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The mayor gets a wake-up call
By adamg on Sun, 06/21/2020 - 3:18pm
Protesters outside the mayor's house. Photo by Live Boston.
Cicia Lee reports on a protest outside Marty Walsh's Lower Mills home at 6 this morning by people who want to defund Boston Police.
Live Boston reports on the protest by the group, For the People:
Chants could be heard threatening to oust the Mayor in the next election as well as chants directed at the Police Commission to be ready at his house for their next wake up call. The group blocked the street, placed candles and flowers as well as attempted to glue “report cards” to the sidewalk in front of the Mayors home.
The group quietly dispersed at approximately 06:30 hours with no incidents.
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Comments
They Also Went Right During Shift Change on Gibson Street
There is protest, then there is being jerks. Do these people think they made anyone on the fence on Richmond or Butler Streets change their mind on police reform by protesting at 6AM on a Sunday?
Perhaps not.
This is my neighborhood and I
This is my neighborhood and I for one can say I didn't care for it and really hope it was a one and done thing. I was already awake but that's not the point.
Sorry,
But the Mob rules.
Walsh took a pass to meet with another group w/budget petition
The Mayor recently declined an invitation to hear another group that wanted to talk about defunding the police on Saturday. (defund: to withdraw funding from)
This group showed up Sunday, delivered their demands sang a hymm, and left inside of thirty minutes.They have three demands. I hope they're included in coverage of the incident.
Listen:
People who oppose peaceful protest
People who oppose peaceful protest, people who enable pols to ignore peitions, make more militant forms of protest more likely.
"What is it America has failed to hear?"
Your part
You can protest and you can also volunteer at a non profit of your choice. They depend on volunteers to further their causes.
You didn't care for it
Well, I don't care for paying racist and violent cops hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to stand around and hold a cup of coffee next to the site of the next soulless luxury condo building.
Maybe get on Next Door and ask your neighbor Marty to do something about that.
Well, details are paid by the
Well, details are paid by the company doing the construction. So if you assumed your tax dollars are going to them you’re mistaken. Also, if you want to stop the absurd overtime, blame the politicians who implemented a hiring freeze in the 90’s. A lot of this overtime is FORCED. Meaning the officers would rather not work 16 hours a day, but instead they are ordered to do so due to the low numbers of officers able to fill the shifts.
i will never understand this take
maybe i'm a little dense, but isn't the inconvenience the point?
Give Us Your Address
I'm sure a large regular can be delivered to you on Sunday around 6AM by a bunch of loud NU & Wellesley alumnae who think they are now running the city. You won't mind, right? Your neighbors won't mind, right?
It's curious to me that you
It's curious to me that you jumped to immediate conclusions about where the protesters went to college, and that they're women ("alumnae"). What's really bothering you, John?
Well
When I first saw this on twitter, the person who posted it said they went to Northeastern University. That is how I deduced that she went to Northeastern University.
The person Adam linked to has her bio clean, but when you run her name in this thing called Facebook she does not mention where she went to school, but since she is the same age as a mutual Facebook friend that pops up who is very smart and a top notch Red Sox fan who I have known for years, and also went to the Route 135 Academy for Smart Ladies, I deduced that yes, she went to Wellesley.
Logic and the feminine use of the term for a graduate of a school is one of the benefits of a classical education.
The fact that they are women does not bother me in the slightest, because of my protesting the justification for the 1991 Gulf War, I know most guys are there for the chicks while the women are actually concerned about the problem at hand.
Um...
John, despite your compliments about women's seriousness and your being "not bother[ed] in the slightest" by the fact that they're women, this feels (to me at least) a little creepy-bothered-stalkerish.
Nah
If you decide to wake up a bit of St. Greg's on a Sunday morning, you should be known to the world.
Poor wit
"Route 135 Academy for Smart Ladies"
Penalty of -10 credibility points.
Do you call colleges originally established for Black scholars something like "Route ### for Smart Blackies?"
Show us on the doll
Where demanding an end to brutality hurt your Marshfeelings.
