The city announced today it's installed four vending machines that dispense Narcan, clean syringes and fentanyl test kits - with room for possible later additions that could include pregnancy test kits and socks - and is working to install another eight machines that dispense Narcan across the city.

The goal is to reduce the harm of drug use until people with addiction can get into treatment, Boston Public Health Commissioner Bisola Ojikutu said in a statement.

Harm reduction is about keeping people safe and alive. Unfortunately, many people living with substance use disorder don’t use harm reduction tools, like naloxone and clean syringes, due to stigma, lack of access or unawareness

Four initial machines have been installed outside the Boston Medical Center's Finland Building, the Southampton Street shelter, the EnVision Hotel in Jamaica Plain and the North End Waterfront Community Health Center’s Charlestown location. The city is looking to install an additional eight naloxone kiosks at indoor locations.

The four vending machines were part of a purchase by the state Department of Public Health, with ten planned for installation elsewhere in the state.

State officials this morning officially celebrated the removal of the last official slow zone on the MBTA, on the Green Line specifically - after more than 20 years of subway slow zones. Not all riders were able to join in the celebrations, though, because they were outside shivering in the cold waiting for a Red Line shuttle bus due to a cracked rail near Wollaston.

Also this morning: Switch problems near Haymarket on the Green Line and a dead train near Aquarium on the Blue Line.

Yesterday, there were delays on the Orange Line due to switch problems at Forest Hills.

President Biden has commuted the death sentences to life in prison for 37 of the 40 people on federal death row.

He believes that America must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level, except in cases of terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder – which is why today’s actions apply to all but those cases.

The Boston Fire Department reports firefighters responded to 35 Freeport Way in Dorchester for a fire in a metal-clad building around 11 p.m. on Sunday. The department reports one person inside was transported to the hospital with injuries.

The Swellesley Report is filing dispatches from the front lines of a war that's erupted in normally bucolic Wellesley between people who just want to do some sledding and a gardening group that is trying to keep them off a prime hill to protect the tulips and other plantings at the bottom of the hill.

Yesterday, the Swellesley Report learned first hand that the Massachusetts Horticultural Society had not only fenced off a popular hill on the Elm Bank land it leases from the state (with fences that could be electrified, no less), its officials and local police were on hand at the closest parking lot to shoo away all the families that kept trying to show up with sleds and tubes and toboggans. The reason: To protect all the tulips and other plantings in gardens at the bottom of the hill.

Today, the news site reports, sledding rebels tore down the fencing down and people were serenely sliding down the hill. The local state rep was aghast the society was blocking sledding, but allowed as how tearing down fences was perhaps not the best way to address the situation.

Like Harvard University with the Arnold Arboretum, the society has a long-term lease on the land - albeit just 99 years, not the 1,000 years a canny Harvard negotiated with the city of Boston back in the 1870s.

Unlike the society, however, Harvard has never planted tulips at the bottom of the Ahb's prime sledding run, down Peters Hill to South Street in Roslindale.

The state Civil Service Commission last week overturned Boston Police's firing of Ofr. Joseph Abasciano, who traveled to Washington to watch Jan. 6 unfold - although he never entered the Capitol - and who, under a pseudonym, posted a series of tweets calling officials who opposed the loser of the 2020 elections a bunch of traitors and urging "a civil war or a violent revolution."

The ruling has little immediate impact since Abasciano is now retired due to disability - leg injuries he suffered while on the job, well before Jan. 6 and the department's termination did not reduce his retirement benefits. However, it could help him with his federal lawsuit against the city for both his firing and its refusal, while he was still on the BPD payroll, to grant him an exemption to the city's Covid-19 vaccination requirement.

The commission says Abasciano posted the tweets in his off hours as a private citizen - on his trek to and from DC - that that he left Washington once he saw the coup attempt turn violent and that, in any case, none of his tweets, posted under a pseudonym that another officer with whom he had beef reported to BPD, "negatively impacted the BPD’s operations or public mission."

