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Police say no fake ICE agents on the T
By adamg on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 9:44pm
Transit Police say a report on Facebook about fake ICE agents trying to shake down Hispanic T riders for their personal information was incorrect.
Transit Police say the report, originally reposted here, stemmed from a single incident in which an officer stopped somebody for an investigation into fare evasion.
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Comments
Impersonating law enforcement officers?
Sounds like a crime. Maybe Transit PD can check their cameras and ID these people.
That was my first thought too.
We read about MBTA police doing a great job on a regular basis locating individuals who commit assault, indecent exposure etc on the T. They should be able to ID the offenders in this case with little trouble.
They should review security footage and post the images ASAP so that they can be ID'd and apprehended.
Did anyone in the subway car
stand up for the people being harassed?
If they're fake, it's a serious crime. Call Transit Police or 911. If you're unsure whether they're legit, you can call to check.
It's a felony. Not something
It's a felony. Not something one should do in this state.
Jesus
Not a good time to be Hispanic, Thanks Trump..
eh
its fine if you're on the 'good' list of latin people.
im sure you'll be shocked to learn how much skin pigment and race makeup has to do with this over something like, oh, nation of origin.
Fake ICE officials stopping Latino T riders? Please.
Very hard to believe that between short stops, Hispanics riding the "red train" as the Mayor's liaison with the Latino community wrote, in Pidgin English, are being hassled. No statement from the ubiquitous MBTA spokesman? With law enforcement being recorded on cell phone video daily, is there any evidence of someone claiming to be ICE approaching a Latino or Latina on a train and asking for their papers or is this more fake news? Surely with all the nonsense photographed and videoed on the T, some passenger/witness must have some evidence. Police reports? Train station or between stops where this occurred? Suspect description? The 5 W's of a police report? Who, what, where, when, why? Too incredible to be believed.
You're complaining about the
You're complaining about the "pidgin English" of a machine translation of what a mayor's neighborhood liaison posted in Spanish, to warn Latinos about this scam. It's good to know you're equally stupid as you are ignorant.
Don't mind him
Fish is a living, breathing alternative fact.
alternative fact
i've been captivated by this concept since i was about 10 or so.
of course, until recently, it was mainly brought up as the differences between facts & truth
i prefer to look at it from that angle still
I didn't know of a "machine translation" from Mayor's Office
I apologize. I didn't know the City of Boston had a (very poor) "machine translation" of English to Spanish under Mayor Walsh. I would rather the city hire a "human translator" whose sentences make sense. BPD has terrific Spanish speaking officers sent all over the city every day and night to interpret. BPD Sgt. Arthur McCarthy (Retired) married a lovely Spanish speaking woman, learned the language and taught us the basics. He actually had cassette tapes, in those days, ahead of his time.
Even in the early 1980's, channel 4 had reporter Pablo Correa follow the regular Sunday news with his half-hour "Spanish News." Channel 5 had Jorge Queroga for 40 years. In 2017, Walsh relies on a weak, computer translation? Regardless, I would love to hear from the T's Police Chief (African-American) and spokesman (another one hired from the media pool) tell us about these incidents of Latinos/Latinas being shaken down on the "red train." Odd that T info is coming from a "machine translation" from City Hall, which has nothing to do with the T.
Dude...
......she typed the post in Spanish on Facebook. Facebook then did the translation.
Omg stop
It's Facebook that autotranslated the liaison's post from Spanish. Your continuing attempts to disparage someone for what Internet services rountinely provide is hurting my brain.
No, no, don't stop!
This is becoming the most hilarious thing I've read all day! He's reached the point of Old Man Yells At Cloud. I'd like to see how far he takes it!
LOL
And it's...
And it's placebo day for you...
I am all for cracking down on
I am all for cracking down on scams but I too cannot trust a Facebook or uhub post that is backed up by zero facts. This story is from left field and no surprise it popped up on this site. I like your site Adam but do think you have gone wild with your posts that are pure hearsay. Maybe it's real or maybe it's fake. Put the jump to conclusions map aside...
