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Man with long record arrested while browsing in Roxbury bookstore with a loaded gun, police say
By adamg on Sat, 08/01/2020 - 11:25am
Boston Police report arresting Tyrone Goforth on gun and drug charges inside Frugal Bookstore, 57 Warren St. in Nubian Square, Friday afternoon.
Police say officers went to the store after getting a call that there was somebody inside with a gun around 12:30 p.m.
The male appeared to be extremely nervous. Due to the nature of the call and fearing the male may be in possession of a firearm, officers conducted a frisk and subsequently located a black Sig Sauer P938 loaded with five rounds of live ammunition, which had been inside of the suspect’s rear pants pocket. Additionally, officers recovered approximately fifty-six grams of crack cocaine. The male was placed under arrest.
Goforth was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, possession of a loaded firearm on a public way, unlawful possession of ammunition and trafficking Class B drugs, police say. He was also charged as a Level 3 armed career criminal, which could mean a longer sentence if he's convicted on the other charges.
Goforth has a record dating to at least 1999 that includes arrests and convictions for armed robbery, cocaine distribution and domestic violence.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
Even criminals like books.
Wonder what he was looking at.
Steal this book
By Abbie Hoffman
Chekhov
Obviously.
I don't think this guy is going to turn his life around.
Even if the State gives him 10 more chances.
I see prison in his future
Are you saying
he probably won't Goforth and sin no more?
Yup!
Possibly a really long prison term, or a life-long prison term, at that, and in one of the toughest, if not the toughest prisons/penitentiaries, to boot..
Look at the bright side
He'll have at least 15 years to catch up on his reading
Isn't that a lot of crack?
I'm no drug expert, but 56 grams sounds like a lot to be walking around with, even if you are dealing.
56g = 2oz
“Hey, Siri - how many ounces is 56 grams?” I recommend that we all ask this question any time we see drug charges reported.
The police use grams because 56 sounds like waayyy more than 2.
Weigh out 2oz of flour or baking soda at home. It’s probably less than 2 shot glasses worth. Any baker worth her or his weight in sugar would tell you the same, lol.
Don’t sell crack, kids. But also don’t let the cops manipulate the narrative by using a system we the public fundamentally don’t understand.
Actually...
Under penalties are determined by weight specified in grams. That's all.
WeLL aCkShUaLLy
The penalties were determined using the system of weights that uses the bigger numbers (out of the logical options).
I'm not even speaking as to whether this was intentional (though, yes, probably, if you're familiar with the history of policing and incarceration), but your comment makes it sound like the penalties were just dropped out of the sky somehow rather than created by people who had choices of which measurement system to use.
That's still a lot of crack.
That's still a lot of crack. Like thousands of dollars worth.
Drugs, both illicit and legal, are generally measured using the metric system. Take a look at the bottle of Tylenol or Advil the next time you are in the medicine cabinet. Illegal drugs are often sold under the metric system as well.
Sig Sauer P938
This isn’t some gangbanger Saturday Night Special. This is a real gun. If he bought it in a store — ha ha— it would have cost him between $800 and $1000 depending on trim, extra magazine, etc. I don’t know street prices of stolen pocket pistols, but I would guess that you would have to move a fair amount of crack to buy one.
I hope it was a good arrest. It would be good to have him off the street for a while.
Value/8 ball
I have no idea what the actual value is.
A best guess based on extrapolation from random Google sources is that 56 grams of crack would worth $2000 - $5000.
Again, don’t sell crack. But I do think, despite the fact that street drugs are trafficked in grams, law enforcement use the metric system to their advantage against street-level offenders with juries and the public. I also think the term “thousands” of dollars is another word that paints a wildly inaccurate picture. Imagine my bank account with $2K. Now imagine your bank account with $80K. tblade and Brian both have “thousands” of dollars in their bank accounts!
