What began with police responding to a fight at Carson Beach in South Boston yesterday turned into multiple gang fights involving about 1,000 people that required approximately 100 police officers from at least five law enforcement agencies. According to the Globe, youths using social media sites like Facebook organized the fighting three of the past four nights.
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Results tagged “gangs”
-- Federal, state, and local law enforcement officers arrested 48 people in "Operation Melting Pot," an 18-month investigation designed to stop a gang war between the Bloods and the Avenue King Crips. Authorities seized 40 guns, $60,000, two kilograms of cocaine, one kilogram of crack cocaine, a half-kilo of heroin, and seven pounds of marijuana. [US Attorney], [WCVB]
-- Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and other law enforcement agencies arrested 47 alleged gang members from Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut and Rhode Island. The alleged gang members from Massachusetts lived in Boston, Chelsea, Dartmouth, East Boston, Fitchburg, Leominster, Lynn, New Bedford, Randolph, and Springfield.
According to the Boston Globe, the Boston Police Department traced a 60% drop in gun violence to the Hub's recent rash of rainy weather. Shooings dropped from 38 in June 2008 to 15 in June of 2009. Just one fatal shooting was reported last month when there were 22 rainy days, the Globe said. Commissioner Ed Davis said "When the weather turns bad, and people are inside, there’s less violence." Prior to June, violent gun crimes were up in 2009, which prompted cops to meet with gangs to try to prevent continued violence in the summer months.
-- 70 people were arrested in Massachusetts this week by the US Immigration and Customs service, who claim they were targeting gang members. The suspects, who hail overwhelmingly from Latin American nations (with Vietnam, Cambodia, Portugal, and Jamaica thrown in for good measure) were picked up during raids in cities and towns throughout the state. 52 of those arrested are suspected of having ties to gangs. [Globe]
-- A man was shot and killed in Mattapan last Thursday night. Police say that Victor Torres, 21, was killed by a single gunshot wound. Torres was not known to police, who are still trying to determine whether he was the intended victim of the gunman. No arrests have been made. The shooting took place blocks away from the residence where five month-year-old Alianna Peguero was shot in an apparently gang-related incident. Universal Hub has a map of shootings that have taken place in the southern Boston neighborhoods since the April 21st killing of Luis Troncoso on a basketball court in Southwest Corridor Park, an incident that sparked Boston's summer of gang beef. [BPDNews; Globe]
The past few days in Boston have been violent, and the BPD has its hands full. More information has come out about the shootings that happened yesterday afternoon. The most startling news? The three people who were shot in Roslindale at Metropolitan and Poplar yesterday--one of whom died--were in a car in a funeral procession for another crime victim.
--Michael T. Jones, the BPD officer arrested for holding up a Roslindale gas station, was arraigned today in the hospital. His lawyer offers an explanation for Jones' alleged behavior--alcohol. His lawyer also said Jones wasn't taking his medication. [WBZ, Boston Herald]
--A Boston judge sentenced three cocaine dealers yesterday and then told them that, after they serve their time, they will not be allowed to move back to the city for 12 years. According to the Herald, 19-year-old Amos Carasquillo of Mattapan, 26-year-old Nathan Garrasteguy of Roxbury, and 21-year-old Louis Garcia Jr. of Roxbury have 60 arrests among them. Besides those guys, eleven gang members have been rounded up in the past few weeks. --Last night,...
--Some local gangs have taken time out from their busy schedules of mayhem to post YouTube videos celebrating the aforementioned mayhem. Maria Cramer at the Globe reports that the gangs involved include Castlegate and Morse Street. Needless to say, police are thrilled at their good fortune that the gang members are taping themselves for posterity, but those who work with gang members are worried that innocent people might get in trouble just because they appear...
--A gun battle erupted in Dorchester yesterday afternoon. A teenager was wounded, and a No. 23 bus got shot up. The teen, Walter West, was celebrating his 16th birthday. His gift was that his wounds are non-life-threatening, and no one on the bus got hurt. The BPD told the Herald that the gunfire was "likely related to a feud between gangs on Morse and Lucerne streets." --The city has announced another new plan to cut...
--The BPD has announced that an "errant shot" hit Steven Odom, 13, in the head in front of his own home. Odom was killed in Dorchester on Thursday night. Commish Davis says that police already have leads. But that's not going to help the family. Gangs and gunfights in this city are a huge problem, and it's incidents like these, where an innocent kid dies, that makes it seem as if the police and the...
Even though the number of shootings in the city have dropped, the number of stabbings has gone up 10 percent. Maria Cramer at the Globe reports that gangs are sending word that knives are preferable to guns because there's less punishment if someone is caught with one. Of course, plenty of guns are out there. The BPD found a hidden AK-47 with a full banana clip last night. The good news about this stat is...
The turf wars aren't limited to Boston. The Globe reported on an internal fight within the Gloucester PD that should make you feel a little better about the BPD's petty tiffs. A lieutenant for the GPD accused police chief John Beaudette of "running into him stomach-first during a recent confrontation over the deployment of officers." We looked at the Globe's picture of Lieutenant Jerris Cook, along with ones the Gloucester Times took of chief Beaudette....
--Three men started shooting into a home in Dorchester last night, hitting an 8-year-old boy in the abdomen. LaQuarrie Jefferson later died of his wound. The Globe said police don't have a motive. (The Globe also said it happened in Roxbury, but most other outlets are saying Dorchester - it was near Franklin Park.) The Herald said it was gang-related. Ed Davis said in a press conference that "There are people who are in the...
