and BPD say he shot himself in the head which was the fatal and final shot. More information coming soon. RIP Manuel July 3, 1990 - April 3, 2010 *Questions are now arising as to Mental Health Issues More coverage of Manuel "Junior" DaVeiga shooting and death

August 11, 2009 (Dartmouth, MA) Joseph M. Ramos, jr. Born May, 5, 1967, Joseph M. Ramos, jr. was killed by Dartmouth Police on Aug. 11, 2009. He was shot by Officer Jared White after becoming disoriented and wandering through his neighborhood asking for help. Joseph suffered from a dehabilitating disease which make the police version of events impossible. Joseph’s Civil Rights were violated and he was wrongfully killed by the Police. If Joseph was not a Man of Color, he would be alive today. More coverage of Joseph M. Ramos Murder

November 21, 2007 Marquis Barker 38 yr old Father of Five, Suffolk County Jail Officer - Nashua 18 yrs. Killed Wed. Nov. 21st, 2007 by Boston Police at Walgreen's on Corner of Norfolk & Morton St. *Mental Health Issues **5th Fatal Shooting since 2002 More Coverage of Marquis Barker's Murder

October 3, 2005 Stanley Seney 28 yrs Old. Killed Oct. 3 2005 in the Theatre District

July 2, 2004 Luis Gonzalez, 57 years old More Coverage of Luis Gonzalez's Murder Gonzalez, 57, who weighed no more than 110 pounds, was fatally shot inside the Tremont Street apartment he shared with his mentally retarded sister by two cops as he approached them with a knife. Neighbors said they told police the Puerto Rican native was mentally ill before they entered his apartment. *Mentally Ill Person **Dirty Cop Keeler Involved

June 27, 2004 Bert W. Bowen 40 yrs. old killed in Roxbury: Brookford/Blue Hill Ave The June 27 shooting angered the community because Bowen, 40, was shot three times (once in the back of the head) while fleeing after a traffic stop, and because some witnesses said he was unarmed. After an "investigation" the government determined this murder was "justifiable" Officers James Sheehan (3 Shots), Brian Smigielski (4 shots) More Coverage of Bert Bowen's Murder

September 25, 2002 Eveline Barros-Cepeda Eveline Barros-Cepeda was shot to death by a Boston Police Officer. She was riding in the back seat of a car that police tried to stop after it ran a stoplight. The car allegedly struck Boston Police Officer Michael Paillat prompting his partner Officer Thomas Taylor Jr. to fire five shots into the car as it sped away.

July 15, 2002 Daniel Furtado 59 yrs old (Cambridge, MA) On July 15, 2002 Cambridge Police broke down the door of Daniel Furtado, and shot him dead in his home. He was accused of cutting a cable TV wire, a misdemeanor. Police had no warrant, nor a court order to enter his home. * 8 Man Swat Team 3-4 rounds More Coverage of Daniel Furtado's Murder *Mentally Ill Person

July 2, 2002 LaVeta Jackson, 36 yrs old On July 2, 2002 Boston Police shot and killed LaVeta Jackson in her home. She suffered from a psychiatric illness. *3 Cops 15-20 rounds *Mentally Ill Person

May 2002 Nelson Santiago In May 2002, two officers shot and killed Nelson Santiago after he allegedly rammed a stolen car into their cruiser in Roxbury.

February 12, 2002 Willie L. Murray jr.  37 yrs old killed in Roxbury, Crawford St. February 12th, 2002 by BPD officer Shawn West (Black Cop) According to the Boston Globe, "For the first time in more than a decade, a Boston police officer could face criminal charges after using deadly force in a fatal shooting. Police and Suffolk County prosecutors said yesterday they will convene a grand jury to investigate the death of Willie L. Murray Jr." A man sitting in the front seat beside Willie Murray Jr. when he was shot described the terrifying moment. He said he watched as West shoved the barrel of his gun in the crack of Murray's opened window, ordered him to open the door. Murray was shot after his foot slipped off the brake and the car rolled forward. The grand jury probe was a rare move that may put the case into the hands of a civilian jury. The Boston Globe stated that this is the first time since 1991 that a Boston Police officer will face criminal charges in a fatal shooting. UPDATE: 6/29/07 Five years after Willie L. Murray Jr. was shot to death by a Boston police officer (Black Cop Shawn West) after a traffic stop in Roxbury, the city agreed yesterday to pay $75,000 to settle a wrongful death suit that was about to go to trial in federal court.