In its decision, written by Commissioner Paul Stein, the commission emphasized its ruling doesn't mean it's siding with anything posted by Abasciano, a former West Roxbury resident who now lives in New Hampshire:

This decision does not overlook the fact that most citizens, including members of this Commission, rightly reject the Appellant's misinformed opinions contained in his tweets about the 2020 election and its aftermath. The limited issues before the Commission, however, were: (1) whether the Appellant's disability retirement application filed by the BPD in June 2022 and approved retroactively to his termination date divested the Commission of jurisdiction to adjudicate the just cause for the BPD's termination decision, which the Commission decided it did not; and (2) whether, on the facts and the law, the Appellant's tweets were constitutionally protected speech, as he claimed, or whether, when made, or after they became public, the tweets rose to the level of sanctionable misconduct that justified his termination as the BPD claimed. The Commission's decision finds the Appellant's tweets to be protected speech and are not just cause for his termination. The decision is not to be construed as endorsing the substance of those misinformed opinions nor as condoning the underlying, unconscionable criminal acts committed by those who stormed the Capitol that day.

The commission noted that two investigations in 2021, one by BPD's anti-corruption unit, the other by its internal-affairs unit, had cleared Abasciano of any fireable offenses for the trip he made to DC on Jan. 5 with fellow officer Jose Diaz - who knew enough to not post publicly about the trip - during which he tweeted, under a pseudonym, such things as:

MAGA Millions of Patriots here in DC. Today is a day for choosing. Today there will be only two parties in America. Traitor and Patriots!” #January6 #MAGA #MarchForTrump

and

I hope you never sleep well again @VP your Treasonous Act led to the murder of an innocent girl and the death of America. You are not a Godly man. I guess @ LLinwood was right about you all along.

The investigations had been sparked by somebody - who turned out to be another Boston cop - who filed a complaint with BPD linking Abasciano to the Twitter account used to post them, @mailboxjoe.

After his appointment by Mayor Wu as police commissioner, Michael Cox ordered the case re-opened. And this time, BPD decided the tweets were ill becoming of a Boston Police officer who is supposed to work for and protect, and be trusted by everybody. In a new report, Deputy Supt. Richard Dahill, who oversaw the internal hearings leading to Abasciano's fireing wrote:

I find the posts, taken at face value, indicate that Officer Abasciano is unable to impartially and without bias perform his duties as a sworn member of the Department. Officer Abasciano post suggests he views the members of the community as either patriots or traitors. The comments indicate a rigid viewpoint that does not recognize the duty to protect the rights of all individuals, rather it divides people as traitors or patriots. Even after Officer Abasciano was aware that the rally had degenerated into a criminal riot resulting in at least one death and the destruction of property in the US Capitol, Officer Abasciano continued to use incendiary language and blamed Vice President Pence for the events rather than the criminal rioters showing a lack of a commitment to preserving life and property, or respect for our law enforcement partners.

But the commission credited the two initial investigations, which cleared Abasciano of any offenses worth possible criminal action or firing, more than the third one, under Cox, because they were far more detailed and included interviews with superior officers who, while acknowledging Abasciano had conservative politics, swore they never noticed them interfering with his work as a police officer in Roxbury and Dorchester.

And the commission noted the punishment in his case was far more severe than BPD meted out to two other officers who had interfered with their duties as BPD officers: One compromised a murder investigation by releasing some information about it, the other was caught stealing, yet both were only suspended for a time, not fired.

In sum, the BPD failed to meet their burden of producing evidence to prove that any BPD personnel, Boston employees, or members of the public (save for the Appellant's one nemesis) protested any of the Appellant's tweets, including the three more severely critical ones singled out above, or voiced any complaints about him. The BPD's own command staff took different views about the risk of disruption that these tweets had on the BPD's ability to fulfil its public mission. Those who knew the Appellant professionally provided credible evidence of his ability to keep his politics from having any influence on his ability and duty to do his job as a BPD police officer. Neither Deputy Superintendent Crispin nor Captain Martin saw the Appellant's tweets as conduct unbecoming. Hearty disagreement by those in positions of authority can generally form no basis for employment discipline.

