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Holocaust Memorial suspect held after bail on unrelated case is revoked; city has spare panel for replacement

Glass at the Holocaust Memorial

Photo by Jake Wark.

James Isaac, 21, was ordered held in lieu of $750 cash bail at his arraignment today on charges he smashed one of the panels at the Holocaust Memorial with a rock, but will be held in jail for at least two months because the Boston Municipal Court judge revoked his bail on an earlier assault-and-battery case out of Chelsea District Court, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

The Globe reports his attorney said he is suffering from "a host of mental issues."

According to the DA's office:

[Assistant District Attorney Anthony] Rizzo told the court that a man later identified as Isaac became involved in a verbal altercation with a group of individuals on Union Street shortly before 2:00 a.m. after members of the group did not offer Isaac the time when asked. A witness observed the man then pick up an object and throw it at the Holocaust Memorial, shattering one of the monument’s glass panels. The witness contacted Boston Police and provided the offender’s physical description and direction of travel.

Isaac allegedly followed the individuals whom he had verbally confronted to the area of Congress Street, where he and a woman accompanying him were stopped by police. He was positively identified by a witness.

Mayor Walsh, who spoke at a gathering of local religious and political leaders at the memorial this morning, said the city will use a spare glass panel set aside for just this purpose when the memorial was built in 1995.

This is the first time any of the panels has had to be replaced.

In 2002, a pair of white supremacists plotted to blow up the memorial; they were caught before the could follow through after one of them tried to use a counterfeit $20 bill at an East Boston Dunkin' Donuts.

Isaac is next expected to appear in court on July 18.

Izzy Arbeiter, a Holocaust survivor active in getting the memorial built, showed his number tattoo today as he vowed to keep the memory of what happened alive:

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

Good on the planners for foresight to have a spare panel, but also sad that they knew a spare panel would be needed "for just this purpose."

Do you think the city has a spare Columbus head waiting in storage?

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...but I would have put my money on a car. This is Boston. As any reader here knows, cars go everywhere.

Anyway, they probably have a broom closet labeled, "Replacement swords for Shaw Memorial."

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Another reason that cars shouldn't be on Union Street where this memorial is. The space would be so much better used by the huge number pedestrians if there were patios and more room to walk.

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There needs to be someplace for the supply vehicles for the strip of businesses in that block.

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Deliveries can/should be made through the extant back alley. That's what I used when delivering lobsters to Hennessy's & Purple Shamrock. Big trucks can park on North Street (they don't fit easily on Union Street anyway).

No different than closing Newbury Street. Cities should prioritize people, not cars.

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How do you use the back alley at those business when the Haymarket vendors are set up? Both entrances/exits to the back alley are blocked during those times.
Also, there's no parking on North Street near those businesses - commercial or otherwise.
So how will deliveries/pick-ups be made to businesses on Union Street?

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This kind of glass occasionally just goes boom, too. But I'm sure they anticipated attacks.

Anyone know if this has happened before?

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this is the first time since the memorial was constructed that one of the panels has shattered for any reason.

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I understood "just this purpose" to mean "acts of vandalism," but agree with both your points.

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I doubt that the wise planners surmised about exactly why, but it only makes sense to assume that one day, some hard object (or vehicle) would bring harm to one of the panels.

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Given that memorials like this (along with synagogues & cemeteries) have historically been targets of antisemitic vandalism, I wouldn't be surprised if this is exactly what they surmised.

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Was this an act of Antisemitism for a mentally Disturbed individual who is in need of help.

If it is the latter, any religious person or believer knows one of the the foundations of their belief is to forgive.

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I don't quite follow your logic... a person threw a rock at the Holocaust Memorial. This has nothing to do with your hatred of cars. Please show some respect for the people for whom this matters by not hijacking this thread.

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Yeah, who would have thunk a glass panel could get broken? Those guys must be physic!

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You mean psychic.

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you were going to say that.

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The spare glass was purchased by the foundation that built and maintains the monument.

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Having spares made. It'll be back in service soon.

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I'm more surprised that after 22 years they were able to locate it. (Insert joke about ISD & BRA here.)

