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No drugs or sex toys strewn around Colony apartment where dead man, live children were found, police say
By adamg on Thu, 06/22/2023 - 10:43pm
Boston Police tonight are painting a different picture of the conditions inside an apartment at 381 Old Colony Ave. in which they found a dead body Saturday morning than the one that had percolated in the local media and prompted condemnations by, among others, City Councilors Ed Flynn and Michael Flaherty.
Information that drugs and other concerning materials were strewn about the home is not supported by what officers encountered or by the information received on scene.
Police say officers responded to the apartment shortly after 11 a.m. after being called by adults there when they realized a friend had stopped breathing. The people who called were "fully cooperative" with the officers, police say.
There were four children on site who all had a parent present in the residence. The parents and the officers who responded felt it was best for the children to stay in another room with one of the parents and took steps to avoid having the children see the deceased. Due to the nature of the call, and to ensure appropriate follow up with the families involved, officers did file a 51A with DCF.
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Comments
So Flaherty and Flynn apologized, right?
Honestly, hope they get sued for libel.
Seeing that no names were released
What are the damages.
You should look up definition of libel.
Be Careful What You Wish For...
Discovery is a wonderful thing that doesn't always go the way you think it goes.
What motivation would the BFD and BPD people have to lie to Flaherty and Flynn? Why would they lie to their closest allies on the City Council?
Why?
Because they benefit from manufacturing crime panics like this one? Seems pretty obvious really that they have credulous allies with power and have no one holding them accountable for their lies. So, why would they not?
Look Under Your Bed
There are monsters!!
Your use of the word credulous shows your bias.
What consenting adults decide to do sexually behind closed doors is fine. When children are present, the game changes.
Get a real sign in and Adam, stop being so selective on when you post Anons. Thanks from the rest of us.
Yikes, John Boy!!! There are anons …
… under your bed!!!!!!!
Curious, what do you want re:anon posts?
Just trying to understand what you're on about here, thanks!
Selectivity By the Editors - Just like the Globe.
Adam has admitted in the past that he does not post a lot of Anon posts because he doesn't like what they say.
So you you want more posts with slurs/abuse/trolling?
Would you be upset about ableist comments getting posted here or would you just be selectively outraged about anti-Catholic comments?
There is nothing stopping
someone from registering for an account with a pseudonym that none of us could trace back to them. Those posts go up right away.
If someone wants to be heard on here, all they need to do is sign up for an account.
I don't think I've seen Adam claim he does not approve anon posts simply because he "doesn't like" what they say.
Don't forget Murphy. Nothing
Don't forget Murphy. Nothing like marching in a Pride parade and then the next week being suckered in by obvious transphobia.
Curious
That's super different than what the firefighters claimed... supposedly.
Right?
Not what I was told by someone who was there. It’s obvious Wu, developers and realtors got to the liberal media.
I suspect ...
This is the first time the Boston Police Department has ever been accused of being "liberal media "
That's... an entirely different picture.
The first one sounded vaguely like "drug and child trafficking/molestation party". This one sounds more like "someone died at a kid's birthday party".
It's pretty concerning that we're getting such *different* stories...
Yeah, the first version was
Yeah, the first version was much more salacious.
Sure was
Now I'm just standing here with the anti-woke mob holding our torches and pitchforks but we're not sure where to go next.
Third Rail Comes To The PJ's
The BPD press release sounds like it was run through a score of lawyers.
Kudos to Adam (and the Herald and that other Adam) for having the story earlier in the week. It seems like the "paper of record" in this town decided to sit on this as long as they could and put a small story up yesterday afternoon.
The Globe's story reads like it was written by someone who was covering a football game for the first time "Today 22 people moved a ball around a rectangular grass field with white stripes and numbers on it....."
Bad journalism
This is before a trial everything actually should be presented that way. Repeating police claims as fact when they are in fact legally just allegations is bad journalism. There is a very long history of the things police claim in the immediate aftermath of something being proven to be lies.
Also on a very basic having a story first but wrong is bad journalism waiting until you actually have the basic facts to publish should be the universal standard but it sadly isn’t. You cheering on those who act as stenographers for police officers without substantiating anything is just shameful and sad. What a low standard people set.
Doesn't this show the exact opposite of what you're claiming?
The Herald wrote up an article with what they were told and may have got the facts wrong, whereas the Globe was careful to only print what they could actually verify. Seems like a win for responsible journalism.
Yikes
So true! It’s also really gross how many people desperately wanted to turn this into a shocking headline about trans people or drag queens as depraved child abusers without any clear facts or story. Suddenly they’re SO concerned about making public housing safe too… as long as it fits an agenda.