The decision discusses some of the specific tweets, finds several to be Constitutionally benign comments on American politics and even the others not a valid reason to fire a Boston cop, because they did not directly discuss Boston or its police force:

To be sure, some of the language in these tweets is particularly harsh – i.e., accusing Vice President Pence of and the "Political Elitest Class" of treason that led to the "murder of an innocent girl" and has "killed the republic". However, these tweets also expressed a theme similar to his earlier tweets: what the Appellant considered betrayal by elected officials whom the Appellant (erroneously) was misled into believing had violated their oaths of office. They do not express animosity toward any members of the BPD or any individual, group or class of Boston citizens or officials.

Stein added that even after this case, BPD still does not have any formal policies on officers' use of social media while off duty:

I have considered the fact that the BPD’s Rules and Procedures did not, and apparently still do not, include a specific social media policy. This fact, however, does not change the analysis. It would behoove the BPD, however, to review its policies and determine whether promulgation of a social media policy would serve the interests and the mission of the BPD in the future.

Our own Swirlygrrl attended Solstice, an annual winter show at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge last night.

Boston Police report arresting the woman they say fatally stabbed Celia Simmons in Ramsay Park in Roxbury on Nov. 16.

Fugitive-unit officers found and arrested Rasheedah Hughes, 40, of Boston, on Hammond Street, not far from the park, police say.

She is scheduled for arraignment on Monday on a charge of murder, police say.

Update: The Suffolk County District Attorney's office provided this account:

Assistant District Attorney Kaitlin Tolbert said that at about 12:48 p.m. on Saturday, November 16 Boston police responded to a call at Ramsey Park on Washington Street for a person stabbed. Responding officers found Simmons suffering from numerous stab wounds. Tolbert said Hughes and Simmons were both at the park when an altercation occurred between them, during which Hughes allegedly brandished a box cutter and Simmons hit her with a cane. Hughes then left the park and returned some time later carrying what witnesses described as a large knife. She then stabbed Simmons repeatedly. Tolbert said Hughes was identified through eyewitnesses, video, and various circumstantial means.

Innocent, etc.

A Suffolk Superior Court jury yesterday convicted Ramon Rodriguez-Delgado, 48, for stabbing Marcelino Perez, 77, to death in 2018 in the Franklin Hill development in Dorchester, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Rodriguez-Delgado will be formally sentenced on Monday, but the verdict carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole - subject to a hearing by the Supreme Judicial Court.

According to the DA's office:

Rodriguez-Delgado lived in a building across the courtyard from Perez's Shandon Road apartment building and had previously observed an individual arrive at Perez’ apartment in order to deliver prize money from a private lottery in which Perez was involved.

The investigation revealed that on July 26, 2018, Rodriguez-Delgado observed Perez and the male with the money enter 99 Shandon Road together just before 2 p.m. Video surveillance shows that the man who dropped off the money left the apartment just after 2 p.m. and that Rodriguez-Delgado entered and exited 99 Shandon Road three times, each time wearing different clothing. Perez was later found in his apartment with multiple stab wounds.

Boston Police report arresting the woman they say rummaged through people's belongings at a toy drive at the Brighton Center Corrib Pub this past Sunday.

Police say detectives nabbed the woman this afternoon as she walked on Massachusetts Avenue near the Orange Line stop and St. Botolph Street.

Ji Li Noiseux, 44, was arrested on a warrant issued by Brighton Municipal Court on charges of larceny from a building and attempting to commit a crime, court records show.

Innocent, etc.

Bostonians filled the 311 lines with plenty of road snow complaints today, such as this complaint at 7:16 p.m. about Gallivan Boulevard (which, granted, is a state road, not a city responsibility):

This can't be real life!!! THIS IS GALLIVAN BLVD Where are the plows and salt!!! Im voting everyone out!!!!