Guess Your Supply Is Done For the Month
Perhaps you can ask a pharma rep for a few more to keep you going until your regular meds script kicks back in after the 1st.
Who is John Costello and what does he want?
.
To Sleep In On A Sunday
I used to live a few hundred feet from this protest. Knowing the area fairly well, I think if this happens again there may be some redirected lawn sprinklers.
Nothing worse than people who all live in their very, very segregated little neighborhood, can I call it JP, because it is JP, coming to Lower Mills to complain about defunding the police and the need reform whilst their living choices are driving up rents and facing working (re: minority) people out of their homes, previously in JP and now in the Walnut Avenue area of Roxbury.
There is righteous behavior for one action, it just seems the hypocrisy of their long term actions don't register with them.
By the way, get a real log in name and stop boosting one from an organization that actually gets stuff done.
ad hominem
this smacks of concern trolling. you don’t know that to be true of these individuals and even it were true, what does that have to do with police reform?
just say you didn’t want to wake up at 6 AM on sunday; frankly, everything else you’ve said is bullshit.
Actually that comment was
Actually that comment was precisely accurate. My family had to leave their residence on walnut ave due to this.
"used to"
Yep. Concern trolling.
circling
whether or not i would mind is kinda beside the point, isn’t it?
Doing this stuff outside and around people's homes,
especially early on a Sunday morning, is totally out of line--and inappropriate. How'd you like it if a big crowd of people protested loudly outside your house at six o'clock in the morning, especially on a Sunday?
It's bad enough that people are disobeying the social distancing rule, and some of them are even refusing to wear masks, but doing this shit outside somebody's house, especially at six a. m. on the weekend is a fool's errand, and it's inconsiderate.
Hey dude go ask George Floyd
Hey dude go ask George Floyd how he feels about 6am protests.
God forbid you would be hypothetically inconvenienced.
I would be pleasantly
I would be pleasantly surprised that I was being protested at all.
Well, it would depend.
Well, it would depend. If I was an elected official who had refused to meet with a group of constituents over an extremely-timely issue, I would think to myself "Oh, right, democracy is more than an abstraction--it affects actual people, and is sometimes messy." If I was that elected official's neighbor, I'd think "Boy, that guy should really stop doing dumb things that prompt people to show up at his house at 6AM." If I was just some random person, I'd be confused and irritated, but probably no more so than I already am at the nonstop barrage of fireworks that the city also isn't doing anything about.
No it's not. I guarantee Marty's going to pay attention to these folks the next time they ask to talk to him. If he doesn't, next time they'll bring foghorns.
God forfend we break any rules of social decorum over the extrajudicial murder of black people by the police.
A friend of mine once summed it up better than I can:
Should it be quiet and
Should it be quiet and convenient enough so that it’s ignored easily?
Remember who we're talking about
John is startled by loud noises or sudden movement, not unlike a deer in the forest. Sssh, not too loud now... you'll spook him, and then we won't get to hear what the old white guys think until we can lure him back with the promise of open segregation.
Thanks Nerd
Dude, let's not talk about old white guys, you are at least or on the cusp of 40 and only have nothing but insults to throw rather than logical statements. You are so white that fresh snow looks dark next to you.
You contribute nothing but your own perceived snark time and time again. Nice job keyboard warrior.
Everything old is new again
This was the favored tactic of some abolitionist clubs during the antibellum period. The clubs would go out with brass bands in the middle of the night and target the homes of those politicians who were seen to be sympathetic to slavery.
But, but
You simply cannot suggest that such behavior should be countenanced in Lower MILLS.
Ok, that’s a great analogy.
Ok, that’s a great analogy. Please don’t compare these profesional protestors to the same people that fought against the biggest sin in this country’s history. That’s an insane comment even for you. Many of these bored, over educated, under employed residents of their mother’s basements have been protesting every issue since Occupy Boston - now they’ve co-opted the protest of the horrible murder in Minneapolis and used it to stay busy the last month. They’ll move onto a new cause soon but protest the same way, chant the same chants, lay down in the same streets, but it’ll be the same people.
great
i'm positively sure that every citizen of the union and confederate states was on board with abolition (and segregation, and jim crow, and busing, and the war on drugs....) and therefore never complained about protests against those issues.
why, who could forget about the warm reception rosa parks got on that day in birmingham? ah yes, i'm remembering the victory parade for MLK from selma to montgomery! it's great to live in a country where right-minded people are always on the vindicated side of history! we know that the convenient protests are the ones that provoke real change! never upset anyone!
