Caught in Southie reports on last night's public-safety meeting in South Boston following the Lord murder, also reports that the illegal safe house where a woman was murdered last month will be shut at the end of August.
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Can't Detect...?
By Christopher
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 8:25am
...no Soup for you.
Here is the Problem
By SouthBostonYuppie
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 9:05am
"Stoughton home of Hall-Brewster"... The detective lives in Stoughton but is a Boston cop? He has no vested interest to keep our streets safe because he can always go home to Stoughton.
Hmmm...
By fairlee76
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 9:45am
I think the bigger issue is that the dude seems not to care too much about his job and appears to be a bit of a thug. But YMMV.
Problem
By anon²
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 10:19am
Living in Southie, that is a problem for some of the officers.
There's also the problem that you just don't see them patrolling the neighborhoods much.
Not sure if it's stretched thin staffing from the city, or just dereliction. But if you walk by C6 there's always a large number of cruisers just parked there. Southie is tiny and dense in city terms, but you never see a foot patrol either.
Last year there was an assault 2 blocks (these are tiny Southie blocks) from C6. The bank 4 blocks up was robbed. Both are crimes haven't been solved yet from what I've seen, and it begs the question how this type of stuff can go on a few blocks from the police station.
Like everywhere in the city, I think we need to just get boots on the ground. Police need to be more involved in the community than just being a cleanup service. Proactive policing works, and it doesn't mean stop and frisk. just being out there during the day in the community and getting to know people is enough.
Police staffing steady for 10 years now
By Stevil
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 12:21pm
Total police department numbers almost exactly the same as 10 years ago. A bit hard to count uniformed officers - but looks to be about the same (2000 +/- including detectives brass etc.).
The population is up about 10% - but the city is the same size geographically and I think crime is down depending on how you measure it, which crimes etc. - so workload probably similar.
Any officers want to weigh in? Are we understaffed?
Preventive patrol shown to make no difference
By O-FISH-L
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 1:17pm
I'm hearing all kinds of chatter about the need for more visible patrols. Although I enjoyed trying to hit every street in my sector, preventive patrol has been shown to make no difference, see the Kansas City experiment. I'm glad one of the anon commenters here joins me in raising the issue of Judges. At age 28, Edwin Alemany had 10 felony convictions, all punishable by imprisonment in state prison and all, including his 40+ other arraignments were brought before the court by police. He was still on the street. The Detective made a mistake last fall but what about the judges? Is anyone in the media looking into that, or just taking what is spoon fed to them, as usual?
Well
By anon²
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 1:49pm
There's your problem right there. I'm not talking about driving down a street, or sitting somewhere and waiting for a call.
I'm talking about getting on foot, and becoming involved deeply in the local communities you serve. Not only will criminals go elsewhere knowing that the cops are around and well liked by the neighbors (path of least resistance and all), but the police become part of the community instead of just responding to it. That combats the snitches BS.
If you're just driving around and responding to calls, there's a sort of detachment there. Unfortunately while city density makes it easier to do in theory, the number of calls they have to go on makes staffing for these type of initiatives a bit harder compared to rural areas it seems. you still need people in cars for quick response, but there needs to be some sort of balance.
Re: Well
By O-FISH-L
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 7:02pm
I agree with you, I'd love to see walking beats in every neighborhood staffed by officers who actually want to do that, I just think it's fiscally unrealistic. How many foot patrol officers would you need in Southie alone? Bicycles, assigned by district, might be slightly more realistic. My point was that in Kansas City, even when they saturated an area with marked police cars, the presence of the officers seemed to make no difference.
Sort of
By anon²
Wed, 07/31/2013 - 11:44am
Answered yourself.
If saturating an area with officers in patrol cars had little to no effect, let’s find out where we start seeing adverse effects rise and staff appropriately for that level. I’m sure some neighborhoods are overstaffed, and we could easily move units out of cars and onto bike/foot beats. You might even end up reducing the need for the former by the latter’s more close involvement with the community.
That said better policing is just one prong in dealing with this. It’s as much an economic and neighborhood culture problem, as one of police work.
Judges?
By anon
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 9:46am
What about the judges that keep letting violent thugs go with nothing but a slap on the wrist? I'm not defending this particular cop, but why would anyone want to risk their life trying to arrest armed thugs knowing they'll most likely be back in the streets in no time at all? Knowing this animal's track record, he would have either been out already or jumped his joke of a bail even if he did get arrested for the prior assault. Also, I'm pretty sure most of the bleeding heart judges who routinely let animals like him go don't live in Boston either. Things like this will keep happening until the revolving door justice system gets fixed, what good are the best hounds in the world when you have a hunter who refuses to shoot?