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Hey, that's how long it took me to find the BRA too. Hey-ohhhhh!

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I thought the same thing!

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Too bad they caught him immediately and showed his picture. It would have made great "Trump is Hitler" fodder for the far-left for a few days.

I'll never forget the Islamic Jihad bombing of the Boston Marathon on April 15, "tax day" when Boston TV anchors speculated "it must be a Republican opposed to taxes."

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Trump is no Hitler. Hitler wasn't incompetent.

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Just look at any assessment of his command of German military forces in invading Russia, the coastal defense plan on the Western front and orders not to retreat from Stalingrad. There are many more.

Trump may be incompetent, but his competence has nothing to do with the competence of Hitler. I see how simple minds make mistakes though...I'm sure you voted for the incompetent Hillary.

How do I know she is incompetent...she lost to Trump. Because she never went to Wisconsin.
Case closed.

I hate anons making stupid comments.

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The biggest problem with the Trump/Hitler comparison is that Hitler was very gifted in certain areas -- oratory, for example -- and capable of working very hard at certain things, although like Trump he was grossly incompetent, lazy and indifferent to many areas of policymaking that are essential to government of anything beyond a pack of Cub Scouts. He also displayed a level of patience, planning and foresight (again, in certain important areas) that Trump is completely lacking. Trump is simply a lazy, selfish, narcissistic, bigoted rich man.

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"although like Trump he was grossly incompetent, lazy and indifferent to many areas of policymaking"

Trump is a salesman. He is not a policymaker. He is actually very effective at selling a message. Many or most here are not able to be sold his goods, but many Americans are. They're the same ones that Obama, GWB and WJC sold as well.

I'd actually rather that the President was not in the weeds of policy. The President should set the philosophical political concept of the government they attempt to direct, hire subordinates and set their policy limits. Congress should pass laws rather than administrative departments issue rules.

The current problem in my mind is the centralization if power in the permanent bureaucracy of DC. The Constitution did not set up a government that would operate this way and Obama showed the extra-constitutional way for the administration to rule rather than govern by the will of the people thru the elected Congress.

Trump may be lazy, but he is not incompetent as a salesman. The progressives are going to see when he continues his impressive trend of breaking norms by gaining seats in Congress during his first midterm election. Can he effectively hire staff and set the philosophical agenda? No. And that is why he ultimately be a failed 2 term Prez just like Obama. An administration needs to pass legislation to make a lasting impact and Obama passed 2 bills of import, and the rule issuing bureaucracy can nullify their effects.

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McConnell et al. unequivocally stated that their primary goal was to make Obama a lame duck President through out his two terms. Obama nevertheless had a job to do. He did the job with the only tools available.

Bush Jr. meanwhile ruled via signing statements. What laws passed were irrelevant. He simply applied signing statements so that he could interpret the law however he saw fit (which is not the job of the President).

Rationalization Trump's failure as a man and President sounds like a white knuckle admission that Trump, as a human being and President, is a disaster and catastrophe. Instead of admitting what anyone who did not vote for him saw as clear as a cloudless Spring day your argument has to create false comparisons to Obama's terms.

It is embarrassing and psychically painful when people will go to extremes of alternative facts and out right lies to deny that they allowed themselves to be played. Admitting one was wrong - even when white knuckling it - is the first step.

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For the moderate right too. Frickin' A, guy.

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You are a hateful liar and a bigot and I detest that we share the same Commonwealth.

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Sometimes we lose track of who the real victims of the Marathon bombing were - right-wingers who had to spend a couple of hours feeling vaguely persecuted. Thank you for not letting us forget.

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That's a nice strawman you've got there. Is there anything that's ever happened in the world that you haven't viewed through a partisan lens?

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Please take it easy on fish and me, the original report had some readers ready to root out guys like us for wrong thinking that caused this.

But I don't blame those readers either. There are those who voted for trump like I did, and I wouldn't be surprised if they threw rocks through all kinds of stuff, and beat up muslims, Mexicans or whomever.

The point is that drawing up an accounting of the various acts of violence and destruction never ends, we will always find an earlier example to which one side or the other can claim a justifiable response.