Also not happy: The 311 poster on Blue Hill Avenue near American Legion Highway around 6:30 p.m.:

This is how Blue Hill Ave looks. No snow plows in sight plowing or putting down salt on the roads

Centre Street, West Roxbury:

Sanders needed. Can you put some plows on the new Mustangs and get them out here in West Roxbury. Remember we are still a part of Boston.

Semont Road, Dorchester:

Spot savers all over the street even though there is no state of emergency and parking is limited. Please do something. I can’t even park to go home because I’m afraid someone will smash my window for moving a spot saver.

Watertown News reports on the flour that fell on neighboring streets like snow earlier this month from a silo at the Newly Weds factory.

A federal judge ruled today North End restaurant owners simply had no case against Mayor Wu for first ordering fees on North End restaurants that wanted to use city sidewalks and curbs for outdoor dining and then banning private patios on public ways in the neighborhood.

The restaurant owners said this violated their constitutional rights and was proof she was prejudiced against Italians.

But in a complete rebuke to the owners, US District Court Judge Leo Sorokin said regulating outdoor dining is a perfectly legitimate function for city government, there was no proof that Wu singled out the North End because she hates either Italians or the neighborhood, and that, in fact, by stressing the neighborhood's "uniqueness" in their lawsuit, the restaurant owners actually made the city's case that the North End required different regulations than other neighborhoods.

First, the fees and eventual termination of on-street dining do not infringe upon an express or fundamental constitutional right, such as free speech or the free exercise of religion. Second, Plaintiffs have not stated a colorable claim that they were singled out based upon their race, ethnicity, or national origin. Numerous restaurants owned by people of all races, ethnicities, and nationalities (including white Italian Americans) were able to offer on-street dining under the City's policy. Finally, Plaintiffs have not plausibly pled that the North End is similarly situated to other neighborhoods where on-street dining was permitted. The City regulated on-street dining by neighborhood, just as it regulates many other matters by neighborhood, and Plaintiffs themselves emphasize the uniqueness of the North End. In any event, Plaintiffs have also failed to plausibly allege that the different on-street-dining policies in the North End lacked a rational basis or otherwise sprung from bad faith or a desire to punish the Plaintiffs.

In 2020, as the pandemic raged, the Walsh administration created rules that let restaurants across the city apply to use sidewalks and parking spaces along the curb for outdoor dining. Even as vaccines became available and the health effects of the pandemic waned, the city continued the program. But in 2022, now under Mayor Wu, the city imposed fees on restaurants in the North End because of what they said were the small, crowded neighborhood's unique constraints involving trash collection, rodent control and the need to rent space in nearby garages for residents who could no longer park in spaces now taken up by tables and chairs. Then the city just banned the use of public ways for outdoor dining in the North End completely, even as it continued to allow the practice in other neighborhoods.

A group of four North End restaurants sued, claiming it was all part of Wu's hatred of white Italian men in particular - even though some of them were actually from Argentina and one was a woman - but their suit fell apart and they withdrew it.

Then, in January of this year, a larger group of restaurant owners and the North End Chamber of Commerce filed a new suit, this time claiming Wu's animus was directed at white Italians in general, the proof of which they said included her designating Indigenous People's Day to be held on the same day as Columbus Day and a dumb joke she made about removing snow, which is white, at a St. Patrick's Day breakfast - a place where politicians have stood up for decades and made dumb jokes.

The group charged that complaints from the North End Waterfront Neighborhood Association about quality-of-life issues, such as increased traffic congestion, should have been irrelevant because the group's leaders were all a bunch of rich people living in waterfront condos.

Sorokin began his legal argument by first saying that even aside from all the other issues, he would have dismissed the restaurant suit because it was simply far longer than allowed by federal court rules, specifically, one known as Rule 8:

"Unnecessary prolixity" fairly describes the [restaurant/chamber complaint]. It contains well over 700 numbered paragraphs spanning over 200 pages. It is neither "short" nor "plain." This is one type of prolix pleading against which Rule 8 safeguards. ...