Why would anyone want to risk their life trying to arrest armed
By anon
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 10:12am
thugs? Because they get paid over $100k and its their job!
Sisyphusian condition
By anon
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 11:58am
Look it up.
That has nothing to do with this officer
By anon
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 1:07pm
LOOK HIM UP!
Same?
By anonymous coward
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 11:31am
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Glik_v._John_C...
2007 Glik case for illegal wiretapping.
Yes...
By fairlee76
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 11:58am
Hence my thug comment.
Glik
By anon
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 12:04pm
A sleazy ambulance-chasing lawyer provoking cops so he can have his payday in court, way to pick your role models.
Typo
By adamg
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 12:56pm
A guy who knows his constitutional rights and went to court to ensure Boston Police respect those, way to pick your role models.
HTH.
Blah
By anon
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 1:16pm
A radom passerby who interferes out of concern for well-being of the person being arrested would have had my utmost respect, but an ambulance chaser who acted like a prick in order to get himself arrested so he could sue? Give me a break!
PS: I see you're very anti-police, but who are you going to call when your house or car is getting broken into, or you find yourself staring down the barrel of a gun on some dark street corer? There's been lots of seedy activity in Roslindale lately, looks like the thugs you love to defend are moving into your 'hood.
Ooh, scary
By adamg
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 2:24pm
Listen, pal, after what my end of Roslindale went through a few years ago, I'm not scared.
And I greatly respect the police and the work they do - especially when they follow the Constitution to do it, as all good cops do.
Glik's wrongful arrest on Boston Common by BPD
By Anonymous
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 4:13pm
Glik's wrongful arrest on Boston Common by BPD cost him job opportunities which is a problem when you borrow money to pay for college and law school. No law firm will hire an attorney with pending criminal charges.
Glik spent about two years, first defending himself from the spurious charges filed by BPD and prosecuted by (Suffolk County DA Dan Conley?), and then suing the BPD and the individual officers for violating his Constitutional rights in Federal court.
We paid for BPD officers to wrongly arrested Glik, and we paid for his failed prosecution. We also paid for the defense who said BPD did not violate Glik's Constitutional rights.
But I don't mind because Glik set precedent in the First Circuit that ended an abusive use of wiretapping laws by police who didn't want the public to document their conduct on the job in public places, and abused their power to arrest and contortion of MA law to do so. The precedent has been cited in cases in Illinois and elsewhere. Thank you Simon Glik.
I really cant tell if the derp up-thread is a troll or a sincere and ignorant person.
Payday...
By fairlee76
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 1:17pm
Yeah, I bet he made out like a bandit! Pretty sure he was never an ambulance-chaser and positive he did not get rich off the case.
Chump change
By anon
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 1:45pm
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/boston-... - $50K in his pocket and about $million worth of free advertising. Not too shabby, if you ask me.
Yup...
By fairlee76
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 2:39pm
Not sure where you live. But $50K to go through that rigamarole counts as chump change in my book. It was over 4 years from the event to the settlement; guessing that the aggravation and time invested by Glik in pursuit of the settlement is more valuable than $50K.
Get an account
By Billy
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 6:22pm
or sign your post with a screen name.
I can't believe
By anon
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 12:32pm
Caught in Southie is even posting this news. Just like the realtors and real estate agencies in Southie, they want the Town to be spotlighted through rose colored glasses. Any bad press is bad for business. Bad for Caught in Southie and real estate in general who both cater and rely on the Yuppies.
Stop with the negativity and let them get on with their business.
And yet they did post it,
By joehp
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 1:15pm
and you shit on them as if they hadn't.
Townie logic?
By anon²
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 1:53pm
Nevermind. They'll just let their dog shit all over the sidewalk and throw their McD's trash in the gutter, cause that will get back at those damn yuppies!
We'll teach them for driving up the value of the houses!
oy
Blow-in
By anon
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 7:10pm
McDonalds in Charlestown?
On topic
By Billy
Tue, 07/30/2013 - 6:21pm
"illegal safe house" - sorry, but what does that mean? I haven't been following this story at all. Thanks.
"safe house where a woman was murdered last month"
By Ron Newman
Wed, 07/31/2013 - 8:41am
What definition of "safe" are you using here?
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