July 15, 2001 Rene Romain  19 yrs old killed in Mattapan July 15, 2001 A Boston Globe article reported that a the mother of a Mattapan teenager, after seeing the medical report on her son, claims he was shot in the back last summer without justification by Boston police. Carline Seide-Murphy said the Boston Police first reported that her son suffered a fatal wound to the abdomen. The medical report said her 19-year-old son, Rene Romain, was shot in the back July 15 at the Mattapan Square T station. The police said Romain had threatened two officers with a knife

May 29, 2001 Jose Pineda

December 27, 2000 Ricky Bodden, 29 Shot in the back of the neck by officer Kyle Wilcox on Dec. 27 in a Roxbury park. Boston Municipal Police officer fired at 29-year-old Ricky Bodden of Dorchester. The shooting occurred after Bodden allegedly ran when the officer tried to question him outside a Dorchester park. The force patrols city-owned buildings.

November 27, 2000 Carlos M. Garcia

March 24, 1994 Rev. Accelyne Williams, 75 years old Acting on a wrong address from a bad tip by an informant, the police conducted a no-knock raid on Retired Methodist minister Accelyne Williams' Boston, MA apartment. The door was battered down and Williams was chased around his home by a SWAT police team looking for drugs and guns. Williams was tackled to the floor and his hands tied behind his back. Williams collapsed and died of a heart attack at the age of 75. No guns or drugs were found, as it was soon discovered they raided the wrong apartment!

January 31, 1988 Donald Johnson killed in Jamaica Plain Donald Johnson (shooting victim) was shot dead by police while he was driving a stolen bus. Boston Police shot and killed five suspects of non-violent crimes in 1988; he adds that four of those five suspects were African American. **5th killing in 1988 4 out of 5 dead were blacks

1981 Levi Hart 14 yrs old killed in Roxbury 1981 by BPD Officer Richard Borque Levi Hart, a 14-year-old African American youth from Roxbury, Mass., was killed in a police chase. (Hart, and two other Roxbury youths had stolen and car. When the officers caught up to them, Hart was shot, arguably by Richard Bourque in an act of police brutality.)

January 1975 James Bowden In January 1975 two white undercover Boston police officers gunned down an innocent black man at the Mission Hill housing project, and then were accused along with other Boston police in a bungled scheme to cover it up. While on stakeout on a suspected getaway car used in an armed robbery, the two gunned down a black man who entered the car. The two claimed the man had a gun and they shot in self-defense. Police investigation decided it was a rightful shooting. The man's widow knew her husband would not be carrying a weapon and became determined to prove her husband's innocence. Attorney Lawrence O'Donnell of Boston, a former officer himself, conducted a three-year investigation on behalf of the widow, Patricia Bowden, which prompted two federal juries to agree in a historic verdict that the death of James Bowden "was malicious, willful, wanton or reckless," and the result was a landmark legal decision which included a settlement of $843,000 for Bowden's widow and two children. In more than 100 years, no one had won such a judgment against any police department. Former Boston Phoenix reporter Dave O'Brian was on assignment to write a feature story about Boston's Tactical Patrol Force, O'Brian was in the back seat of the police cruiser along with a news photographer. When the shooting occurred, he was crouched on the floor in fear. His role became crucial, though, because his notes about what happened in the aftermath contradicted police. Looking for a tall, thin man, the police stake out the wrong car, then shoot a man who's 5 feet 4 and weighs 180 pounds and who's never been accused of a crime. Their versions in court contradict those of eyewitnesses, and also one another. A gun is planted at the scene to incriminate Bowden, but it's the wrong type. Crucial tape recordings from the dispatcher's office are missing. The police arrest O'Donnell's son on a trumped-up charge, and beat him.