A Fells Acres Reboot no less
As if Gerald Amirault was living in Southie doing drag
"Ladies and gentlemen, The Boston Herald!"
[Awkward silence.] "That's the joke."
Police
The same police force that tried to bury Wu’s accident. I can see Wu telling them to alter this police report too.
How was it covered up? She
How was it covered up? She acknowledged the crash and answered questions.
The Operator Of the Other Car....
Went to file a police report last week (Per WBZ) and was told "it was already filed and the case closed".
Appears a tad unusual to me.
You're a tad unusual to me
Link to that quote or piss off. As of 3 days ago, you surely read in the Herald about how it's still under investigation according to police officials...so it's not "case closed". I can find no quotes in any media from Ms. Pena about attempting to file a report and being denied.
from the globe
She can request a copy
She has not seen the report. I can understand why she would be anxious but there is no indication that she was found at fault. The mayor was honest about the fact that there was no emergency. The mayor's car can still be found at fault. If the report finds her at fault, she can appeal. She can file her report with the insurance company.
That’s screwed up. The law
That’s screwed up. The law says you have to file an accident report with the local police, the RMV, and your insurance company if there was more than $1000 in property damage, an injury, or a death. And the RMV can suspend your license if you don’t. It doesn’t say anything about not being able to file if the other driver or the police did it first.
Not seeing anything there
about the case being closed, which seems like a pretty important detail in John's claim?
It's okay. Death still sells
It's okay. Death still sells, and now they've added content to eek more stories out of it.
That's...
That's "eke".
I hope.
This press release doesn't
This press release doesn't say there were no drugs in the apartment only that they were not strewn around. And it doesn't say there were no sex toys only that they don't concern the press-release writer or their bosses.
you're DESPERATE to be
you're DESPERATE to be transphobic, we get it.
so you’re holding out hope, then?
let’s all pray some children were actually abused
/s
Well by that standard
anyone who has sex toys in their home cannot host playdates?
Because I would bet the majority of parents have sex stuff somewhere in their bedroom.
Pretty much every CVS/Walgreens/etc
stocks both drugs and sex toys, so I expect those to be declared off-limits to everyone under 18 any day now.
Sharper Image was sex toy
Sharper Image was sex toy store.
That seems like a pretty big difference to me
I'd argue there's a big difference in the situation between "sex toys in a bedroom drawer" or even "drugs kept locked away up high and out of sight of children" vs "strewn all around the apartment".
Aaaah...
We got a sheet-sniffer here!
Someone is lying
The question is why?
Not buying it
First responders go into all types of living conditions and usually do their job and leave. They have seen more unusual or suboptimal spaces for children than you can imagine and they hardly ever use the 51A**. For that captain to take the time out of his day to preform that task and for some of those responders to go out of their way to inform others in the community of what they saw- it was bad. So perhaps in the days post incident the adults present just got their stories straight. But hey, a bunch of men in wigs, with drugs, and sex toys, and a dead body, and a handful of children hiding in a back room is now normal. Nothing to see here. A lot of specific information for something that didn’t happen.
** per the firefighters I discussed this with
There is history here
There is a long history of police officers exaggerating and outright lying about public housing residents to justify their brutal treatment of them and to justify expanding their budgets to do more of it.
There is also a long history of reactionaries manufacturing queer boogie men based on flimsy pretenses that don’t stand up to any scrutiny and relying on basic prejudice to be enforced and believed.
Both of those are clearly at play here given the way people have jumped through incredible hoops to paint it the way you did. If first responders really believed that shit they would be charging them for whatever cross dressing sacrifice ritual you seem to be implying not telling random people who post those stories anonymously online.
You are a terrible person basically doing modern blood libel.
I think you've got things switched around
Anon is claiming that their *firefighter* friends don't lie, not that police officers don't lie.
And, in fact, firefighters are generally a lot better behaved than cops. I think that's a pretty uncontroversial statement to make. (Though there are obviously firefighters who are fuckups as well.)
or maybe
only a tiny portion of it was in some way true, and some homophobic/transphobic firefighters (there are plenty!) decided to exaggerate, and the Herald was only too happy to do the rest of the work for them.
Firefighters are not known
Firefighters are not known for lying about calls.
The firefighters did not
The firefighters did not investigate this incident. All of the firefighters that responded did not enter the building. Less of them entered the apartment. The fire department paramedics that were present did not move or transport the body.
