The roster of people murdered in Boston in 2017. Click on their names for more details.
2017 murders mapped. The Globe has some overall statistics, including the ages of victims (teen murders are up substantially), the weapons used and the fact that Boston's murder rate is far higher than New York's or Los Angeles's.
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Comments
Cape Verdean Community in Crisis
By Oscar Worthy
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 12:14pm
Can we hope that this will be addressed with the same sense of citywide urgency as it would be if every one of these murdered Cape Verdean kids were instead BU undergrads?
Waterfront
By anon
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 12:31pm
Or if they lived, worked or visited the Sesport District.
How? keep kids from deciding to pickup a gun in the first place
By anon
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 12:56pm
Effective law enforcement after a shooter takes a life with gun is important. Diverting the next shooter about to take a life and diverting teenagers from ever picking up a gun may be where we could be most effective.
Watch Marty get wrapped up in the meaning of law enforcement statistics at a meeting of families that have lost a child to gun violence in the City of Boston. From his POV it seems the issue is the number of murders and clearance rates and that is all.
[youtube]WtP2zrjY-BY[/youtube]
It's not simply kids picking
By Jeffrey Pastor
Sun, 12/31/2017 - 2:43am
It's not simply kids picking up guns. The news never mentions that most of the murders are gang on gang violence, neighborhood drug turf, "disrespect", etc. It's a complex problem of police rooting out the gangs that have a never ending supply of guns & drugs as well as programs for kids to keep them from the gang life. The problem exists in almost every neighborhood of color & ethnicity. There's lots of great nonprofits & city agencies that do fantastic work & make a difference but Is there truly a multi pronged strategy by the city/state/federal govt...?
The problem is nobody wants
By anon
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 2:14pm
The problem is nobody wants to come forward with clues for fear of retaliation. If it were BU undergrad friends who new something, they would say something to help police.
Catching shooters isn't the problem, it's an imperfect solution
By anon
Sun, 12/31/2017 - 3:33pm
What we need to do is keep kids and men from picking up a gun in the first place by helping them choose better options.
I can't find it now, but I
By Steve Brady
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 12:35pm
I can't find it now, but I was reading this morning about some other city where murder was low but teen murders had spiked. DC, I think.
Truth Bomb
By anon
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 12:48pm
So, What you're saying is
By willisan
Sun, 12/31/2017 - 3:38pm
We should somehow try to stop encouraging fatherless households?
Marty
By anon²
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 12:52pm
What's his plan of action?
community policing?
By anon
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 12:58pm
From the campaign I think his plan community policing. Keep telling victims and witnesses to come forward and help the police catch the shooter. Dispense ice cream from BPS ice cream truck. I may have missed something, if so help me out.
What's anyone's plan?
By BostonDog
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 3:09pm
All the good ways to reduce violence cost more then the city wants to allocate (lot more social services, particularly for families) or require doing things that the courts have not allowed (banning guns).
Since you don't like Marty's plan, what's yours?
Guess who didn't run for mayor?
By Parkwayne
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 3:45pm
Me.
I don't know how to solve this but then I also can't read a defense so I also don't play quarterback for the Patriots. Martin J Walsh did in fact sign up to solve this kind of issue, allegedly.
Walsh is the city's leader - where's his leadership on this? I'm not even asking for results, just any indication that this is an issue he gives any thought to while running around trying to please the developers and business community.
we have a consensus: there is a problem, a solution is needed
By anon
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 4:56pm
I think you have to invest in kids who don't have much and are vulnerable to finding a place in a gang that gives them support, some money, power (a gun) at the cost of a life of misery but they can't see that coming.
Instead of letting middle school kids out of school at 1:15 and asking the Boston Police to keep an eye on them, fund extracurricular activities they will engage in and enjoy that shape their self image and build confidence in their social group and as they make achievements. Adult supervision is valuable because adults can provide guidance on social and technical issues (coaching) in the endeavor and encouragement and praise for achievement and effort.
