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Boston murders in 2018
By adamg on Thu, 12/27/2018 - 11:54am
Boxes represent victims for whom we don't have photos.
As of Dec. 27, 56 people have been murdered in Boston in 2018 - the same as last year. Victims have ranged in age from 17 to 77.
Some were victims of gang violence. Some were innocent bystanders caught in gunfire they had nothing to do with. One man was shot to death after a traffic incident while he was trying to deliver a washer and dryer, another, police say, was shot by a man acquitted of murder five years earlier.
Most were shot, some stabbed, one bludgeoned to death. All left family members and friends.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
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Comments
New women in City Hall use
New women in City Hall use your power to stop the gun violence! Now that we have a voice maybe we'll see change!
Rest in Peace
To our 57 neighbors, students, family and friends-
You will be remembered, your lives will not have been lost in vain. We keep the fire lit for you.
Handguns are made for killin'
They ain't no good for nothing else
And if you like to drink your whiskey
You might even shoot yourself
So why don't we dump 'em people
To the bottom of the sea
Before some old fool come around here
Wanna shoot either you or me
Problem with dumping all the
Problem with dumping all the weapons in the world to the bottom of the sea is that the criminals that were using them still walk among you. Cain didn't need a gun to murder Abel nor were all of Boston's murder this year committed using firearms.
It would really help if the judges in this state could be bothered to keep violent repeat offenders locked up. Something they don't seem inclined to do.
You could interpret it as a
You could interpret it as a call to dump the "bad guys" at the bottom of the sea.
Which is probably a metaphor for "mental health care."
Which would be a metaphor for "institutionalization" if we had a health care system that could afford it. But the GOP won't fund health care, not when they can profit off private prisons instead.
So, uh, thoughts and prayers?
Murder
Even if we knew the fable of Caine were true, it's irrelevant since guns were not available at the time. The more guns are available and the more we promote carrying a gun as an acceptable way to settle things the more gun violence will proliferate. Sure we can kill with stones but victims have a better chance of defense and survival. Cowards carry guns. Starting with those who wear a badge and think it's a license to kill. They reach for a gun before deescalation, before a Billy club, mace or tazor even in the case of a man in a wheelchair holding a screwdriver.
Furthermore this article doesn't define the accused as being a violent re-offender. And it's well established punishment and our judicial system are not effective so when are we going to stop throwing money away on prisons instead investing in prevention... Early intervention (0-5),substance use prevention, addiction treatment, emotional health, & conflict resolution. Let's all start by promoting ☮️
I don't know about you but I
I don't know about you but I'd way rather face off against some asshole trying to kill me with a rock than with a gun. Gun control won't stop jerks being jerks, but it makes their job a lot more difficult.
lay off the Whiskey...
Time to lay off the Whiskey Will,
just a small, but helpful tip.
Go toss your own in the sea,
I'll be keeping mine on my hip.
Could you GTO explain something to me?
Apparently, I'm like just a bubbly brunette suburban girl with a house in the burbs who is charge of something I barely understand.
Why does Brookline have a population of about 60,000
https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?hspart=imt&hsimp=yhs-brwsrex&type=wj...
with no reported murders in the last 10 years?
http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Brookline-Massachusetts.html
What gives? If numbers were like equalivant to Boston, we would have like 6 or 8 murders a year.
#seriously?
What are you trying to get at?
Understood that brookline is a good example of a safe town that is in the middle of the city, but many places in boston have nearly zero or zero murders this year. Like many major metro areas, boston has some neighborhoods that have struggled with gang and drug crime for decades and continue to struggle today. brookline has very little if any gang activity. That is what is going on and will continue to go on most likely for another decade or more.
decide for yourself
https://www.brooklinema.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1430/Income-Below-Povert...
https://www.brooklinema.gov/710/Demographics
https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2017/10/10/shiinventory_0.pdf
Take a look at the maphttps:/
Take a look at the map
https://www.universalhub.com/crime/murder/2018
There are neighborhoods as big as Brookline without a single murder.
