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Man shot to death in Copley Square
By adamg on Fri, 08/23/2013 - 7:44am
Video by Kevin Wiles, Jr.
Kevin Wiles, Jr. reports the shooting happened around 11:10 p.m., Thursday, outside 552 Boylston St. - between Clarendon and Berkeley. The victim was taken away in critical condition. Officers reported hearing two or three shots.
Boston Police report this morning the victim died.
The suspect is described as black, 5'9" and wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt. He ran down Boylston onto Clarendon.
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Comments
Well, funny you should mention this..
A shooting in this city actually made the front page of Boston.com. I wonder why?
Two words
Hawaiian shirt.
Yup...
You beat me to it. I wonder what he thought as he put this oh-so-casual shirt on in the AM? "Well, this does match the blue steel of my gun. And I like to think of myself of as a relatively casual killer."
Definitely not the ideal choice for making his getaway, though.
I feel like a heel for making light of it...
Especially now that the guy's died, but it is a strange detail. Was he a Trader Joe's employee? A retiree? It's like saying "The suspects fled in a Subaru Forester."
Shirt
You're kidding, right? When there is a murderer on the loose, I want to know what kind of shirt they are wearing, the shirt color and also what kind of car they might be driving. Any and all details that might help to locate. Period.
That whooshing sound?
Was the point going over your head. Jeez louise...
the shirt
trader joe's employee
Um, steps away from the
Um, steps away from the Marathon finish line maybe? Duh.
No
Because it happened in an area that wasn't economically depressed and the victim likely wasn't in poverty. That's pretty much all that it takes to matter to the Globe.
And no, nothing to do with race.
Yeah, no. Probably because it
Yeah, no. Probably because it was in a hugely trafficked area with a large amount of tourists where shootings very rarely happen. A shooting in Times Square is likely to receive more coverage than a shooting in Brooklyn.
Same diff
GTW, "an area that wasn't economically depressed" == "where shootings very rarely happen". There's plenty of foot traffic in Dot. It's not an Arizona desert.
Yeah but it's still Copley
Yeah but it's still Copley Freakin Square which is like one of the half dozen places people go to first with no prior knowledge of the city when visiting.
Media is reporting the
Media is reporting the shooting with the 'proximity to the finish line' angle. News caters to a large suburbanite audience, who by now are certainly familiar with at least this one location in the city and it therefore makes it relevant to them.
I will bet that $1,000 Pete Nice owes me
That not a single reporter, editor or producer got to work this morning and thought "Oh, hey, let's play up the angle that'll attract suburban viewers!"
Trust me, reporters don't think that way. What they do think about is relating current stories to big past stories. So somebody quickly noted the location, remembered what happened in April, put 2 and 2 together and so we have stories that mention the Marathon even though I will throw in a couple bucks of my own money to be that this shooting has absolutely nothing at all to do with the Marathon, except the location.
I'm sure if you go back
I'm sure if you go back further you'll find other references to the finish line as a specific point of reference in Copley. It doesn't change.
Well, that was my point,
Well, that was my point, which I clearly failed to articulate: it's about the location. I wasn't attempting to imply that it had anything to do with the Marathon bombing other than the fact that everyone knows where the Marathon finish line is now because of the bombing. When I was watching the news coverage this morning, the Marathon finish line was mentioned in conjunction with this story. As a side note, I do think Boston media panders to suburbia, but that's just my impression based on their coverage. I don't have any data to back this up, it's just my personal impression and holds no validity.
Don't fret
Boston.com will focus exclusively on the gun angle and need for strict gun control laws, which of course we already have in this state. They'll basically ignore any other obvious angle[s] to the incident.
But for our movers and shakers, this is too close to home for comfort. Next they'll be drive by shoot outs on Beacon Hill, Harvard Square, Coolidge Corner, Newton Centre. It just won't do.
Or perhaps for strict gun
Or perhaps for strict gun control laws in other states from which gun runners frequently make huge volume straw purchases with very little scrutiny...transporting said guns over state lines to areas with strict laws but lucrative illegal markets? But of course, if it were easier to get a gun in this state, this wouldn't be a problem, right?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/nyregion/gun-sei...
@Finn
Finn,
Who commits the majority of gun related violence including especially murders in the town? In this state? In other cities? You know the answer. Why won't progressives [and I'm not a Republican, neocon, or even hardcore conservative] admit this FACT, and deal with it honestly? Is it fear? Is it a desire not to not be seen as being racist and not to anger a core progressive and Democratic party constituency, not to mention deviating from the approved party line and narrative? If we removed all guns except for police and military [an almost impossible thing to do BTW, and it would create an epic blackmarket for firearms that would rival prohibition of drugs] it would obviously lessen 'gun crime' and murders. Would it end the violence and attitudes that are the genesis of our savage and dysfunctional 'underclass' who are mostly responsible for the uber high levels of violence and 'gun crime' in certain so-called communities? No, it wouldn't. Now if we as a society dealt honestly and bluntly with the problems this savage subculture has on our society, that would be a gigantic leap forward.