"profesional protestors" eyeroll
If he had a better argument he wouldn't need to discredit the messengers-- ad hominem.
Here are their demands;
Here are some facts Boston Globe published
News about the contract
When Walsh negotiated the current contract Boston Municipal Research Bureau called out the terms as a reason for concern about excessive cost increases.
Budget info:
Please cite your sources
I'm sure Soros would pay them
But Jared Kushner owes him a substantial amount of money.
Actually
The woman who is authored the twitter link works for a national advocacy organization that states they are they to push social change through action and they are a 503c, so yes, she is in fact a paid political protester.
It is amazing what this Google thing does, isn't it.
Amazing
You found one person who, by dint of hard effort and strenuous contortions, you can pretzel into a "paid political protester".
You really are having a shitty day, aren't you?
Nope
Got really under your skin fast though, which actually makes my day even better.
Yup
You really are rockin' those cranky pants today. I guess having a nice Sunday sleep in and then finding out that if you still lived where you used to, you would have heard this noise, will do that to a person. Or something.
I’d like to thank them for
I’d like to thank them for getting up early and caring enough. So many opinions on who should be protesting, how we should be protesting, when we should be protesting and how loud we should be. If you don’t want to join us then just sit back and stay safely at home but you don’t get to call the shots.
Wow
History must not be important for the Qanon huffers and Fact Free Faux watchers.
Too bad. Pick up a book sometime - you might learn something.
Oh, and "bigger sin"? So taxpayer funded security forces with military weaponry murdering, harassing, and terrorizing black people is just perfectly fine with you?
Yes, slavery is a bigger sin.
Yes, slavery is a bigger sin. If we can’t agree on that then I have no hope for the rest 2020.
Slavery still exists in this
Slavery still exists in this country. It was just moved to the prison system.
True story
and the Bristol Co. Sheriff infamously proposed using prison labor to build Trump's border wall. Same guy spends taxpayer money to attend Trump White House events like his most recent executive order signing. Fourth from the left
You are very misguided.Why
You are very misguided.Why don't you join a police community meeting and really inform yourself.
LOL
Less than 1/3 of the city showed up last time around. I’ll believe this (and support it) when I see it.
Defund the Boston Police?
What about the other one hundred armed police forces patrolling the streets of Boston?
One hundred?
One hundred?
What are those? I could believe a couple of dozen or maybe even three dozen, but one hundred?
Besides BPD?
State Police
MBTA Police
Amtrak Police
Postal Police
Suffolk County Sheriff
Federal Court officers
Federal Reserve?
CBP/ICE whatever the correct acronym is these days
campus police departments for universities & colleges in Boston
maybe a few state agencies have small police units - MWRA? DEP?
You Forgot to add
Massport police
Mass convention authority police
Environmental Police
VA police
park rangers
Federal Park Rangers
Municipal Police
Boston School Police
Longwood security armed specials
Boston police Specials
State police specials
constables
Boston Housing
US Marshalls
State Department diplomatic security
US Secret Service
FBI
DEA
MGH Police several hospitals have their own police
There are close to 70 colleges ranging from Bentley to BU who are armed and sworn in as sheriffs to grant them additional powers.
Community colleges have their own police
You forgot...
The fruits and vegetables.
Your list kind of makes the point
Obviously "one hundred" is an exaggeration, but the fact that you were able to quickly list so many others really makes the point.
I'm not even sure it is hyperbole
If you listed each campus police department separately, and included the immediately neighboring and "might as well be Boston" towns, you could easily approach 100.
City of Boston alone has more
Before getting into state and federal agencies, you haven’t even counted all the separate city of Boston police agencies: schools, housing, municipal protective services, etc.
