Boston panhandlers proudly uphold the city's reputation for being as direct as possible--sometimes too direct and so direct that it merits a trip to jail. The Globe did a story on how the police have been dispersing the panhandlers and "squeegee men" at Mass Ave and Melnea Cass. But do they really have to take their squeegee supplies? The BPD took the stuff one guy used, along with a backpack and clothes, which seems......

The recent spate of shootings in Boston has citizens nervous about safety, and none has shaken the community like the daylight killing of Luis Troncoso, a 20-year-old Dorchester father of two who was shot in the head while playing basketball in a quiet Jamaica Plain park. Yesterday, Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis toured JP's Centre Street in an effort to reassure business owners and citizens that increased police foot patrols will curb the violence. "We......

Applications to the police academy will likely rise after the Globe reported today on the highest salaries from the city's payroll. Maybe Mayor Tom Menino, in his role as chief executive of the city government, can pull some strings and become a Boston police officer, who averaged $52,000 last year in overtime wages alone. Menino, at $175,000, was the 109th highest paid city employee last year, behind 107 police officers and one firefighter. Captain......

--Two people were killed in a brutal murder-suicide in New Bedford yesterday. A man stabbed a woman with a steak knife before stabbing himself to death. The man also went after the woman's roommates, stabbing one and biting another. [Boston Globe] --Che Sosa, a convicted rapist who is notorious for attacking his own defense attorney in the courtroom with a knife, returned to court yesterday. This time, he was accompanied by well-armed and well-covered guards......

A New England Patriots fan told Joe Fitzgerald at the Herald that some overzealous Pats fans beat up him, his friend, and his cousins, who happened to be Jaguars fans and who were wearing Jaguar gear, after the Pats-Jaguars game. Brian Wormstead recounts the appalling pummeling he received in the parking lot after a brief exchange with the Pats fans: "I just know I’ve got a punctured eardrum and lumps all over me; Chris has......

4. Feel It Calling in the Air Tonight. A Phil Collins fan in the South End was really feeling the music. He could feel it, "calling in the air," so to speak, and he played it loud. Even worse, his neighbors told the BPD that it was "like this every night." He was arrested because he wasn't going to turn down that Phil Collins without a fight. Even though weirder crimes exist in this countdown,......

Bostonist is looking back on the year in weird, silly, or just plain creative crimes. Yesterday, you met some pugnacious bowlers, but you haven't seen anything until you meet a certain postal employee, overeager college students, and an exceptionally creative gravedigger. 7. Going Postal. A postal worker didn’t honor her profession when she nearly hit a detail officer. Police realized why. She was driving while on the cell phone and "with a cigarette in one......

--In Lancaster, an 18-year-old died last night after her Jeep was hit by a tractor-trailer. WBZ reports that the driver of the tractor-trailer fled the scene of the accident. Here's the description of the tractor-trailer: "A light red tractor, towing a white trailer, equipped with many lights. Police think because of the crash, there could be damage to the driver side, most likely in the middle or the rear. --Someone stole money from the Harvard-Epworth......

--We're not sure if this qualifies as Blotter or accident. Whatever it is, it's terrible. Police in Lawrence are trying to find out if a woman was killed by a snow plow. WBZ reports that two people found a body by the side of Route 114 on Sunday. The snow plow theory emerged because the body was near plowed snow. Police haven't found witnesses. --Gia Nagy, the 17-year-old arrested as an accessory in the murder......

--Were there enough police out to handle traffic in the major intersections during Thursday's snowstorm? [Blue Mass Group] --Mike Mennonno has a message for those who complained about how the city handled the snow storm: "… why didn't you avoid all this frustration by just seeking out alternative transportation for the day? Yes, you would have had other frustrations to deal with, but they would have been fairly minor in comparison to five or six......

--Police arrested another person who was allegedly involved in the murder of Revere police officer Daniel Talbot in September. WBZ reports that 17-year-old Gia Nagy was charged with being an Accessory to Murder After the Fact. --The Brookline TAB announced that the Brookline PD will hold a community meeting about the rise of sexual assaults in the area on Thursday, December 20, at 7:30 pm, at the station on 350 Washington. The meeting will be......

Ahhh … BPD News is back. However, somebody hit "Publish" a few times, and the "Daily Incidents for Wednesday, December 12" appears several times. No matter, welcome back! And how could we resist a headline like "Do You Want to Tell the Police This?" A man marched into Roxbury B-2 on Wednesday night to tell police that he took a ride in an illegal cab. While in the cab, he and a friend decided to......

--Police at Dorchester District Court released the wrong man, according to the Dorchester Reporter. The Reporter is very kind to the officers involved: "In a rare but potentially embarrassing gaffe, officers at Dorchester District Court this week appeared to release the wrong man, allowing him to waltz out of the courthouse and bolt down Washington Street, as confusion reigned inside." The reporter, Gintautas Dumcius, later notes that "The court officers glumly walked back to the......

--Police have arrested a man for attacking a woman as the left the Brookline Village T stop early yesterday morning. The victim identified 23-year-old Samuel Prado as her attacker. The Herald reports that a State Police dispatcher made a connection when Prado was caught "acting aggressively" at Logan Airport. --A woman and her two children were found dead yesterday in Springfield. According to the Herald, Juan Mejia, 32, of Springfield, the dead woman's husband, was......

