-- Early this morning, police found a man shot to death at the corner of Circuit Street and Walnut Ave., in Roxbury, near Washington Park. The victim was 20-years-old. No arrests have been made, and no motive has been advanced. He was Boston's third homicide in the past 24 hours and the 33rd of the year. [BPDNews] -- A 17-year-old boy was shot and killed yesterday during a cookout in Hyde Park. He was shot......

-- Two of four men suspected of robbing convenience stores in Jamaica Plain and Hyde Park two weeks ago were apprehended by police. [BPDNews] -- Rodrick J. Taylor was convicted this morning of the 2006 strangling murder of Dominique Samuels, whose charred body was found in Franklin Park. Taylor will be sentenced on Monday. [Globe] -- Police have joined with community groups in an effort to quash the gang beef that has been dropping bodies......

-- Boston police are looking for a trio of bandits who pulled off a pair robberies in southwest Boston last week. The group knocked over a Hyde Park convenience store with a fourth man on Wednesday in broad daylight and took down a Jamaica Plain bodega on Thursday night. They threatened clerks with silver handguns and netted nearly $6000 from the two stick-ups. [BPDNews] -- The notorious goatee bandit was thwarted by an off-duty Cambridge......

-- The victim of Saturday night's fatal stabbing in South Boston has been identified by police as Curtis Ashford, 24, of Roxbury. No arrests have been made in the case, which police are actively investigating. [BPDNews] -- The arraignment hearing of Kenneth Mauras, a 17-year-old Roslindale youth who faces charges of hit and run following a Hyde Park drag racing escapade, was the scene of a mêlée yesterday morning. After the hearing, Mauras's family and......

-- Christopher Gardner Beaman, a descendant of Henry Cabot Lodge and a prolific organizer on Meetup.com, was sentenced last week for the brutal assault of his girlfriend. The victim, a 30-year-old Cambridge woman, described the crime as a culmination of the pattern of violence that marred their relationship. Beaman's assault left the victim hospitalized, in a wheelchair, with a lacerated liver last October. Beaman, 24, has a troubled history and a long rap sheet. His......

-- Police found a man shot to death this morning in Hyde Park. The body was found shortly after 7:00am, and there are few details to report. [BPDNews] -- A woman was sexually assaulted on her way home after last night's Red Sox game, authorities say. She had been walking down Winchester St. in Brookline, drunk, when a man approached her and started a conversation. Things became sinister when he pinned her to the front......

-- Cops had to call in reinforcements when they discovered a massive, all-female brawl in progress at a Dorchester party early Sunday. Four Dorchester women, whom police claim punched, kicked, and pushed one another, were arrested and charged with affray. The owner of the Westville Street residence stands accused of keeping a disorderly house. [BPDNews] -- An alleged burglar was found at the scene of the crime in Hyde Park yesterday, asleep. Parishioners of the......

-- Bike cops saw action in Roxbury, where two men were arrested after allegedly shooting guns near the Academy Homes project. The gunfire drew the attention of police from Boston's Youth Violence Strike Force, who chased the suspects into Marcella Park. The Tactical Bike Unit, responding to calls, finally caught and arrested the two men after a brawl. Universal Hub points out that one of the suspects was a recipient of a Boston anti-violence grant.......

-- An 88-year-old woman was assaulted in her Hyde Park home early this morning, Boston police say. Around 4 a.m., an intruder allegedly attacked the victim and fled. No signs of forced entry were reported and nothing was reported stolen. The victim may have been sexually assaulted, and police from the sexual assault unit are also investigating. A suspect, described by police as a 5'7" black male with a slight build, remains at large. [BPDNews;......

--A truck crashed into a house in Brockton early this morning. Five people were injured. Not to be jaded, but does either a truck or a car crash into a house every weekend? [WCVB] --Speaking of automobiles meeting other inanimate objects, a limo in a funeral procession went off Hyde Park Avenue and drove into a tree, injuring six people. [Boston Herald] --In Springfield, a 51-year-old man was stabbed to death. The cause? Allegedly he......

--The BPD has put out a missing person alert for 73-year-old Maureen Talbot of Roxbury. Talbot is showing "early signs of dementia." [BPD News] --A follow-up to the scary machete attack near City Hall. BPD police commissioner Ed Davis says the alleged machete-wielding perps "are wannabes who call themselves MS-13 but are not connected to the bloodthirsty enterprise that has been the subject of an FBI probe." No response yet from MS-13's PR team on......

-- The Bridgewater man being sought by police for the murder of his ex-wife was found dead last night, an apparent suicide. Andrew Boisvert was found hanging in an Iredell County, North Carolina rest stop. He was fleeing Friday's warrant for his arrest in the murder of Medford resident Margaret Ninos, who was found beaten to death in her home on Wednesday. A North Carolina rest stop worker discovered Boisvert's body hanging from a tree.......

--News the Boston Fire Department doesn't need: An anonymous person has accused firefighters of cheating on a promotional test in November. [Boston Globe] --In Hyde Park yesterday, a four-alarm fire that started at Maria's Hair Fashion damaged eight apartments, two restaurants, the salon, and another business. No one was seriously hurt, but this is the second time a salon belonging to the same owner has burned down. [Boston Herald] --Mary Marques, the oldest resident......

Police commissioner Ed Davis has a lot to handle now that an internal audit shows drug evidence has either gone missing or has been tampered with in almost 1,000 cases. WBZ serves up some scary details about events at the BPD warehouse in Hyde Park. Whoever's been messing with the drugs worked hard to cover it up: "In 90 cases involving evidence like pills or tablets, someone removed the drugs and replaced them with aspirin......