Here, Plaintiffs summarized several meetings and communications, included photos of those meetings and of an electric sweeper, provided a "brief" history of Italians in the North End, repeated Mayor Wu's statement at the St. Patrick Day breakfast five times, quoted several seemingly random "residents," inserted multiple characterizations of "legendary" restaurants and "jaw dropping" fees, described the media's response to the on-street-dining ban, omitted virtually no detail of the entire course of events, and much more. The Court has considered whether each or even many of these assertions are necessary to advance the causes of action set forth in the [complaint]; they are not. To require the City to answer the [complaint] as presently drafted imposes an unfair and unnecessary burden - one of the harms Rule 8 seeks to prevent. It also imposes a significant burden on the Court as it attempts to sift through the allegations of the pleading. Accordingly, for this reason alone - failure to comply with Rule 8 - the Motion to Dismiss is ALLOWED.

Sorokin then got into the restaurant owners' specific issues.

No, he said, the US Constitution does not give them the right to use public streets for private profit: "Such a right is neither expressly created in the Constitution nor fairly inferred from any provision thereof." Nor do they have a "property interest" in curbside dining; and removing permission for it does not "shock the conscience."

No, he wrote, the policy does not discriminate against Italians, white or otherwise, because Italian restaurant owners outside the North End were not barred from running patios on public sidewalks:

Plaintiffs' factual allegations fail to plausibly allege a discriminatory purpose by way of a pattern of action explainable only on grounds of national origin. Plaintiffs fail to identify a pattern of conduct historically targeting the North End, Italian restaurants, or "white Italian Americans." At most, they allege shifts in policy in 2022 and 2023 affecting the North End: eliminating the fee waiver for outdoor dining, shortening the outdoor-dining season, and eventually no longer allowing on-street dining. These changes were not "unexplainable on grounds other than race [or national origin]," but rather justified, as Plaintiffs allege in their SAC, by the unique impacts of the program on the North End. The policy also applied uniformly without regard to the identity of the owner or the type of food served by the restaurant. With respect to the "degree of disproportionate racial effect," the very policy Plaintiffs allege harms "white Italian Americans" or "Italian restaurants" actually benefits several Italian restaurants (and likely restaurants owned by those of Italian descent) that enjoyed on-street dining outside the North End. This favorable treatment undermines any inference of discriminatory purpose or intent against the “class” that Plaintiffs purport to allege. ...

Plaintiffs also fail to allege legislative or administrative history that would support a claim of discriminatory intent. Plaintiffs offer no facts supporting the inference that the City imposed the challenged regulations because many restaurants in the North End serve Italian food or are owned by those of Italian heritage or white people. A joke, perhaps about white people, made by the Mayor at the St. Patrick's Day breakfast hardly suggests animus against Italian Americans. Similarly, the designation of Indigenous People's Day is not evidence of animus.

No, the judge continued, the mayor did not discriminate against the North End - and here he used the plaintiffs' own assertion, that the North End is unique, against them.

The other neighborhoods Plaintiffs cite are not similarly situated. None of those neighborhoods, to the eye of "a prudent person, looking objectively," are "roughly equivalent" "in all relevant respects" to the North End, nor have Plaintiffs pled plausibly "an extremely high degree of similarity." The North End, as characterized by Plaintiffs in their own pleading, is an exceptionally dense neighborhood, with the highest density of restaurants in the state, located adjacent to the Sumner Tunnel and the North Washington Street Bridge construction project. Plaintiffs allege that the restaurants in the North End should be compared to other restaurants in other neighborhoods of Boston. But the different treatment Plaintiffs describe and complain of concerns the neighborhood of the North End. ("The City's blanket refusal to review and approve any application for an on-street outdoor dining license for restaurants in the North End is contrary to law . . . "). The most salient comparator, then, would not be other restaurants, but other neighborhoods in Boston. ...