What would be interesting? What is the comparison of neighborhoods with similar household incomes in Cambridge, Brookline, Boston, Everett, Lowell, Lawrence, Fall River, New Bedford, Providence, Central Falls, Nashua, Manchester etc. What are the crime rates of not just murder but other violent crimes and property crimes.
Carnage on people of color
One of the first things that I noticed is that all of the photos are of people of color, African-American or Hispanic. No Asians and no Caucasians. And nearly all are of young men. I am saddened by those apparent stark observations.
It is difficult for me to fully understand what the impact of this carnage is on their families and our community. I am sure that some were innocents that unfortunately were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and some were neck-deep in crime, with many others somewhere in between. As a Caucasian that has never had to confront this kind of violence, I don't know what can be done to address it. As a community, we can't let this carnage continue.
It’s hard
It’s so hard to get a hold of everything that happened in these neighborhoods. I live smack in the middle of it my kids go to school in the middle of it as well, my fear as a mom of a boy mainly is that he won’t make it home even my daughter. No matter how many rallies it seems to just be getting worst. Breaks my heart to keep seeing my neighbors loosing they children. #stoptheviolence
Mmmmmm
Not to be critical of your empathy towards the murders in our city. However, in reading your empathetic words; I couldn't help but to recognize a couple of incorrect statements made by you.
One incorrect statement was there were no females murder. In fact according to the information above there were females murdered. Maybe it's just me but in my book I include all Non-European descendant people as people of color. In My book, Asian are are considered people of color.
If you or anyone else are truly empathetic and you want a better understanding of the impact of violence victims and survivors or would I to help change this in our community contact Mothers for Justice and Equality or MJE at 617-516-8086 located at 2201 Washington Street Boston Mass 02119 or you can contact the Louis D Brown Institute at 617-825-1917 15 Christopher Street Dorchester Mass 02122 I challenge your empathetic feelings, unless you move feelings into action, you will always just have emphathy.
And to everyone as far as saying, an innocent victim was at the wrong place at the wrong time is horribly, incorrect faked, insensitive, and wrong to say. It should be never spoken. The criminal who caused harm is at the wrong place at the wrong time, so stop saying that fucking phase, knock it off.
One thing certainly people of color do not do is Give Up, your final paragraph speaks towards defeatism. we will never give up hope and faith that things will change for the better; I hope that you can do it also
Just my opinion.
Response to Anthony
Anthony,
If you're going to weigh in here with your opinion, try to do a better job understanding what someone one else actually wrote. To repeat myself:
"One of the first things that I noticed is that all of the photos are of people of color, African-American or Hispanic. No Asians and no Caucasians. And nearly all are of young men. I am saddened by those apparent stark observations."
No where did I state that no women were killed - "nearly all are of young men" seems to leave room for the few women and seemingly older men that were also killed. Nor did I ever state that Asians were not people of color. Rather I emphasized that all the photos seemed to be people of African-American or Hispanic descent AND that no Asians or Caucasians were among the photos. That's quite different from what you described in your response. If you want to have a discussion, let's start by not distorting what someone else wrote.
Nor did I state that people of color should or have given up. But as someone who does not live in the neighborhoods affected by these murders, I am dismayed and concerned that the carnage is happening but I don't see what I can do to reduce it beyond encouraging others to take action. You might see it differently. But any suggestion you might offer gets lost in the wrongful assumptions that you've made.
Anthony,
I'm of mixed Euro descent (probably Eurasian going way back), and am a Person of Color. i'm not translucent. Maybe the silly term Person of Color should be tossed out?
Thanks for posting the pics of the victims!