Our mayor seems to think this issue begins with gun violence and ends with an arrest and prosecution.
What do you want him to do?
By BostonDog
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 5:50pm
You ask for him to do something but then say you have no idea what. How do you know if his current policies aren't great under the circumstances?
I'm no fan of Marty but the argument that the mayor "should do something" is bunk if you don't even know what could be improved. There's not a whole lot the mayor can do on their own to solve these deeply seeded, long term problems.
So he gets a free pass?
By Parkwayne
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 8:18pm
To be clear, your position is because I have no background in police and social work or city management, I should be totes cool with a higher teen murder rate because I should assume that (based on nothing) Mayor Walsh is going everything he can. What a mind boggling stupid argument.
'Not a whole lot the mayor can do on their own'. On his own? I'm not asking Marty to go out on foot patrol, I'm asking him to provide some leadership on this issue. He's the guy who is the mayor and in total control of all the levers of power and influence that a large, rich city like Boston has. This isn't Mayberry. Hire some better people, invest in some better programs, try more targeting policing if there are aspects of these murders which are community specific.
Let's flip around your (dumb) argument - what ARE his policies and why aren't they working? I mean, if I can't say what I would do different, please enumerate what is being done by Walsh that the best thing is we can do.
BTW, the reason I now his policies 'aren't great' is this year more parents had to bury their children after they've been murdered. Is that not a valid data point to you?
Nope
By BostonDog
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 10:15pm
It's pointless to sit around and say, "something needs to be done" because it's obvious. But if it makes you feel better, sure, keep stating the obvious.
What isn't obvious is what exactly that "thing" is, particularly what the Mayor has the power to do in 2018. So if you (or anyone else) happens to come upon a legal and affordable solution just about every major city in America would love to hear it.
I'm no expert but I've read enough to know the problem is related to few opportunities for meaningful work for many of these teens coupled with lack of stables families and general poverty at a young age. So the best thing to do is keep trying to reduce the biases against hiring them and focusing on things like education and poverty reduction at a young age. But again, that's a really hard problem to solve.
One more time
By anon
Sun, 12/31/2017 - 3:15pm
I think he is going to go on TV and say how guns are bad and he is going to try a gun buyback program. Yeah, that's the ticket.
So many kids
By anon
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 12:55pm
This is really sad.
Thanks for writing this, Adam. Important stuff. Happy New Year to you too.
Thank you, Adam, for doing this
By The Frying Pan ...
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 3:09pm
Please add Frank Brescia to the list:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/02/28/forme...
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/03/02/everett-murd...
Thanks, and God bless.
Thanks
By adamg
Sun, 12/31/2017 - 10:03am
His case is very sad, but I didn't include him because his death was in Everett, not Boston.
Thank you, Adam, for explaining why Frank Brescia isn't on there
By The Frying Pan ...
Sun, 12/31/2017 - 3:17pm
His case is rather personal. I knew him from St. Paul's Cathedral on Tremont St. Such a sweetie. What a waste.
That goes for all of the murder victims.
Thank you.
Followup link, the suspect
By anon
Tue, 01/02/2018 - 5:54pm
Followup link, the suspect was finally caught:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/prosecutors-suspect-c...
So Much Violence
By speakingouthere
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 5:38pm
So sad........I hope 2018 will not be like this year with so many lives taken by violence.
Thanks Adam for publishing this.
https://www.facebook.com/StopGunViolenceIllegalOwn...
The problem is systemic, but...
By anon
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 6:07pm
systemic change is very difficult to bring about. Although falling short of getting to the root of the problem, community activism, like Stop The Violence movements can be effective in bringing about real change.
The list really needs to be
By anon
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 8:18pm
The list really needs to be divided up between those connected to illegal activity, crimes of passion, and bystanders.
Even if the end result is the same (someone dead), the nature of the crime can be wildly different.
But dead is still dead
By adamg
Sun, 12/31/2017 - 10:09am
Yes, there's a difference between somebody killed in a gang shootout and somebody who is, oh, just standing on a corner waiting for a parade to start who is killed by a bullet fired from a block away.