But even if the Court were to compare restaurant to restaurant, Plaintiffs cite certain relevant aspects, such as "width of the streets" or the "restaurants' location in residential buildings," while averring that restaurants outside the North End are similarly situated. That is not a valid application of the law. Plaintiffs cannot pick and choose the aspects that would make the restaurants similar; they must contend with all aspects relevant to the regulation, including the neighborhood in which the restaurant is located. ... This requires comparing neighborhoods, as that is a relevant aspect pertaining to the policy. Plaintiffs allege that the justification of the policy was that the "North End is different from other neighborhoods because of the unique impacts of outdoor dining on the quality of residential life." Beyond that, they have not identified any other neighborhood with similar relevant aspects pertaining to restaurant density, residential quality of life concerns, and proximity to construction projects, that would make a valid comparator. Therefore, the restaurants in the North End are not similarly situated with restaurants outside the North End.

No, he wrote, city officials did not act maliciously, and the plaintiffs really should have left a judge out of their whining about a city policy they didn't like:

Plaintiffs do not advance allegations establishing that the City bore an affirmative intent to harm them. They do state that the alleged "quality of life" justification for the different treatment was baseless (and therefore pretext masking bad faith), because the outdoor-dining program did not actually cause the issues relating to rats, rodents, traffic congestion, accessibility problems, and trash afflicting the neighborhood. Even accepting this as true (i.e., assuming that outdoor dining did not cause all of these issues), the [complaint] alleges something materially different. The statements of and decisions by the City set out in the [complainy] allege that the City concluded on-street dining exacerbated, rather than created, these problems, and that this conclusion led first to its decision to limit on-street dining and then to eliminate it altogether. While Plaintiffs may argue that the City could have addressed these concerns in other ways, that is not before the Court to decide, nor does it convert the rationale to one made in bad faith. The City’s weighing and prioritizing different considerations yielding a decision different from the one Plaintiffs might prefer is not evidence of bad faith or an attempt to harm or injure Plaintiffs. ...

Plaintiffs have alleged the Mayor decided the North End was a unique neighborhood (a point on which Plaintiffs agree), and that various aspects of this "uniqueness" caused the Mayor to first impose a fee and then eliminate on-street dining. Whether this decision was the "best policy" or the "wisest" decision is not for a court to decide.

And so, the judge concluded, the restaurant owners wound up making the city's case, not their own:

The Court need not imagine a set of facts that would provide a rational basis for the City's policies because Plaintiffs have already supplied them. To justify the fees imposed on Plaintiffs, the City considered the "unique impacts of outdoor dining on the quality of residential life," such as "trash, rodents, traffic, and parking problems." To justify the ban on on-street dining in the North End, the City cited "the North End's high density of restaurants and foot traffic, narrow streets and sidewalks, resident parking scarcity, and other related considerations." The City also pointed to the "scheduled closures of the Sumner Tunnel and continued congestion around the North Washington Street Bridge construction project." These explanations more than suffice to show that the reasons underlying the policies were rationally related to legitimate government interests. Plaintiffs do not challenge the accuracy of the concerns; that is, they do not allege that the construction projects or the rodent problem did not exist. Instead, Plaintiffs argue that they were not the real reasons the City shifted its policies. However, the law does not require the City to "prove" the legitimacy of these justifications, only that the reasons it provided rationally related to valid government interests. In addition, the City is entitled to proceed one step at a time in addressing public concerns. ... While these considerations may not be entirely absent from other neighborhoods, Plaintiffs' own allegations establish that the City has sufficiently articulated a rational basis for treating the North End differently. These reasons are neither arbitrary nor irrational.

Time was, Boston Proper was very much a place of short buildings, where for decades the city skyline consisted mainly of just one building - the Custom House Tower. Those days are long gone, obviously, but remnants of it persist in Chinatown, which still has a number of one- and two-story buildings, such as the Clay Pot Cafe at 74 Kneeland St.