A general comment
I don't approve of protesting at a person's place of residence. Be it the governor or mayor or really anyone else, I feel like their home is off limits to active protesting. They have a JOB to be a public servant, but somewhere there has to be a line where they can feel safe and be "off the clock."
Feel safe hmmm yeah it would
Feel safe hmmm yeah it would be great if we all felt safe. I wish black men could get “off the clock” and get a break maybe take a breather.
BLM
The mayor has had many opportunities to demonstrate that he understands the issue; and he blew it.
No disagreement from me
The reason they are protesting is just and right. I merely think, in this case, their tactics are over the line.
It's off limits...
...if they're accessible to the community when they're on the job. It may shock you to learn that not all elected officials are willing to meet with their constituents.
The mayor had an opportunity
The mayor had an opportunity to hear from these folks during business hours and he declined. Should they simply accept being ignored?
Is bugging the mayor at home
Is bugging the mayor at home really going to make him want to stop having police protection?
SMFH at Defunding Police
Like what idiotic phase like Defunding the police.
That is the most time-wasting, asinine movement I have ever heard. You people, and yes, I am an African-American, you guys/girls need to get a fucking grip.
You don't defund any Law Enforcement Agencies you Reallocate Funding; unless the department was determined to be corrupted and ineffective.
Refocus your energy on getting laws passed to correct injustices.
Reduce Police Dept Spending
NOW
I found a few Hello Kitty guns recently A.
Do you need them? They were baby blue though, not pink.
I don't understand how
I don't understand how reducing the police budget does anything to get rid of the racist cops.
Strange of them to cast Walsh
Strange of them to cast Walsh as unresponsive and unsympathetic when he's actually been leaning towards some of what they want.
Strange of them to say he doesn't listen and connect when he does neighborhood walks and listening sessions when there isn't a pandemic.
The mayor, like many other officials and public servants, is to some degree "always on" - but 6 AM on a Sunday (especially when he has neighbors) is somewhere beyond reasonable speech and public protest.
Not on spending.
He said he'd cut money from OT then he argued OT is necessary. He made $0 cut from the police budget that is not OT.
BPD and patrolman's union have a rep. of going along with reform and then not really. See body cams.
Has he taken a position on officers in Boston Schools? I don;t think so. The teachers union voted in support of removing them.
BPD bought an ice cream truck a few years ago. We own LRAD equipment. We deploy checmical weapons. What did we spend on riot uniforms in the last 6 years? What does it cost for tricked-out BPD SUVs? (I really want to know because two just got torched) How many body cams did we buy that police wont wear?
Knocked on his door?
There is a line of appropriate protest. Going onto his property, knocking on his door crosses that line. I can fully support a protest in the morning. Inconvenient, a pain to neighbors...enjoy having a major politician as a neighbor.
But walking onto his property, knocking on the door is crossing a line that separates reasonable protest from mob behavior.
If anyone actually knocked on his door that person deserves to be arrested for trespassing.
Mob mentality will afflict anyone regardless of political and philosophical beliefs. We are fortunate to live in a nation where protests can happen on the sidewalk (with the exception of Herr Twitler who believes laws do not apply to him). But for everyone else who is civilized there are some basic and important boundaries to be respected.
Do you have evidence that any
Do you have evidence that any of these demonstrators has previously received a formal trespass warning from Walsh's property?
Should I call the police the next time religious missionaries knock on my front door?
I think you need to use the loud music standard.
The 1st Amendment guarantees peaceful protest. 6am probably crosses that line, just like playing loud music would.
There is no law which says you can’t go up to someone’s front door and ring the doorbell to say hi. There is some case law (Jehovas Witnesses, US mail, etc) on who can legally come to your front door, and there are so many loopholes people could use to get around the current form of “protest” which is happening at someone’s house:
-what if they did if every morning at 5am?
-what if a different person rang the doorbell each day?
-what if they blasted music from cars at 5pm each day
-what if they drove around his house/neighborhood for a few hours a day, honking a horn and then leaving after honking once and then having another car come in and honking again?
At some point a judge is gonna need to rule on what is “peaceful” or not.