The complete game is a dying art in the States. In the age of relief specialists, managers tied to pitch counts, and Papelbon, there aren't a lot of occasions when a manager wants to leave his starter in any longer than necessary. And last night, in fact, Papelbon was warming up when the Sox blew the game open in the 8th, taking a 7-1 lead and giving Terry Francona an excuse to leave Daisuke in...
--Machetes are definitely hot in East Boston. The BPD saw a guy just a-walking around at night with a two-foot-long machete "protruding from his waist area." Could he have been using it to accessorize his belt? Luckily, they arrested him before he got to use it on anyone. We imagine no one wanted to bother him except for a few brave police officers. --A cold case is warming up in New Bedford. Nine women were...
--The Commish has talked tough before, but Ed Davis says that he will deploy more police to town "hot spots" (also known as places where people get shot), and the police will start tailing persons of interest. The "hot spots" are as follows: Bowdoin/Geneva, Franklin Field/Franklin Park, and Grove Hall in Dorchester. Egleston Square in Roxbury is also included. Davis didn't mention bringing gang members to the negotiating table, at least not as far as...
We usually run the blotter in the evenings, but the headlines say it all and make us angry: --"Shooting on Crowded Bus, Slaying Stun Dorchester" [Globe] --"One Killed, Two Wounded in Separate Boston Shootings" [AP] --"Teen Shot on Bus as Angels Watch Over Hub" [Herald on the first shooting] --"Man, 27, Killed As He Hid From Gunmen" [Herald on the second shooting] --"Tonight's Shooting Incidents, One Fatal, One Critical" [BPD News] In short, a young...
--Universal Hub spotted a few brief lines in the Transcript's police and fire log: "A West Roxbury woman reported to police that her neighbor, who accused her dog of soiling his lawn, threw dog feces on her lawn. A harassment report was filed." One can only imagine the years of simmering resentment as poop appeared on the neighbor's yard. Whether or not this woman's dog was the source of the poop, it's easy to see...
The Chiara Levin case has unleashed an outcry against the gun violence. People are fed up. Reverend Bruce Wall says he will post signs around the city warning tourists that they are not safe in Boston if the mayor doesn't act now and declare a state of emergency. Maybe that will get the mayor to stop talking about after-hours house parties and start talking about gangs and guns. The Herald quotes what Wall plans to...
Why is South Boston's gangster past so captivating? Bostonist can't say. Sensible people should look upon Whitey Bulger and his ilk with nothing but scorn for all their killing and mayhem, but somehow, between Whitey's intriguing life on the lam and the awesome, wide-collared shirts that all those guys used to wear, the imagination is captured. Apparently, even the usually staid justices of the Supreme Judicial Court are not above this, as the first three...
Bostonist likes movies and we like when people from our neck of the woods make movies, and we really like when those movies get screened in Boston and we get tickets. So we're excited, because Georgia Lee, a Harvard grad who dropped out of Harvard Business School to apprentice with Martin Scorcese in making "Gangs of New York," has made a movie of her own and we have five pairs of tickets for lucky Bostonist...
It’s not Santa Claus, but Snoop Dogg, that will be comin’ to town this week to stop the spread of violence that has recently been plaguing the city of Boston, which has reached a 10-year high for murder rates. Okay, it’s actually Snoop-aloop’s mom, Beverly Broadus Green, an evangelist minister, who will be speaking at the independently run Dorchester Epiphany Middle School tomorrow. She’s helping to kick off a national campaign to combat violence and...
Bostonist doesn't recall the local shopping mall as an unsafe location growing up in our teen years, but in Holyoke no one under the age of 18 will be allowed into the local mall (after 4 p.m. on weekends) without parental accompaniment or proper identification. The reported problem is that large "gangs" of children shoplift and their presence is scaring away older clientele from the mall. The mall claims that since the policy was implemented,...
Bostonist is an advocate of the bicycling life, but we know that it can sometimes be a lonely endeavor - just today, as we suited up in our baggy blue rain pants and slicker, preparing to leave work and brave the torrential downpour, we had to endure the curious/incredulous stares of our co-workers (and we weren't even wearing (nor do we ever) the dreaded spandex shorts so popular with the cycling set). Wouldn't it be...
Boston has become home to some Hollywood stars for a few weeks as director Martin Scorsese's new film, "The Departed," finally began filming. This movie is a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film, "Infernal Affairs," and will feature some big Hollywood talent. IMDB describes it in the following blurb: "The story, set in Boston, revolves around a gangster (Matt Damon) who infiltrates the police department and a cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) who infiltrates the gangs....
Mara Salvatrucha aka MS 13, one of the largest gangs in North and Central America and yesterday, 103 of its members were arrested by federal immigration officials. Triggered by fears that MS 13 may ally itself with al Qaeda in smuggling people in the US, Operation Community Shield was started. Over the past three weeks the arrests were made in Washington, Virginia, Baltimore, New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Newark, N.J. A third of the...
In case you blocked out the hoopla known as the Oscars, the 77th Academy Awards aired last night for a short three hours and two minutes long. Held at L.A.'s Kodak Theater, the awards show went off without a hitch or much sparkle, creating a predictable show with few surprises. Chris Rock, who was being built up to perform some of his outrageous stand-up, was pretty calm, but did start the show by telling his...
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