Thank you, Adam, for posting most of the pics of victims of murder in Boston. Having grown up btwn Codman Square and Lower Mills I witnessed the area transform in the 70s from being safe to being unsafe due to violent crime. One needs to live by economic necessity in these violent neighborhoods to understand the mentality of residents, their fear of retaliation for reporting violent crime, and being told by police after reporting being mugged "why do you live here". In my family alone my mother was attacked and beaten by 2 men walking from Ashmont, my grandmother mugged, my cousin's grandmother mugged, a neighbor stabbed in an attack etc. The fear of becoming a victim made me constantly alert to my surroundings and understanding I was limited where I could walk safely. I could not walk to the left of my house because that area was unsafe. I could not walk side streets from Ashmont because it was too dangerous. The Civic Association was active, but even with a police presence, it could not prevent street crime continuing as soon as the cops left! A writer who compared Brookline to these areas grew up in economic privilege, which usually means a crime-free neighborhood. Due to the possibility of street crime, I grew to hate living in Dorchester, and as an adult when I return for visits I instantly go back into alert mode.
What was the closure rate by BPD on homicides in 2018?
I wonder what the closure rate was on the near 60 murders this year, almost all of which are young men of color. I could only find the 2017 rate which looks to be 57%. For a comparison to a similar sized city in the Northeast, Baltimore had 304 murders thus far in 2018 and their closure rate was 27%.
Different cities have different "closure" rates.
In California, often times the police will tell the DA that they have probable cause to arrest someone for a crime (murder). The DA will tell them they don't have enough to prosecute, so no arrest is made, but the police will still "clear" the homicide on the books.
It isn't an exact science. Do you clear a homicide if an arrest is made? A conviction? An indictment? What happens if a witness decides not to show up to court at the last minute and the judge throws out the whole thing, is it cleared then?
I will say that a lot of Boston murders are nighttime outdoor shootings with no leads, and those should always be classified as "open cases".
144 cops nation wide
Sad how you excluded that front page story of cops murdered this year
And how many in Boston?
I mean, that's 144 nationwide. Not to diminish their deaths, but this about Boston.
Oh, we're bringing up national news now?
Because I could bring up lots of national news that has absolutely nothing directly to do with Boston, which is what this site is about.
Not to disrespect the memory of a police officer anywhere, but somehow you managed to find out about that story without any help from me. As far as I know, nobody else has yet to publish a list of people in Boston, which is what this site is about, who were murdered this year.
UHub annoys you. You love the Herald. The Herald recently redesigned its Web site, and it's pretty good, way better than their previous attempts. I think you know what to do. I won't mind a bit and you'll be able to find way more like minded people to harrumph about stuff with.
Really
I'm pretty sure I've seen stories on uhub not involving boston only.
So get off your high horse.
I like to be fully informed so I'll deal with it.
I gotta disagree
Adam might go through all sorts of written gymnastics to get a local angle on a national story, but he pulls if off.
Still waiting for the count of Boston cops killed in the line of duty this year. I bet it's a nice round number (thank God.)
Yet you wrote a story about a
Yet you wrote a story about a burger place closing in North Carolina.
Indeed I did.
A burger place that is owned by people from Boston, some of whom continue to make movies based in Boston and some of whom still live in the area. Yeah, I admit it, I'm parochial that way.
20 million brain cells
Inside your head. All dead last year.
Meanwhile, cops don't even make the list of top ten deadliest jobs, and most of those who die on the job die from roadway crashes.
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/top-10-deadliest-jobs/1/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/07/12/are-most-...
http://www.nleomf.org/assets/pdfs/nhtsa/2015-EOY-NHTSA-Report.pdf
"The data show that firearms
"The data show that firearms-related fatalities are up 13 percent year over year, replacing traffic-related deaths, which had been the leading cause of death for the last 20 years. The shootings happened most often while officers were trying to arrest someone, such as in Gannon’s case. Handguns were the leading type of gun used against cops this year, accounting for 31 deaths. Four officers were disarmed and shot with their own weapon, including Chesna, the report states" from the herald this week.
20 years versus one year
Do the math.
Not named?
Adam, do you have any insight into why some victims aren't named?
Good question
I don't know. Sometimes BPD is very quick to release the names of victims and sometimes, well, not.
Thank you
Thank you Adam, for sharing their names and photos. They are so much more than a statistic to the friends, relatives, neighbors, and coworkers who knew and loved them.
Unfortunately my brother was
Unfortunately my brother was the 54th Homicide this year my family is deeply saddened by this cowards are running around Boston killling I will not let this rest.