--The BPD must love that Burger King commercial that punks customers with the information that BK has discontinued the Whopper. Upon hearing that information, the customers promptly freak out. Perhaps a man thought he wasn't going to get his Whopper in Dorchester last night. Police had to go to the Burger King on Washington Street when a guy returned to the BK after security officers tossed him. He assaulted them and had weed on him.......

Snow emergencies have been declared in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville. Here's the dirt on parking and getting around: --T alerts: This should come as no surprise, but all T lines are experiencing delays of 30 minutes or more. The MBTA website has been blinking in and out, but we did get an alert that the Silver Line Routes 742 (SL2) and 743 (SL3) are being diverted and that all buses are "omitting 88 Black......

--A woman who was pregnant with twins was shot in the back last night in Mattapan. Police are saying the 22-year-old was shot through her apartment window. The woman is now in stable condition. The Herald adds that Police Commissioner Ed Davis went to the scene and that It was unclear last night whether the woman was targeted by someone she knew or whether she was a victim of a bizarre act of random violence.......

Reverend Bruce Wall has gone to great lengths to draw attention to the violence on the streets of this city. The last time he appeared on Bostonist, he had published a letter advising tourists not to visit Boston following the death of New York City resident Chiara Levin in February. Wall is in the spotlight again for different reasons. The Globe reported today that his 15-year-old son is a suspect in an armed robbery in......

--A former MBTA employee is in trouble for allegedly selling fake discount passes. Casey Ross reports that Giovanni Francis, 19, was selling discount passes for the elderly and blind to people who a) weren't old and b) could see just fine. T police caught them trying to sneak through on those passes, and video of the fake blind people is available on WCVB's site. Francis used to be a sales associate for the T. He......

--Just because you're old doesn't mean you're done running from the law. 69-year-old Sean Bennett, of Somerville, was driving--badly--on Tremont Street. Although he tried to drive away, the law won. --Forget cuddling up with a blanket. Some guy got plowed on half a bottle of Captain Morgan and snuggled up with a firearm early Sunday morning. Police found 20-year-old Nestor Rosado, of Hyde Park, "passed out on the steps of 19 Mariposa Street." (Yes, we......

--In Centerville, Kelsey Pratt, 19, of Osterville, allegedly drove drunk into the side of a house. That in itself doesn't seem Blotter-Worthy, but WBZ has the video, and Pratt didn't just tap that house. She plowed into that sucker like it was a garage. No one got hurt. WHDH says this is Pratt's second OUI offense. --But wait, there's more drivers plowing into houses! In Saugus early this morning, an unidentified driver struck two cars,......

--The BPD was busy today and yesterday. Early this morning, four people were shot around Levant St. and self-applied to Boston Medical Center. One of them was said to be in critical condition. WHDH links the incident to a house party. Also early this morning, an attempted burglar was on the fourth floor of a building in Jamaica Plain. When the police arrived, the burglar jumped out of the window and sustained life-threatening injuries. Elsewhere......

--More details have emerged about the stabbing death of Adam Rich at The 6 House Bar in South Boston. The fatal fight started over spilled beer. A witness, the victim's best friend, said someone spilled beer on the victim, and the fight got out of control. The victim's best friend is also an Iraq War vet, and he saved some choice words for the murderer: “Whoever did this is the new breed of scumbag who......

People are feeling jittery again. A strip mall in Ashland was evacuated earlier today – all because of a fax message to a Bank of America that included an awkward ClipArt image of a hand setting off a bomb. Turns out "the fax was sent by a marketing group for a promotion to kick off a special offer from the bank." We're not sure why marketing companies don't think before they fax. Didn't they learn......

--A group of female students at Framingham State College stole 1,000 copies of the student newspaper. What prompted them to do such a thing? They were angry at an editorial? They had passionate feelings about a major issue and were engaged in some kind of protest? No. They thought that a front-page image made them look fat. They painted letters on their stomachs and showed them at a lacrosse game. It wasn't as if......

--Next time you think about getting a free pizza by holding up your delivery guy, think again. On Sunday night, the BPD followed a Domino's Pizza guy from South Boston to a Dorchester address that was known for robbing pizza guys. Upon delivery, a man emerged to get his pizza and pulled a firearm from his waistband. Police sprang out and caught the pizza-nabber and his accomplice. We send propers to Universal Hub for an......

A BPD officer has been arrested on drug-related charges. The officer, Jose Ortiz, has been on the force since 1986 and worked in the Back Bay and the South End. Details on the arrest were murky at first, but Ed Davis' opinion on Ortiz was clear. His statement is chock-full of irate zingers, such as "Ortiz disgraced his badge and dishonored his brother and sister officers" and "Good cops don’t like bad cops." And, if......

The Boston City Council wants to follow San Francisco's footsteps and ban plastic bags from the city. Robert Consalvo (Hyde Park / Roslindale / Mattapan) is pushing the measure, and nine of twelve city councilors have offered their support. We're all for protecting the environment, but the way Robert Consalvo describes those bags, you'd think we were being attacked by plastic bags: "They blow in trees, they're floating in Boston Harbor . . . They're......

--On Saturday, a 17-year-old in South Boston had a little house party for his friends when his aunt was out of town. That wouldn't be a huge problem were it not for the "numerous bottles of empty alcohol containers" spotted by the BPD. The officers called the aunt, who said that she did leave the 17-year-old in charge of her house, but that didn't give him the right to party it up. The BPD's headline......

--A bank robbery happened in West Roxbury yesterday, followed by a wild police chase in Dedham. A woman in her 20s did the usual routine of handing a note to a teller and getting some cash. But that's not the exciting part. As she left the Hyde Park Savings Bank, she hopped into a red mini-van (a mini-van as a getaway car?). A bold off-duty police office followed in hot pursuit. The officer got off......