But beyond the logistical and reporting problems in trying to assign cases that way (police do not tend to specify, although in gang-related cases they often say "the victim was targeted"), the fact is that in each case, somebody is dead and there are ripples from that that often extend far beyond the victim himself (or herself). That's really what I was trying to show here.
And it's overgeneralized at that
By eekanotloggedin
Sun, 12/31/2017 - 12:50pm
Police departments tend to refer to people who were either a "targeted victim" or "people who knew each other." The reasoning for this makes some sense, because you don't want the public thinking that there are snipers walking around killing strangers, because then everyone gets fearful and you get even more racist and classist calls to the police because someone who presents as less middle-class and/or less white than the caller was standing around, or expressing emotions, or driving by slowly, or rang someone's doorbell, or or or.
The statistics of this type are important, for the reasons outlined above, but we also need to remember that they're overgeneralized. Yes, the murder/assault/rape statistics include domestic violence and gang-related violence, but this also doesn't mean that it's limited to victims who have been engaging in unprovoked violence themselves. We all have a tendency to convince ourselves that things can't happen to us, that it's "those people" who it happened to, because this makes us feel safer. But it's not "those people"; it could be anyone. "Targeted" and "gang-related" incidents aren't limited to victims who were themselves out harming people (and even those folks were a fellow human being, and the reasons they ended up in that life are complicated). People are targeted because they saw something, or their relative or friend saw something, or they're related to someone, or they live somewhere. They may even target landlords or associates in a legitimate business with the "strategy" that if that person is dead, the rival illicit business gets put out of business. And domestic violence can happen to absolutely anyone anywhere. It's just that violence in general happens more frequently when you have people who have fewer resources.
The only solution is to get resources into the hands of Black folks, women, transgender folks, disabled folks. Live, work, hire, vote, give in ways that specifically do this.
In spring of 2016, students
By Christine Langhoff
Sat, 12/30/2017 - 9:09pm
In spring of 2016, students in the Boston Public Schools organized and led school walkouts in response to Mayor Walsh's cuts the the school department's budget. The students were thoughtful, respectful and had done the research to support their position that the schools were underfunded.They were exercising their right in a democracy to be heard when they had been ignored. In response, Walsh literally walked away from them and got into an SUV and drove away. The funding cuts went through.
The kids who led the walkouts will be fine. They learned a lot about how government works, about how to organize, how to be respected for their opinions. But the kids who were already on the margins, maybe feeling school isn't where they should be, watched this dynamic play out and decided that the student leaders had been played. The lesson the kids on the margins learned was that no one cares about their lives; they have no place in our society. Everywhere it's broadcast to kids that education is the key to a good life, but many of our city's leaders, in particular Marty Walsh, said to the kids "you're not worth it to us; you don't deserve a fully funded school system".
So the kids took him up on the message, and opted for life on the streets and now so many of them are dead.
To end on a more positive note, here's a great look at youth leadership in the city:
http://mark-warren.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/...
We need to work with young adults
By Heartswithboston
Sun, 12/31/2017 - 1:07pm
The city needs to try something new. The Suffolk County District Attorney, not under the control of the City government, has started a program to work with youth who are system involved. Rather than bog them down in the court system for no long term positive change, the program seems to divert at risk system involved youth and place them with community groups that will keep them off the track to end up on this list. They are identifying the kids who could be on either side of these stories and working on their complex needs. It looks like the program is almost a year old. I hope it makes a difference. Glad someone is trying something.
Do something!
By Blood Of My Hurt!
Tue, 03/20/2018 - 10:26am
Its a slap in the face, to the families, and friends of the murdered.
Do something.
There is no way these high powered guns are being purchased by youth. Are they purposly placed in the hoods bushes to be found.
You can track People, Phones, Cars, Pets, and even get a live view of your residents, but there is no way to put a tracking on these guns, that are tearing families apart.
Hit the pockets, and watch them who make, and place, stand at attention.
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