Deal with the fact that most
Deal with the fact that most gun crime in the city is by largely African Americans and other minorities? I don't think I'm disputing that. That is clearly evident. Why do you think I do? Should I have said the primarily African-American lucrative illegal gun market? And I'm not talking about disarming legally-owning people in this state. All I'm saying that strict gun laws in one state are worthless as long as people can buy almost anything they want without question in an adjacent state, load it in their trunk and bring it to this state.
And making gun laws less restrictive in this state won't change that, (except inasmuch that it wouldn't be as necessary to travel great distances to get certain guns if they can get them here). What is the flaw in my argument, and what does it have to do with race, o great faceless anon?
Transporting a gun over Mass Ave
Reportedly, the victim lived in the "south end". I'm guessing that's likely on the opposite side of Mass Ave from the crime scene, and either the shooter or victim bicycled to Copley. So, that's the frightening news for lilly white Back Bay residents, though south end residents are far more used to getting mugged, bashed, and having their homes broken into by those on the other side of Mass Ave.
Well,you win the internets today!
That's easily the stupidest comment I've read today. Do you ever get out of Arlington?
No, he doesn't but we wish
No, he doesn't but we wish that he would. Permanently.
Sorry for not using the Hawaiian shirt angle
The shirt aspect is so much more introspective. Pardon me.
I love
Your attempt to loop an imaginary bicycle into the crime scene. You really are a one-trick pony.
why
because of the area it's not Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan that the real reason
Because it's newsworthy
As in, interesting enough to the general public to warrant reporting.
Sadly, this shooting meets the criteria above, while most shootings in Roxbury and Dorchester especially of young black men, do not.
You see this in the reporting, or lack thereof, of other matters as well:
The inner city homicides have become routine, and thus not newsworthy, to most news organizations and many of their patrons.
In all honesty, I truly hope for an end to or reduction of the violence taking young black male lives but I also find the Boylston St shooting more newworthy to me b/c I work nearby.
The victim in this shooting
The victim in this shooting was a young black man. Know your facts before making assumptions please.
I didn't assume the the victim wasn't young black male
My point was that shootings of young black males in Roxbury and Dorchester are not considered newsworthy. This shooting wasn't in that area and thus is deemed newsworthy. Just as children or women being shot in that area is deemed more newsworthy than when a young man is.
My bigger point is that it's troubling that the shootings that do fall into the pattern are now considered routine.
Because it didn't happen in Roxbury, Mattapan, or N. dorchester,
that's why.
Had the shooting in Copley Square taken place in any of the above-mentioned neighborhoods of the city of Boston, nobody would've twitched an eyelash.
Stop and frisk. Pay attention
Stop and frisk. Pay attention to NYCs gun violence stats after they stop the stop and frisk initiative. I know the idea of being stopped amd frisked by BPD at random is awful but this is the world we live in. Its not just for our safety but for the safety of the officers who are out there trying to get these guns of the street
This isn't New York
Boston's crime rate has been dropping for years and yet we don't have stop and frisk. And even with stop and frisk, people kept getting murdered in New York.
Adam
NYC's murder rate dipped in matter of a few short years from 2000 a year to under 500, now under 400. What caused such a transmogrification?
I'm no longer a New Yorker, so don't know
Boston's murder rate has dropped significantly since Tom Menino took office. What's the reason for that?
Gentrification
Boston's crime rate went down while Brockton, Lawrence, etc went through the roof - criminals didn't disappear, they simply got booted out of the city and moved elsewhere. Also, didn't Menino start right around the time crack epidemic was ending?
Check your stats, guys. I
Check your stats, guys. I recommend FBI's National Incident Reporting System or the Uniform Crime Reports (but only for homicides). The crime rate has gone down EVERYWHERE since the 1990s, not just Boston and New York (though Chicago is experiencing a recent uptick). There is a huge difference between perception and reality and that difference is created by the media who pick and choose what they report on. No long-term statistics will show you that we are living in a "deadlier" city. (The types of crimes do change though.)
That being said, one statistic that few people look at is non-deadly shootings, stabbings and/or assaults. The homicide rate is simply a function of how fatal the wound is, and thus at times be a function of how responsive and good the surrounding medical response is. In Boston we have so many hospitals available at the ready that a shooting or assault might be less likely to be fatal than elsewhere without the medical facilities nearby. And there's a good chance that in a public shooting in a city, either the victim or the assailant is running or moving somewhere, making it much harder to get an accurate fatal shot. Look at total assaults as a better indication of crime in the city. I also find the cluster maps of crime in the city to be a more realistic indication of how likely you are to be a victim of a violent crime. Whenever someone warns me about the crime rate or safety in a certain city I want to look at a map to see where it is clustering because it's likely to be highly concentrated in only a few areas.
Crime drops for hundreds of
Crime drops for hundreds of reasons that happen at the same time. Birth rates, abortion/adoption rates, gun sales, policing, non profit organizations, mentoring programs, the stock market.
http://freakonomics.com/books/freakonomics/chapter...