--The following falls more in the "Don't Panic" category instead of the "Blotter" category. If you stuck a TV set on top of a light pole at the corner of Main Street and Bishop Allen in Cambridge this morning, the Cambridge Police Department would like to have a word with you. You caused quite the freak-out. [Cambridge Chronicle] --The Christmas tree at the State House is covered blue light-emitting diodes," which conserve energy. However, the......

A 25-year-old woman was nearly raped after leaving a Green Line train from the Brookline Village stop early this morning. She told police that the man followed her from Government Center to Brookline Village and attacked her on Cypress Street. When he attacked, she managed to get away and run home. Brookline police have released a description of the man. From the Globe: A Hispanic man, possibly of Mexican descent, who is about 5 feet......

--The BPD arrested two people in the South End for Unlawful Possession of a Firearm. The gun wouldn't have been discovered if it hadn't accidentally gone off in the bathroom. The Herald reported that the woman who was arrested was the mother of Dontel Jeffers, the child who died at the hands of his foster mother, who was recently sentenced for the crime. Laurel Sweet writes, "Crystal Claiborn [Jeffers' mother] claimed that while aiming the......

--Handheld red laser beams can be a lot of fun, but a guy from Medford with a laser beam caused a ruckus on Saturday night when he pointed his beam at a State Police helicopter. The State Police swiftly summoned themselves, the Coast Guard, the Medford Police Department, and the Somerville Police Department to find the person. The feds are investigating. --The man who is accused of being the "Green Line Groper" has pled not......

--King Downing, the ACLU coordinator for the Campaign Against Racial Profiling, won his case against the Massachusetts Port Authority and the State Police. He sued because he felt that he was illegally detained at Logan Airport in 2003, and a jury agreed with him. [Boston Herald, WCVB] --City officials in Everett plan to develop an emergency plan to improve response to disasters following last week's tanker explosion. [WBZ] --The Boston Society of Film Critics gathered......

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryant Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said,......

--The Blotter usually focuses on how people get to jail, but not what happens to people when they get there. The Globe has launched a series about an outbreak of prison suicides, and the authors conclude that the suicides may be the result of "careless errors and dangerous decisions by correction officials and staff at UMass Correctional Health." Why is it important to think about what happens to criminals' mental health in prison? Because most......

But before they went back up, whoever writes the blotter wasn't getting a little sick of having to do so many test posts. Commenter Middleman gave us a heads up that something was brewing over at BPDNews.com. Somebody on the BPD end is getting frustrated: "TEST BY IRATE ACCOUNT MANAGER." Middleman responds, "HILARIOUSNESS IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA." --Good news. The Green Line Groper has been arrested. The Herald reports that the 60-year-old suspect......

--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.......

The guy who drove the tanker truck that exploded in Everett is officially Blotter material. Not only did Chad LaFrance have some driving trouble on his record, but he admitted to issuing a bomb threat in 1997. The Globe quoted what he wrote on a package at a UPS store where he used to work: "Tick. Tick.Tick. The time is running out. UPS Sucks. Danger. Explosive illegal bombs enclosed. Watch handling." His aunt called it......

--BPD News was still down the last time we checked. We feel adrift. But we saw a few entries on Wicked Local … --Police arrested individuals involved in a "cutting party" in Sudbury on Tuesday. Norman Miller of the MetroWest Daily News described the incident as "booze-fueled." The cutting also enters a gray legal area because the cutting may have been consensual. The lawyer said that Sarah Handy, 23, cut Meagan Hauff, 21, both of......

If you see something, say something! Especially if it's a middle-aged man with white hair and a long beige coat packing a newspaper and an exposed pee-pee. For the past several months, a man fitting the above description above has been getting grabby and flashy with high school students on the Green "E" Line between Brigham Circle and Government Center. Oh, man -- skeee-eee-eeeve. If you have any info about the Green Line Groper......

The more we hear about Leeland Eisenberg, the disturbed man who took hostages at Hillary Clinton's campaign quarters in Rochester, NH, the more amazing it is that a) he wasn't already in jail and b) that he wasn't able to get help sooner. In an interview with the AP, Eisenberg said he wished the police had killed him. He also told the AP how he came up with the idea: "I'd see things on TV......

--An 18-month-old baby girl from East Somerville was kidnapped, allegedly by her own aunt. WBZ reports that Somerville police found the baby today. Four people were arrested in the kidnapping of Hayden Augustin-Laurent, and one of them was her aunt, Ketia Valmont. Two detectives were hurt because one of those arrested went after them with a baseball bat. Auditi Guha at the Somerville Journal reports that the kidnapping may have resulted from a fight over......

--Framingham Police had to deal with a perp so drunk and unruly on Sunday that they had to hold his head still when they snapped him for his mugshot. According to the MetroWest Daily News, Sandro Romero's wild night started when police happened upon Romero's friends, who were trying to take him home. Even though they got him home, the officer involved got called back due to reports of a "screaming man." While being booked,......

--Deval Patrick boosted the payroll for his own staff by $1.1 million. The Herald is not amused. [Boston Herald] --Speaking of not being amused, Outraged Liberal is appropriately outraged at the Herald for some fuzzy math regarding the news bit mentioned above. [Massachusetts Liberal] --King Downing, an official with the ACLU who specializes in fighting racial profiling, suing the Massachusetts Port Authority and the Massachusetts State Police. He was hassled while leaving the airport, and......