This is still about the initial comment that 56 grams is a lot. Our education system allows us a poor understanding of the metric system. Is 56 g two small baggies of crack? Or is it two suitcases of crack? We need our phones to do the conversion for us.
Imagine being on a jury and Defendant A has 56 grams of crack worth “thousands” of dollars and Defendant B has 2 oz of crack worth $2,000?
I have never bought weed, but any weed transaction I witnessed used ounces or “QP” for quarter pound. Also, the popular “8 ball” is 1/8 oz of cocaine.
I’m just saying that we don’t need to make this guy Pablo Escobar here. And it’s not necessarily about the one guy with a loaded gun in a book store, it’s about the larger narrative that we use against drug offenses. It’s to the advantage of law enforcement and the prosecution to use grams, a unit that the general public rarely understand.
What system do you not
What system do you not understand a lot about? The metric system?
I get that we use a different standard than most places in the world but I don’t think the cops are using the US standard of measurement rather than the standard metric system as a means to confuse the public.
But it’s 2020, so let’s add that to the list of stuff we’re blaming for cops now.
Grams are meaningless to Americans.
I bet the average Trump voter believes 1,000 g is larger than one kilogram.
Ok. So the police
Ok. So the police intentionally use the European metric system as a way to fool the dumb Trump voters into thinking the quantity of drugs seized is actually more than it really is, with your implication being that this is another manner in which police act in an abusive way towards the public.
Pretty sure this has been the standard unit of measurement for these sorts of incidents well before Trump took office.
Look at the Mass legislature’s laws regarding drug offenses. Units are in grams. Are they trying to fool the Trump voters as well?
56 > 2
Yes. Police and prosecutors use the fact that the general public is ignorant to the metric system to their advantage.
The Trump controlled
The Trump controlled Massachusetts Legislature is also part of this conspiracy it seems. Or maybe the police base their description of the amount of drugs recovered on laws enacted 40 plus years ago.
If the legislature mandates penalties for drug offense be determined on the amount of grams then should the police take it upon themselves convert the weight to a more socially palatable measurement?
https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXV/Chapter94C/Sect...
So controversial
The original comment in this thread ”56 grams sounds like a lot to be walking around with” demonstrates that we have no idea if 56 grams is a lot and that, in fact, works to prosecutors’ advantage.
I bet prosecutors would say the same thing.
The police use grams because
Quoting you here. If the cops and prosecutors are charging the offense based upon the units of measurement outlined by the law - grams- then what should they do differently?
You’re inferring that there is a nefarious ulterior motive by using a specific unit of weight.
There’s plenty of stuff to bash the cops and prosecutors over but adherence to charging someone based upon law is not one of them.
What are you sensitive about?
It’s an advantage for law enforcement to use grams.
Why does saying that trigger you so hard?
I didn’t think replying to
I didn’t think replying to comments on UHub constitutes being triggered but if that’s the case there are not enough safe spaces available on the internet for the commenters on this site.
Maybe I’m surprised by your obtuseness but clearly you’re attempting to make some sort of anti prosecutor/police/legislator point that is intentionally ignoring facts.
If you’re just a troll then by all means, troll away.
So fragile.
Asking people to think critically about how much is 56 grams in terms that they can understand is anti-police/prosecutor now? LOL!
The fragility is tangible.
To Sum Up
This dispute: "You're fragile." "No, you're fragile." Is this the new go-to insult?
Also, I have to object to it being called the European metric system. Plenty of non-Euros use the metric system when they want to use a system that makes a lot more sense.
Drug weight
The cops don’t determine the system. That’s the way the law is written. So blame the people that write the laws.
You act as if they're different systems
Then why didn't they say 56
Then why didn't they say 56,000 milligrams?
There's no reason to care about the cocaine
or to prosecute anyone for having it. The loaded gun, on the other hand, is an imminent danger to the bookstore staff, the customers, and anyone else in the immediate neighborhood.
It's Goforth
Not Gofofrth
Yep
Fixed, thanks.