On the other side of Washington, on Stuart Street, Chaba Florist will meet your floral-arrangement needs from its small space:

It seemed to be lights out at Ding Ho Fast Food at Kneeland and Harrison on a recent visit, at least on the Kneeland side:

Tora Ramen at 99 Kneeland, was open, in a two-story building (also in a two-story building: the Dunkin' Donuts with the mystery windows on the second floor):

Of course, Chinatown is not immune to towers - take a look at the neighborhood's one pizza place, Boston Kitchen Pizza, at Washington and Stuart:

Earlier:
The elevated origins of a lowly building in Chinatown.

WFXT reports dogs attacked a home health aid on Brunswick Street in Dorchester yesterday, sending her to the hospital with serious leg injuries.

Last month, a Roxbury woman died after one of her four dogs attacked her.

The Dorchester Reporter reports the Boston Licensing Board will begin hearings and deliberations in January on the first batch of beer-and-wine and all-alcohol licenses it can now grant, based on applications filed by Dec. 6, but won't actually grant any until March.

The Boston Licensing Board had previously said it would make no decisions on who gets the new licenses until after it complete hearings on applications it had received by Dec. 6. The board has been holding such hearings for the past couple of months and will continue these hearings through January - at which applicants will be asked to explain the "public need" for them to get a license to sell alcohol.

Most of the new licenses will be restricted to applicants in 13 specific Zip codes and Brighton's Oak Square and can't be resold, but a few will be "golden tickets" that will instantly be worth several hundred thousand dollars on the open market.

Earlier this year, the state deigned to let Boston distribute 225 new licenses to restaurants over a three-year period.

BPS acknowledged this month that putting students and teachers in a school building undergoing massive reconstruction and enlargement isn't working - for either the kids or the construction workers. But part of its solution for construction delays at the former Washington Irving Middle School in Roslindale - moving the classes out, some to the basement of the Roslindale Square community center - has some parents outraged.

BPS notified parents of upper-grade kids at what will eventually become the Philbrick-Sumner school on Cummins Highway yesterday that when school restarts in January, they'll be moving to either the community-center basement or another school. This will at least mean an end to the construction-related screeching and grinding and banging students and staff have had to put up with this fall, and hopefully allow for faster construction to meet BPS's goal of re-opening the new school by next fall.

But one parent, Jennifer Dines, writes to UHUb:

Number one, this is an enormous safety concern, a huge one, because anyone from the community, not only people with a CORI, can access the children. And number two a complete lack of respect for teachers as the timing is right before the holidays, so everyone has to worry about this, but without collegial support.

I am not exactly in disbelief, but this is a horrible decision, and they very easily could put off opening the merged school for another year to have a reasonable construction timeline.

Another parent called 311 to complain about, among other things, the difficulty this will cause sixth graders in preparing for that all important exam-school test:

Constituent is very concerned about the disruption this is having on not only her child but also the student population in general. Constituent states the construction has had an effect on test scores for exams schools and wellbeing. The parents were discussed with at a school meeting that unfortunately he constituent could not attend they believe took place on 12/11, but it was not the meetings main agenda item and was added to the end of the meeting, and those meeting are held at 5:30PM on Wednesdays so it is difficult for parents to attend. ... 6th Graders will be moved to the lower campus and lose all their electives. Constituent states this is very concerning, as it is the 4th time students have been uprooted due to this construction.

At a meeting on Dec. 12, BPS officials told parents that:

Our attempts to advance both active teaching & learning and renovation at the Irving Building is resulting in project delays. The contractor has raised the potential of a significant delay due to numerous unforeseen conditions and material lead times.

Without significant adjustments, including the relocation of classrooms, we are unlikely to meet our project completion date.

In addition to moving kids in the middle of the school year, BPS and city officials are also looking at hiring on more workers and expanding construction to weekends and holidays as a way to get the new school ready by August of next year, in time for the next school year.