READ MORE - SHOT BY THE POLICE: BOSTON & BEYOND

Alleged perv: I just ‘wanted a massage’ Boston worker nabbed in sex sting

Alleged perv: I just ‘wanted a massage’
Boston worker nabbed in sex sting

By Marie Szaniszlo  |   Wednesday, April 6, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage
Photo by Nancy Lane

A Boston Public Health Commission employee accused of soliciting sex online from a minor told the Herald yesterday that he only wanted a massage when he answered an ad taken out by an undercover cop posing as a 15-year-old girl.

Jeanclaude Quach, a 36-year-old data analyst and married father of two, was arrested in a police sting Monday.

“I answered the ad because the girl said she was 18, and I wanted a massage,” Quach said yesterday after his Dorchester District Court arraignment. “I never said the word ‘sex.’ She said we can do this and that, and in my last e-mail, I think I said, ‘Sure.’ I couldn’t turn her away. . . . Right now, all I care about is my family.”

Quach arranged to meet the “girl” at Papa Gino’s on Gallivan Boulevard at 7:30 p.m. Monday, police said. Shortly after 7, the defendant arrived in a white BMW, looked in the pizzeria’s window, used an ATM next door and circled the block several times before officers dialed his cell phone, police said. He answered and was arrested moments later on Minot Street.

Quach pleaded not guilty to enticement of a child, posted $2,500 bail and was released, pending a June 1 hearing, on the condition that he stay away from children younger than 16, other than his own.

Quach, who has worked for the public health commission since 2002, was placed on administrative leave, with pay, from his $77,841-a-year job, said Christian Nielsen, a commission spokesman.

Lisa Goldblatt Grace, program director for My Life, My Choice, which works to prevent and intervene in the commercial sexual exploitation of girls, said the average age of entry into the industry is between 12 to 15 years old.

“We know that the old notion of the commercial sex industry as a victimless crime is not accurate,” said Goldblatt Grace. “The industry is replete with victims. And when someone makes the choice to buy sex, they are doing enormous harm.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1328696

READ MORE - Alleged perv: I just ‘wanted a massage’ Boston worker nabbed in sex sting

Dorchester teen slain in broad daylight

Dorchester teen slain in broad daylight

By Christine McConville and Colneth Smiley Jr.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Dorchester teenager Kris McKinney was gunned down yesterday in broad daylight just around the corner from his family’s home, according to Hub investigators who have launched a manhunt for the cold-blooded killers.

“He is well-known to police,” Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said last night about McKinney. “Detectives are still trying to determine facts and circumstances.”

Stunned neighbors said McKinney, 18, was standing with a group of other young men, including his brother, at the corner of Whitman Street and Norfolk Avenue shortly after 3 p.m. when a car approached them.


McKinney was blasted twice, first in the head and then in the leg, as he tried to flee up Whitman Street, bystanders said.

He was rushed to Boston Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

“I just lost my son,” an anguished woman screamed at police when she came upon the crime scene at about 5 p.m.

As horrified friends and neighbors looked on, the woman, whom the Herald was unable to identify, grabbed onto a nearby mailbox to steady herself and repeated, “I just lost my son . . . He’s gone.”

Neighbors said McKinney had just been released from a youth lockup only a few days ago.

But they also portrayed him as a kindhearted neighbor who befriended little kids and shoveled neighbors’ walks after snowstorms.

“Yeah, he’s been in trouble,” one man said, “but he’s just a kid.”

Rattled residents said they regard Whitman Street — a dead-end block off bustling Norfolk Street, hard by Codman Square — as a haven from surrounding hot spots of crime.

“There’s a crime watch over here, so (the shooting) is uncommon,” a Whitman Street resident told the Herald.

But yesterday afternoon, while the neighborhood kids came home from school and the adults returned from work, Boston police and their dogs searched the area for stray bullets and clues.

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PACT initiative for tackling gang violence could be new 'Boston Miracle'

PACT initiative for tackling gang violence could be new 'Boston Miracle'

Posted by Cara Bayles March 24, 2011 11:57 AM
By Cara Bayles, Town Correspondent

Boston Police Superintendent Paul Joyce has gone on a talking tour around Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury, the neighborhoods he says are the heart of Boston's violence hot spots, where 90 percent of the city's shootings take place.