Zero or alternative facts?
But you "trust" the "facts" that are constantly being broadcast by your party's Federal "officials"? Got it. Thanks for the clarification.
Don't stop there, bro
You only made it to step 2 in the post-truth hierarchy. I had confidence you could get us to at least step 4:
1. No, this didn't happen, I demand proof
2. OK, you gave me proof, but your proof is inadequate, because it wasn't on Breitbart or Matlock
3. OK, maybe it happened, but here are 3 cherry-picked examples of vaguely-leftist people doing something sort of similar
4. OK, this case was way worse than what I was talking about, but it didn't actually hurt anyone
5. OK, it hurt these [5/100/500,000] people, but they aren't real people anyway.
6. OK, I grudgingly concede that they are real people, but YOU'RE not a real person, because argrabarbl-trump-make-america-great-again.
lol Matlock. +1 internet for
lol Matlock. +1 internet for you for nailing the demographic.
See Above
Impersonating law enforcement is a crime.
Now go back to your SSN numerology.
Mayor's liaison with the Latino community can't speak Spanish?
Why does the Mayor's liaison with the Latino community rely on Mark Zuckerberg and staff to translate English to Spanish? Hundreds of great Boston cops and other Boston civil servants could write the message in Spanish without the help of Facebook. Can't wait for the Transit Police reports on when and where the(se) incidents happened. Very skeptical.
I don't know
Why don't you call them up and ask them? You can get someone now, 311 is open 24/7.
Did you just go full Saklad?
You never go full Saklad.
Wait, which is it?
First, you accuse her of writing in "Pidgin English"
Then we point out that she typed it in Spanish and Facebook translated it to English, and suddenly she somehow can't speak Spanish? That makes 0 sense. Your rant just flip-flopped.
I'd say quit while you're ahead, but...yeah.
Como se dice "derp?"
The original:
I dunno, the punctuation seems a little irregular to me. Might be a conspiracy.
Fishy, you should totally go protest this. Bring your arsenal, and scream a lot.
I dunno, maybe
because the community she was addressing is latino and speak Spanish so it wasn't deemed necessary to translate it to English because the whole point of her being there was to be a LIASON to the SPANISH community? So, if it's translated it's by default for someone elses benefit and look a cloud!
You may get out your tomatoes now
Transit Police looked into the report and found no merit, because, they say, it was based on a single incident involving a fare-evasion case.
Needless to say, I've updated the original post.
Thanks for the update Adam
I still applaud you for the original story, and the way you went about it.
Fake NEWS!!!!!
Or just Vanilla ICE fake?
the Latino rumor mill...
...is the worst. Everybody loves a crisis because it means you can blow off your workplans, your obligations and whatnot and just run around waving your arms trying to collect information and prepare some sort of "impactful response." You can also be THE FIRST ONE to post about what you heard from a cousin's friend's neighbor's kid's babysitter's boyfriend's proctologist who said that they saw someone who looked like a cop on the bus talking to a Latino guy.
The sad part is this crap has legs because people are so genuinely freaked out in the immigrant community -- both undocumented and documented. Everyone's waiting for the knock on the door and see their fathers, husbands, mothers or whoever dragged off for deportation.
Can we now stop treating Facebook information as
though it has inherent credibility?
(By "we", I mean both larger society, and 'you' Adam in particular. ;-)
Facebook is one of the two big reasons everyone is so disconnected from reality here in our current condition. It was never anything but a damn toy to begin with, but now it has evolved into a corrosive, dangerous toy.
Sure
What made this one different for me was the person's job at City Hall. Given the way City Hall has reacted to recent events, though, yes, I should've waited (or asked about) an announcement from somebody higher up.
Facebook information
in itself shouldn't determine credibility, as much as the individual source. As Adam noted above, there was a reasonable assumption of credibility in this case. Facebook was just the platform that person used to share the information.