The next time some trump supporter does something evil, I'll just ask that you don't use it as a weapon against me. I promise to do the same for you.

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Why? The scent of his narcissism went further than the stench of a pig farm. Every insane moment he is given the nation - from his nepotism to his insults to his employing people who clearly had major conflicts of interest was predictable. The only time Trump surprises me is when he is not acting like Frank Gallagher from Shameless.

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I voted for Trump because my experiences are different from yours. The things you list are valid concerns.
We are ready to divide on every story and commit aggravated violence in comment form. That was in our culture before the election and it's much more serious than Trump.
I voted for Trump because he was superficially but stubbornly anti war. Trump has become prowar because of conditions in our culture far larger than him.
Do you think it's possible that our easy recourse to violence in politics and overseas are related?

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NEW YORK (AP) — Over and over again, Donald Trump says he opposed the Iraq War before it started. But no matter how many times the Republican candidate for president says it, the facts are clear: He did not.

The guy lies about everything, all the time. He always has. If you didn't know that when you voted for him, you weren't paying attention.

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I think he was like the country, which now believes it had grave doubts about the war, but at the time thought we might as well go ahead and see what happens.
The important thing is that a Republican won his own party while being openly antiwar. Showed that it could be done.
Don't you understand that's what the Russia hysteria is all about? All Washington needs war to keep us in a panic. The way we hate each other is a great bonus for them. They are like professional sports franchises who have a phony show that they hate each other, because it gets us to buy tickets.

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I think he was like the country, which now believes it had grave doubts about the war, but at the time thought we might as well go ahead and see what happens.

That's an interesting perspective and a good insight; thanks for sharing it. With that said...

The important thing is that a Republican won his own party while being openly antiwar. Showed that it could be done.

I'm not so sure I'd characterize this as an "antiwar" stance. Certainly the military-police-prison-industrial complex thought he was gonna be their sugardaddy, and that seems to be proving true, to the extent that Congress and the American people are willing to allow it.

I'd love to get together with you sometime over beers, or whatever it is you drink, and talk about what I think Trump will do instead of (for example) literally building the wall, and why.

And now, apologies to all for my part in hijacking this thread. As usual, Fish took an incident and tried to make it all about him, and I don't believe in giving house room to that sort of bullshit.

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That's nice
Have no idea how to reach you though
Also I'm boring

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I come from the generation that recognized the immorality of Vietnam. That war was supported by both parties until both parties lost support for continuing the occupation and attempt to conquer North Vietnam. So to me a person's claim to support or oppose a conflict is not something that carries a lot of weight. I believe that most intelligent people realized that Iraq was a gross mistake but that the blood lust released by 9/11 made standing against it nearly impossible. So my perception is that opposition or support from a politician for war - especially a war that is happening elsewhere - is a matter of expedience. Congress and the citizenry were more that willing to allow Nazi Germany to conquer Europe. If the U.S. had joined with Britain to defeat Germany then the horror of WW II would not have happened.

Trumps's supposed opposition to Iraq is to me a minor point when considering everything that he presented as a candidate. He rationalized the audio where he stated that women would throw themselves at him and he could grab their genitals whenever he wanted to. Instead of acknowledging that this was a statement of immaturity he actually brushed it off.

What of his economic plan for dealing with an economy that was growing? Instead of acknowledging that the economy was healing from the worst depression since the Great Depression he pretended that nothing had happened.

Add that he spent 7 years promulgating a lie about Obama's citizenship and then suddenly changed him mind?

I can not see how the one issue of Trump's supposed opposition to Iraq is sufficient to outweigh the negatives.

The side issues of dividing on every story is not relevant to reasons for voting for Trump. "Aggravated violence in comment form" isn't relevant either. However it needs to be stated that the most violent form of media since the 80s has come from Rush Limbaugh and his cohorts.

As for easy recourse to violence in politics and overseas that is a question that assumes a great deal. How is violence in politics defined? We don't have the Weimar parties of Germany engaging in violence to beat down their opposition. There is no S.A. that is using thug tactics to eliminate opposition parties. Most overseas governmental activity is diplomatic not violent. However if we include the violence that is more than just the violence of the army, but include the overthrow of governments that U.S. has objected to over the past 100 years, then that balance of diplomacy versus violence as a tool of government changes considerably.

