EMTs save holiday for needy children

EMTs save holiday for needy children
By O’Ryan Johnson  |   Wednesday, December 15, 2010  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

SMILES: Kiyanna Wise, 11, above left, and Teveyne Telfer, 13, sing Christmas carols last night at Global Ministries Church, where EMTs distributed presents to needy kids.
Photo by Matthew West

As if saving lives every day of the year isn’t enough . . .

Big-hearted EMTs with sirens wailing delivered dozens of presents last night to kids who may not otherwise have much under the Christmas tree.

The EMTs hauled in stacks of presents on stretchers into Global Ministries Church on Washington Street in Dorchester, where Minister Barbara Nobles was on hand to help with the event. For more than 30 years, Boston Police Patrolmens Association

EMS Division buys and wraps dozens of presents to donate to worthy causes. For many years they donated to Boston Medical Center’s pediatric AIDS unit, but this year, they chose the church in order to get closer to the community they serve.

Meanwhile — as if fighting crime every day of the year isn’t enough — Boston police last night held the second annual Shop with a Cop event at the Target store in South Bay Plaza, where 100 uniformed police officers escorted kids through the store to pick out gifts. The event is sponsored by Target and the North American Family Institute.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1303251

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Always the comforter, now in pain

Always the comforter, now in pain

FAMILY TRAGEDY: The Rev. Bruce H. Wall looks at a photo of himself with his son, Bruce A., who is hospitalized after a car accident.
By Margery Eagan  |   Wednesday, December 8, 2010  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Columnists

Photo by Angela Rowlings
The Rev. Bruce Wall has spent a lifetime mentoring youth, battling street violence and keeping vigil with mothers and fathers of murder victims in Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan.

Yesterday, he kept a vigil he had not expected. He was at the bedside of the eldest of his three children, hit early Sunday morning by a wrong-way driver on Interstate 95 in Connecticut.

“The last thing he remembers is headlights coming toward him,” Wall said yesterday about his namesake, Bruce A. Wall, nicknamed Aharon.

With his classmate at Gordon College, the 22-year-old Wall was driving south in an old model Oldsmobile when he was struck by the Audi of Ellen H. Noordzy, 21. Both Wall and Evan Williamson, also 21, of Brewster, were airlifted to hospitals with life-threatening injuries.

“Aharon has rods in his left leg, screws in his right arm. His pelvis is crushed. His bones are crushed. He has to learn to walk again,” Wall said. “But he’s alive.”

Williamson remains on a ventilator but has been able to speak, Wall said, so there is hope.

Bruce Wall, senior pastor of the Global Ministries Christian Church, is the stuff of local legend. He was one of three black ministers who founded Boston’s Ten Point Coalition, praised nationwide for reducing crime in the ’90s. For years, he provided a safe haven for teens at the Chez Vous roller rink. Now often at odds with both a fractured black clergy and Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Wall, 61 — even with a third stent in his heart — keeps up his outreach, his preaching, his radio show and his patrols of Codman Square, where he’s known as “the mayor.”

But the typically fired-up Wall was subdued yesterday speaking of his injured son, a college lacrosse player.

“He had tears in his eyes because it’s coming to him that he’ll never compete again,” Wall said. “You know, I carried Aharon in my left arm and my Bible in my right arm when I’d be preaching. I’d take him to Chez Vous. When some kids drove up once looking for trouble, I told them, ‘I don’t know what you’re planning. But my little son’s with me.’ ’’

Yet Wall said he’s taken solace in “people coming together over this.”

“Young men on the fence about how to live their lives have recommitted to Christ. I’m receiving calls from people I thought I was on the outs with. They’re expressing love to me. Something’s happening in the city, in the black community. I ask myself what will bring us together to stop the violence. Maybe this,” Wall said, “can be a catalyst.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1301622

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Friend advises Chuck Turner: Keep your mouth shut

Friend advises Chuck Turner: Keep your mouth shut
By Peter Gelzinis  |   Friday, November 5, 2010  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Columnists

TURNER FALLS: City Councilor Chuck Turner was convicted last week, but has continued his attacks on the federal government even as his friends try to gain a lenient sentence for him.
Photo by Herald file

Chuck Turner still has friends in this city. And at least one sees a formidable problem as the convicted city councilor faces expulsion from his seat and a possible prison sentence.

Chuck Turner’s own mouth.

The Rev. Bruce Wall said he’s been talking with people about going to the U.S. attorney, Carmen Ortiz, with a plea for Chuck to be given community service instead of jail.

“Yes, we have some people who are ready and willing to vouch for him to the U.S. attorney,” Wall said yesterday. “Our worry is, the more Chuck talks, the more he hurts himself along with those who want to help him.

“I understand that Chuck is all about making his arguments against the government,” Wall added. “But he’s been convicted. It’s time for him to just be quiet and allow those of us who seek to help him be able to come to his aid.

“The truth is Chuck has a habit sometimes of pulling the rug out from under those who want to stand with him, pray with him and offer him a bit of grace and mercy. Look, there’s no question in my mind that the community needs his voice and his passion. He’s far more valuable to us, working with a church or community group, than being shipped off to jail. I don’t think I’m the only one praying for that to happen.

“But it can only happen,” Wall emphasizes, “if Chuck finds a way to keep his mouth shut.”

Theoretically, if Chuck stays out of jail, he could remain on the council.

In a month, a dozen of Chuck’s colleagues will take up the matter of expelling Roxbury’s unflappable district councilor from their confraternity.

But they don’t have to make a decision on Dec. 1. The recently drafted Rule 40A is just convoluted enough to give the City Council the option of waiting to see if U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock sends Chuck to jail on Jan. 25 — automatically costing him his seat — or doles out a Tom Finneran-like 18 months probation, coupled with a fine, which could allow him to hang on by a thread.

Mel King, who came within one Ray Flynn of becoming Boston’s first black mayor, at first said he didn’t think he’d go to City Hall to witness that sad piece of history. Then, he thought again.

“Well, now that you mention it,” the 82-year-old former state rep and M.I.T. professor said yesterday, “Yeah, I think I will go.”

With his friend not due to be sentenced until late January, Mel’s hope is that the City Council might refrain from taking any action until after they learn what Woodlock has in store for Chuck.

“I would hope there’s some balance in all of this,” Mel sighed. “I think punishment should be weighed against a history of caring for people, of paying their rent, fighting for decent places for them to love and acting more like his brothers’ and sisters’ keeper than a politician.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1294147

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