Boston Blotter: Flag-Destroyer Offends Everyone

--The last thing we need, especially with a presidential election coming up, is for someone to add fuel to the flag-burning debate. On Thursday, someone in Natick destroyed a solar-powered trash container by stuffing it with American flags and setting them on fire. The person who did it must be trying to offend as many people as possible - the left by wrecking an environmental device, and the right by burning flags.

We are all for free speech and expression, but it's incredibly obnoxious to burn a flag before Memorial Day. And the Globe noted that vets had spent a lot of time decorating Natick war memorials with the same flags set on fire. It's free speech if you burn your own flag, but it's destruction of property when you burn someone else's.

WCVB said the trash container was $500,000, but the Globe put it at $5,000. We assume the lower number is correct, but we've got to ask - why does a trash container, even if it is solar-powered - cost $5,000? Just curious.

--Yesterday afternoon, a woman was lighting a candle at a parent's grave in Forest Hills Cemetery. She returned to her car and was carjacked. She didn't get hurt, and police later spotted the car in West Roxbury and arrested the attacker.

--In a less violent car-related incident, the BPD stopped a stolen vehicle in Roxbury. The driver explained that the car belonged to his "Uncle Chris" but that he didn't know the last name of the mysterious "Uncle Chris." Uncle Chris' nephew was quickly arrested for driving a hot car.

--In Somerville crime unrelated to the Good Time Emporium, a bank robbery went down at the East Cambridge Savings Bank, and a woman was found tied up in the basement of the bank. The Somerville News reports that the robbers took $200,000.

--Elsewhere in the world, a Boston man was killed in a bar brawl - not in town but in Rio de Janeiro, which has the reputation of being very good and very bad when it comes to tourists. Josmer Ernest Martins got into a fight with a police officer, who shot and killed him. The officer has been charged with homicide.

All charges alleged until proven under law. Widely circulated image of Kid Rock in an American Flag poncho from a while back, not because he did anything wrong but because it looks dumb.