I also agree that they should
I also agree that they should not be at his home in this manner . I did not like it when it happened to Charlie and I do not like it here. I just find your line in the sand to be weird. Someone knocking on his door is the line? I knock on doors all the time.
Showing up a someones house
Showing up a someones house like this is tacky
Showing up at someones house like this during a pandemic is dangerous
Showing up at someones house early on a Sunday swearing is disrespectful
Want to play a fun game? How about going online and seeing how people reacted to Charlie being protested at his home by right wingers and seeing how the reactions different when it was left wingers with Walsh. You will find quite a bit of hypocrisy built into the arguments.
This is not winning anyone over. Never underestimate a liberal coalitions ability to take a hand and overplay it until the American public decides they are bored and or upset by the self righteous tactics and end up voting Republican or moderate. This builds resentment and anger. Legally I guess they can do it but it really turned a lot of people off. Seems like tactics like this are more about the participants feeling accomplished rather than getting anything done. It did not work well for the Swampscott brigade with Charlie and it will not work here with Walsh.
Look at the primary before the Pandemic hit. Biden just kept marching forward even as he fell back even as his opponents tripped over themselves to outflank Bernie on the left. You could tell someone was a week away from ending their campaign when they began swinging wildly at Biden. It sunk so many contenders that looked like they could be strong because they made things too personal and the electorate shut them down for it. People are sick of this sort of divisive politics employed by Trump and his counterparts on the left and honestly just want people to figure stuff out. Not disrupt the neighbors of the Mayor.
Inaccuracies
The people who did this protest have posted on instagram indicating you got a few of the facts wrong Adam. They've tagged you, but it seems like you might not use the account much seeing as the last post was from 2017.
The protesters claim they made no mention of protesting at the Commissioner's house.
Also, "attempted to glue," is a poor choice of words when they literally did glue report cards to the sidewalk.
However, I am on Twitter a lot
And a member of the collective tweeted at both me and Live Boston, and, well, he has a recording of several people saying the commissioner's house was next, so ...
As for the difference between "attempting to glue" and actually gluing, I guess you got us there.
When Bostonians were pissed about the police enforcing slavery
In the 1800's. This is a portrait of fugitive slave Anthony Burns, whose arrest and trial in Boston under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 incited riots and protests by white and black abolitionists and citizens of Boston in the spring of 1854. The portrait is surrounded by scenes from his life, including his sale on the auction block, escape from Richmond, Virginia, capture and imprisonment in Boston, and his return to a vessel to transport him to the South. Within a year after his capture, abolitionists were able to raise enough money to purchase Burns's freedom.
Today, people want change in how Boston Police are policing Boston, and they're saying that we spend too much on police. Two things the mayor has more control over than any other elected official.
We are rapidly approaching a
We are rapidly approaching a situation this week where the City Council will vote down the city budget for the first time in a long time. If that happens, we'll see how representative the demands of activists are compared to the city residents who want their trash picked up, want to be able to call 311, and have the many services we all take for granted. All of that will be cut or shut down if there is no budget. The same with city employees who will be laid off in the midst of a pandemic and recession; employees who are mostly not highly paid and represent a diverse swath of the city's population. The rubber is about to meet the road here.
68 posts
And you were all so busy arguing the morality of a 6 AM Sunday home visit, you didn't bother to point out that they were protesting Marty Walsh.
You know, the establishment Democrat stooge who took a break from his mayoral duties in 2016 to go pal around with Hillary Clinton at that dumbass convention. THAT'S the guy whom you believe is going to cut the police budget out of kindness and/or intelligence?
Menino without the need for subtitles. It votes against establishment career Democrat politicians or it gets the hose again.
Hell, I'd be happy if it voted at all at this point. Someone above already pointed out the embarrassing turnout from last time. I look at that (expletive) in Kentucky where the county of 610,000 is going to have one poll open tomorrow, and I think about how Allston-Brighton has an eighth of that with a half dozen polls, and I'm sickened with how we take that for granted.
fine points
but not sure what one has to do with the other
Isn't that group called "Fuck the Police"?
Did they change it to "For The People?"