Are you saying that villainizing trans people is unusual? That would be dishonest. I am sure that your firefighter friends enjoy telling you important secrets about Boston, and you are very naive.
FWIW
A few years ago I was in a facility where a small fire occurred. The BFD captain blamed it on smoking as he noticed coffee cups he said were being used as ash trays.
The insurance hired investigator spent days studying the site found there was no smoking and the cause was likely equipment failure.
BFD is good at a lot of things but I don't put faith in their analysis of things which aren't on fire.
Then the firefighters are shirking thier duties
Emergency responders are mandatory reporters and by law must report to DCF and file a 51A when they suspect child abuse or neglect.
It isn't something that they have to do only if they personally find things sufficiently horrifying to decide that it's worth the extreme effort above and beyond the call of their normal life-risking job to make a phone call and fill out a simple form.
https://www.mass.gov/how-to/report-child-abuse-or-neglect-as-a-mandated-...
(The linked mandated reporter guide on the page specifically lists firefighters and police as mandatory reporters)
Erin Murphy
Don't leave Erin Murphy out. She went on tv spreading lies about what happened there as part of her future mayoral campaign.
Who do you believe?
Who do you believe?
Firefighters?
Police officers?
?????
I believe firefighters every
I believe firefighters every time !!
DCF has taken all four kids away from their parents.
This is not a boat accident.
I fail to see what can be gained by minimizing the trauma of these poor children. Kids don’t get removed from a home just because an adult has an accidental death inside. There must be serious concerns regarding abuse and/or neglect in order for DCF to take this action.
spreading lies doesn't protect children
You are absolutely right that these children were at risk and need the protection of the state. Trans people are people. They have addictions and make mistakes. Telling the truth is not minimization.
I fail to see why any of this is news
The original BFD report was for shock value only. This is not a story the public needs to know. There's no indication anyone else at the apartment complex was at risk. It sounds like everyone followed correct procedure. (As in DCF was alerted and responded accordingly.)
This is a matter for DCF and possibly the police/DA if there's evidence of a crime. It need not be fodder for speculation or click bait type stories. Politicians don't need to weigh in.
I don't know, it sounds like
I don't know, it sounds like there are safeguarding lapses in the public housing system. Things don't get so bad that kids are taken from their parents at the first report unless they are BAD. Things don't get that BAD without other people having some knowledge of it, especially in tight quarters like public housing. What happened to see-something, say-something? Was anyone involve in BPH aware of this?
That is a matter for public concern.
Not accurate
An emergency removal means one DCF worker (not a forensic investigator, not a licensed clinician, not a team of professionals who know the family and work with them regularly in the community, not a judge) decided to walk out with someone's children and ask a judge to approve it a few days later.
The hearing for an emergency removal is one sided, and the parent is not permitted to provide evidence. Even so, 25% of them are sent right home at that hearing because the judges don't find reason to keep them even in the one-sided hearing where judges take the word of that DCF worker as fact.
When families are able to get attorneys to appeal DCF actions (either privately hired or some of the very few who do pro bono for 51B appeals), around 50% of abuse/neglect findings that are appealed are overturned. BTW, the DCF appeals are heard by a "hearing officer" who is an employee of DCF, yet still finds around 50% of them to be embarrassingly ridiculous. In the instances in which families are able to get representation and appeal these in court, they're overwhelmingly overturned (see Gilbert v. DCF https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8331967602518836611).
Wondering
Over the years I've read numerous posts knocking the police on Uhub. It's a very strong and constant theme here.
Now all of a sudden, the police are the ones who are used to back up what is looking like a cover up.
I doubt that the fire captain made up his report. Something very wrong was going on in that apartment. Children were present. If you ever seen the inside of one of these units, you'd know they're not that big. Those kids are victims of abuse. How much abuse is the question. The local media has done their best to either under report this or ignore it all together.
Which is worse?
Is the fire captain lying or making biased assumptions? The fire captain did not investigate the incident.
Turtle Boy, Again!
https://tbdailynews.com/boston-police-accuse-bfd-captain-jonathan-hernan...
Trust TB as far as you can throw him
Turtleboy is worse than a JAQ-off (Just Asking Questions) because he actually takes the absence of evidence and fits his own in there to build a story. It's sad that so many people eat his shit up because his game plan is so obvious.
Here's examples from your link, but the O'Keefe one is chock full of them too.
The police tweet says that it is "not supported" that there were drugs or sex toys "strewn about" and then TB posits that the cops' claim is that "There were no drugs or sex toys found in the apartment."