A federal judge today tossed a lawsuit by a lawyer who claimed BPD officers violated his Constitutional rights when he made his way around police tape surrounding a Roxbury Crossing crash scene and then refused to back up because he had an important appointment to get to and they stopped him and only sent him on his away after he flashed his lawyer credentials.

Winston Kendall sued the city and the officers involved in the 2018 incident, charging violations of his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

In a ruling today, US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs said that police had a legitimate reason to ask Kendall why he was ignoring police tape around a crash at Tremont Street and Columbus Avenue that sent a driver and the two teenage pedestrians the driver hit to the hospital, especially after one officer first told him to stop and go back, rather than continuing across Columbus, right through the taped-off area.

Kendall, who insists he did not hear the admonition to turn around, was not cuffed nor formally charged with anything, but he had to explain to officers who he was and what he was doing - he was hurrying from the Orange Line to Roxbury Municipal Court, where he was late for an appointment.

This "stop," Kendall charged, in the suit he originally filed in 2021 in Suffolk Superior Court, was blatant racial animus - he is Black and Trinidadian - and a violation of his constitutional rights because the cops had no probable cause to stop him - they had no proof he might have just committed or was about to commit a crime and should have just let him continue on his way. He added the city - which had the suit "removed" to federal court - was also to blame because BPD was well known for its proclivities for stopping Black men in the street.

Nope, Burroughs wrote.

Plaintiff's investigatory stop was justified at its inception. Although Plaintiff argues that the officers did not know any facts "that would have led a reasonable person to believe that the plaintiff had committed or was about to commit, any crime,", the record establishes that, at the moment he was stopped and asked for his identification, Plaintiff had entered a taped-off scene where police were still investigating a serious car accident that left three people hospitalized (one in critical condition), had been ordered by officers to leave the scene, and, despite that order, was continuing to move through the restricted area. At that time, under the totality of the circumstances, the officers had reasonable suspicion to believe that Plaintiff was or about to commit a crime such as interfering with ongoing police activity. ... The officers also were responsible for maintaining the scene and therefore had a more generalized but reasonable concern for the integrity of the crime scene.

The stop was also reasonable in scope and fell well short of an arrest despite Plaintiff's contention that "[t]he seizure ripened into an arrest when the officers demanded 'identification.'" "There is no scientifically precise formula that enables courts to distinguish between investigatory stops . . . [and] 'de facto arrests.'" United States v. Zapata, 18 F.3d 971, 975 (1st Cir. 1994). Relevant factors include "the location and duration of the stop, the number of police officers present at the scene, the degree of physical restraint placed upon the suspect, and the information conveyed to the suspect." United States v. Rabbia, 699 F.3d 85, 91 (1st Cir. 2012). Here, the detention lasted, at most, only "a few minutes," and only as long as necessary for officers to examine Plaintiff's identification, which was a reasonable request given that the officers were trying to determine Plaintiff's business, if any, within the crime scene.

In sum, after Plaintiff (knowingly or not) entered a secured crime scene without permission, officers required him to produce identification before he could exit, and, once he produced some form of identification, the officers allowed him to leave. This conduct does not establish that the officers violated Plaintiff's Fourth Amendment rights.

Similarly, she continued, Kendall failed to prove what happened that day could be blamed on city or BPD policies.

Plaintiff has not provided any facts to support the commission of any specific tort claims traceable to City's alleged supervisory negligence. The Officer Defendants did not violate Plaintiff’s Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment rights, and the undisputed facts do not establish that any other tortious conduct occurred that could support a finding of supervisory liability.

The MBTA reported signal problems near Broadway this morning meant rush-hour delays of up to a half hour on the Red Line. And as Your Favorite Deer's Favorite Deer reported, an impromptu homage to the Clash at Park Street:

Red Line train to Ashmont kicked passengers off at Park Street, said it was turning back to Alewife, then proceeded in the wrong direction as employees on platform yelled “STOP THE TRAIN” - person on intercom telling conductor "move your train"