FYI it's the
FYI it's the lead...http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lea...
Yeah I subscribe to them, and
Yeah I subscribe to them, and that article in the spring was great. Crime rates can be attributed to numerous things.
Anytime you say
Anytime you say, "X is awful but this is the world we live in," you harm society. Thanks, loser.
Hey! you're right!
"Violent, systematic anal gang rape by hippopotami is awful, but this is the world we live in..." It works!!
People just won't be happy until we give up every personal freedom in the name of "security."
Have you ever been the victim of a violent crime
or personally know someone close to you who has been? Even murdered? We have this problem primarily because of an extremely violent and savage subculture that we keep on making excuses for?
Huh?
Savage subculture? Excuse-making?
Again...huh?
I know several people who have been raped,
and it left a huge, traumatic impact on them.
I once came close to possibly being raped/mugged, or possibly injured a number of years ago, while attending undergrad school on the Fenway, which was then (back in the 1970's), a very rough area, especially in the evening or nighttime hours.
As I often did, I'd stayed after school hours to work in the studio, and had gone into a small adjoining room inside the school to meditate, at around 6:30 in the evening. I was sitting there meditating with my eyes closed, doing my evening Transcendental Meditation session, when a man came up behind me, put his hand over my mouth, and warned, rather nastily: "Don't say a word! Do you understand?" I immediately screamed out "What the hell are you doing?", and the guy immediately bolted out of the room.
It was a rather unpleasant, somewhat frightening experience, but I learned a lesson from that, and no longer did my evening meditation sessions while I was in the school, at any time.
For suggesting that an
For suggesting that an initiative that has been put into action in one of the biggest cities in the world and has been proven to reduce gun violence deserves a closer look and maybe some consideration?
A police officer shot at in broad daylight in Dorchester or a man shot down at Copley Square are two incidents too many. All suggestions to stop such needless acts of gun violence should be considered.
Being that you have such a clear understanding of what makes society tick maybe you could throw in your two cents.
The Constitution is such a bitch
Poor Mike Bloomberg. First he can't tell people how much soda they can gulp at once, then some namby-pamby judge throws that stupid Constitution thing right in this face. And then some eggheads come along and say his unconstitutional policy probably doesn't work anyway.
Id like to know where you got
Id like to know where you got the idea that stop and frisk has been Provence to reduce violence because its certainly not from the evidence. NYCs crime rate began to drop well before stop and frisk began to be widely used and fluctuations in the crime rate have shown no correlation to the number of stops. For example in 2012 the murder rate continued to drop even as the NYPD conducted fewer stops than they had before. Furthermore stop and frisk is a tremendously inefficient way of finding contraband as less than 1% of stops results in guns being seized. This has lead some academic assessments of stop and frisk to argue that it actually increases the crime rate by diverting police resources from more effective measures and it alienated citizens who the cops have to rely on for help. Its beyond stupid to argue that stop and frisk is some great crimefighting tool or to act like NYCs drop in crime is entirely, or even primarily due to this one tactic. Bloomberg and Kelly are acting like stop and frisk is the only thing standing between NYC and Escape From New York not because of the evidence but for their own personal reasons. Bloomberg is a malignant narcisist who cant bear anyone questioning his orders. Kelly wants to move into the federal government and doesn't want to be labelled as a racist gestapo chief before hes nominated.
Can we take a virtual moment here?
Before we engage in the ritual flamewar, can we pause, just a second, to remember that somebody is dead here?
This is
In front of the same BK where an elderly man was beaten with a chair last month. Sadly, the dynamic of that stretch of Boylston changes drastically at night, and is often full of loud, sketchy people after dark. I've been, and seen others be, started down by groups of people while walking past the BK and Wendy's alone more than a few times. The 7-11 around the corner is also a hotspot for fights at night. Whether or not this was random violence, that area could use a bit more police presence in general.
Can't tell you how much BK
Can't tell you how much BK trash I see thrown into the flower beds near the Copley Square fountain, along with numerous nip bottles and beer cans. Sad.
How many
Dunkie's Iced Coffee plastic cups inside of styrofoam containers do you see in Copley?
Not much
actually!
A lot actually - also a lot
A lot actually - also a lot of Arizona Watermelon Iced Tea cans.
Is there a link
Between fast food and violence? Like that thing going around last week identifying the top five brands of beer associated with emergency room visits? I think three of them were Bud products and three were malt liquors.
Poverty.
Poverty.
My son, my grands daughters father
It grieves me to be going through this whole process. My son was the 117th shooting since the Boston Marathon Bombing, and the 15th murder since then. there is an epidemic going on in our community. I don't think this could happen anywhere else. Although there are so many advocates and clergy against violence murderers roam freely shooting in our community for some reason. We live in terror, our children live in terror and unfortunately my nightmare of receiving a phone call about my son has come true. We are valuable people, human beings and we need help with this epidemic and state of emergency, We need massive healing and recourse in our community.
https://www.facebook.com/pattimlee11
https://www.facebook.com/ahmir.lee.7
[email protected]
Patricia Lee