On Wednesday night, he visited the Greater Four Corners Action Coalition, a group created in response to drug violence in the early 90s, to give his update on the Partnerships Advancing Communities Together program, better known as PACT, which is up for its eight-month review. Joyce said it was his 155 community meeting since July 1, 2010.

PACT combines the efforts of police, street workers, the courts, and education and job programs to target 240 Boston gang members, who are considered responsible for the majority of the city's violence. The program represents a collaborative technique reminiscent of the "Boston Miracle" of the late 1990s, when a partnership between community groups, clergy and police helped to significantly reduce gang violence.

FULL STORY HERE
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/dorchester/2011/03/pact_initiative_for_tackling_g.html

READ MORE - PACT initiative for tackling gang violence could be new 'Boston Miracle'

Man shot on Dorchester Street

Man shot on Dorchester Street

Police conferred at the shooting scene this afternoon.

By Globe Staff

FULL STORY HERE

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/03/man_shot_on_dor_2.html?p1=Local_Links

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Boston Police Department brass ignored 2001 audit of OT No probe after 400 apparent violations

Boston Police Department brass ignored 2001 audit of OT

No probe after 400 apparent violations

By O’Ryan Johnson  |   Thursday, March 24, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

Boston police brass caught detectives submitting hundreds of questionable courtroom overtime slips 10 years ago — but failed to crack down on the apparent infractions, raising concerns about the department’s current probe of possible rampant OT abuse.

A 2001-2002 Boston Police Department internal affairs audit uncovered almost 400 apparent rules violations on courtroom overtime slips submitted by detectives in the homicide and drug control units, according to a transcript of a 2006 federal civil trial obtained by the Herald.

The results of that audit, as well as the department’s failure to take action, emerged in previously unreported testimony in a civil-rights lawsuit filed by a former Boston police captain over allegations he was fired for uncovering the apparent overtime abuses.

The BPD is currently probing allegations of rampant abuse of courtroom overtime pay. Under their contract, officers automatically earn four hours of pay for a court appearance outside their shift even if it requires less than an hour of their time. Three police officers have been placed on administrative duty, and one is on paid leave.

Police Commissioner Edward Davis, who took over the department in December 2006 — five months after the earlier audit came to light — said his current probe won’t be compromised.

“I intend to provide the community with a police agency that utilizes its financial support efficiently,” Davis said in a statement. “The community can remain confident in our efforts to ensure an effective and well-managed police organization as we move forward serving the City of Boston.”

During the trial of a civil rights suit — filed by former police Captain William Broderick — the then head of the BPD’s internal affairs unit testified that his audit uncovered a wide range of department infractions. Among them:

• Slips for court overtime submitted for weekends and holidays;

• Multiple officers making unnecessary courtroom appearances for the same case;

• And detectives signing their own overtime slips.

The internal affairs head acknowledged these practices had become commonplace in the department, according to the transcript.

“They may be violations, or technical violations, of the rules, but (there were) things that had been allowed,” the superintendent said. “And officers had gotten into certain habits . . . (and) were doing things, but they were doing things with their supervisors’ OK, and the supervisors were doing things with their supervisors’ OK,” the internal affairs head said.

The superintendent also admitted he never launched a corruption probe of the OT infractions as he had earlier vowed.

The trial jury found in Broderick’s favor and awarded him $2.8 million.

“They didn’t do anything about (courtroom overtime abuse),” Broderick’s lawyer, Rosemary Scapicchio, told the Herald. “The only thing they did was fire the guy for exposing it. I find it ironic that all these years later they’re now saying it’s a problem. It isn’t a new problem, its been around for a very long time.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1325637

READ MORE - Boston Police Department brass ignored 2001 audit of OT No probe after 400 apparent violations

ALL NEW HD VIDEO: Attack on Black Leadership Forum

BLACKSTONIAN EXCLUSIVE
BOSTON COLOR TV EXCLUSIVE

TRAILER

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Police probe Roxbury home invasion

Police probe Roxbury home invasion

By Laura Crimaldi  |   Tuesday, March 22, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

Boston police today are investigating an armed home invasion in Roxbury.

The 2:39 a.m. incident took place at 25 Dimock St., said police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll.

She added weapons were shown during the invasion. No one was injured, Driscoll said.

No other information was available.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1325191

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