Those are two completely different statements. It is entirely possible for there to be drugs in the apartment, for someone to do them and for someone to die from doing them without them being "strewn about" the apartment. The deceased could have just as easily cut a couple of lines in the bathroom out of sight of the kids, put the remainder of the packet in his pocket, and then snorted it thinking it was coke and he died a bit later because it was cut with fentanyl.
Despite the analogy TB tries to draw, the police statement also does not state that the victim "died in his sleep" or that it was cardiac arrest, but he lays his argument out so that many readers will infer that it does.
As far as why they would file a 51A, even with zero drugs or sex toys present which is the level that TB seems to think is needed to warrant it, there are many reasons. If the apartment was filthy, if the kids didn't appear to have adequate clothing or otherwise appeared as though they were neglected or abused then as mandatory reporters any cop or fireman on the scene would be required by law to ensure there was a call to DCF and a 51A filed.
Seriously. Take a step back and look at what TB writes with a critical eye. He spouts unsupported shit and people are taking it as though he is an investigative journalist with an unblemished track record.
The talk about drugs, toys
The talk about drugs, toys and a party is per the firefighters which had first entry into the apartment. It was not made up out of thin air.
Just adding some clarification
The MA mandated reporter statute (chap 119 sec 51A) requires that mandated reporters file if they have knowledge that a child is experiencing abuse or neglect - generally defined by the feds and caselaw as action or inaction by a caregiver that has resulted or could likely result in severe lifelong harm.
DCF will take 51A reports on absolutely anything, including the frequently reported "just want to make sure the family follows up" from ERs and first responders who aren't even alleging any harm to the child. Mandated and non-mandated reporters are permitted to file any report other than "knowingly and willfully files a frivolous report." Most reports that are made are not substantiated for abuse or neglect even in MA which has a high reversal rate when families appeal decisions.
Insurers and attorneys for agencies tend to spread the false belief that mandated reporters are required to report all concerns, all red flags, and essentially are to use DCF as a sort of 311 for families who might need anything. This isn't in fact what the law requires, and overreporting does harm to the families who are investigated due largely to race and class, as well as the children suffering actual severe abuse who are harder to locate when DCF gets 90,000 reports per year, most of which are "just want to make sure the family follows up."
My current job in a community program makes me a mandated reporter. We are unique though in that we follow a liberation health and social justice model, and we get our mandated reporter training from ACLU-type attorneys rather than insurance-company-type attorneys. It is very much within the law to do what we do, which is to point families to resources if they are lacking clothing/food/shelter, not report them.
Another dubious claim. He
Another dubious claim. He posts BPS reports that are redacted and dispute his accusations. Then he posted some kind of typed folded memo that supposedly comes from the fire captain.
You mean
my bitch Turtleboy? No one owns that piece of shit like I do.
How?
What have you done to own turtleboy?
Exactly. Almost every media
Exactly. Almost every media outlet & website in this country has been knocking the police for years. Now, people are shocked that we are all more likely to believe a firefighter over a police officer. I also think some of the people in this comment section don’t realize BFD almost always shows up to these calls before the police get there.
Adam, I'd love to say that
Adam, I'd love to say that Howie Carr wrote a disgraceful column today, but he was only going with what we all thought we knew. Any insight into how such a false narrative got out there?
Oh for Christ’s sake
Why not ask the racist Carr himself? You know, grow a pair? Could you be any more useless of a maggot on the body of journalism who got his start working for a pimp like Mindich?
Did they also mention that
Did they also mention that some left turns on red are not concerning?
This is the opposite of the Jussie Smollett case
Some of the press knew his claim was fake but covered it like it happened, this case seems like some of the press knows something bad happened but they are covering it as if it was a simple heart attack.
My two cents.
my opinion of possible order of events:
trying to make sense of sumthing that makes no sense:
this is the most positive timeline likely... the other real possibility is that the yung kids were used and molested during the adult party. not investigating this very real and dangerous possibility seems irresponsible.
Probably not even that
As someone who routinely experiences transphobia and supports fellow trans folks at work, my experiences are making me think probably not.
I've explained this a few times, but Adam doesn't usually let my comments through.
There is definite transphobic bias here. The firefighters referred to people who "appeared to be men" rather than asking them their gender/pronouns and respecting what was shared. First responders absolutely never qualify their gendering of people, so this was the first transphobic dog whistle i.e. "you say you're male but I'm a transphobe so you aren't."
Transphobic folks will often refer to things like wigs, breast forms, binders, tucking garments, pride swag, preschool picture books on gender topics as "sex items."
I think it's more likely some trans people were socializing without anything sexual occurring.