So I stil wonder why anyone, after examining the full picture that Trump presented, voted for him. Obviously he fooled over 60 million voters. I imagine several of his votes were actually anti-Clinton votes. Kenneth Starr and his cohorts turned the Clinton name into a dirty word. It is ironic that the man who made sex in the White House dirty thing (as opposed to the grossness of Trump) would be guilty of hiding sexual violence. That Clinton was a woman I am sure also prompted many votes. Better a man who grabs women's genitals instead instead of a women (quite the irony compared to Bill Clinton).

But then Catullus understood that where wisdom is concerned, it is always lacking. As he wrote, "Oh, this age! How tasteless and ill-bred it is!"

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Fish, Have not seen you around for awhile. Welcome back. This is a milquetoast opportunity for creating strife but perhaps it's a small step toward generate greater controversies.

You remind me of dear old dad. A guy whose life's purpose was in creating conflict and strife. Until his tendency to create arguments finally got the better of him.

But what is discussion be without someone throwing a metaphorical Molotov Cocktail into a discussion?

Well done Sir, well done!

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I believe it was Adam who created the "Trumpland" series for hate crimes after the election only to relax it when most of the "crimes" were determined to be fakes or committed by Democrat voters. If this suspect wasn't immediately caught and shown, I'm confident that the incident would be attributed to our President.

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Crimes in quotes? Please explain.

Fakes or committed by Democrat voters? That should read as Democratic voters. But pedantic grammar aside what statistics for "crimes" are you referencing?

Try to remember that when lies become the norm no one is safe. When pensions become a drain and lies are accepted in the Federal government then it's just a matter of time when lies become the norm in local governments. Promises of pensions for the rest of the person's life will have the same weight as Trump's frequent pronouncements setting expectations for grand statements that never happen.

Which I should note is classic behavior of dry drunks, alcoholics and other folks who engage in conduct and beliefs which based on lies, deceits and manipulation.

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teeming-with-termites kind -- look relatively smart.

Right-wing hate crimes have surged since Trump's election. One shouldn't ever leap to conclusions about the political leanings of any violent racist, xenophobe, religious bigot, or homophobe, but if you had to place a bet in 2017 America, only the Fish-level mouth-breather money would not go on "Trump supporter".

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Aren't all those panels etched with numbers (of all the victims)? Did they pre-fab a replacement for each panel?

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might have a serious mental illness, homeless, a drug addict, etc., but cause God knows we have a serious problem here and throughout the country with all the above.

He also might simply have been shit faced and mad at the world, taking it out on the memorial, being a nice target with all that glass just waiting to be smashed.

At least he didn't go shoot people like the Self described leftist and big Rachel Madow fan boy from Illinois.

Our society is inordinately influced by fanatical extremist on the left, right, not to mention plain, old nihilists.

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I dare to say you watched the news where they already mentioned that he has issues. Not and excuse to not punish him

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At least he didn't go shoot people like the Self described leftist and big Rachel Madow fan boy from Illinois.

Or the guy who killed two people on the MAX last month in Portland after yelling racist and anti-Muslim slurs, or the "warrior for the babies" who killed three people at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, or the old racist who shot up the Sikh temple in the mistaken belief that they were Muslims, or that dude who blew up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, or the guy who stabbed a random black man in New York a few months back to save all the white women, or that fine upstanding young white men who was taken into a prayer meeting in Charleston and shot nine of his fellow worshippers, or...

I'm no mental health professional (and I'm guessing you aren't either), but it occurs to me that when people are mentally ill in a way that expresses itself destructively, their targets are often not accidental, and tend to fall into certain categories -- and that's worth paying attention to. In this case, from the little information we have, it sounds quite likely that this was just a case of "throw a rock at a thing" and not "smash the Holocaust Memorial". In the general case, when the victim comes from a class that has a history of being attacked, we need to look closely at why, and not always be in such a hurry to ascribe it to mental health issues that have no connection with bigotry.

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