A concerned resident filed a 311 report early this morning about the situation along Kelton Street between Comm. Ave. and Allston Street:

People using airsoft guns to hunt rats and shooting around cars and apartment windows.

A disgusted resident filed a 311 complaint today about the X somebody spray painted across the explanation on the mural that honors Dorchester's own Ray Bolger, who played the Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz:"

Sad, People are just culturally illiterate aren't they? This is why we can't have cool things in Dorchester. We are held Hostage by banal criminals.

The mural just after it was painted.

Should somebody check on the giant pear?

Two registered nurses fired by Shriners Children's Hospital Boston for refusing to get Covid-19 vaccinations yesterday sued the hospital, charging that the hospital, with "evil motive or intent," was doing the bidding of federal and state governments and so deprived them of their 14th-Amendment rights to refuse when they ordered employees to become "human subjects in federally funded research activities" and get vaccinated.

Nurses Ashley Petrowski and Tracey Abbey filed their suit in US District Court in Boston. They are represented by two lawyers, one based in Boston and David J. Schexnaydre of Mandeville, LA.

Federal court records show Schexnaydre has been busy over the past couple of years filing numerous similar suits across the country against hospitals, including Shriners hospitals in Texas and Washington state, and state governments, including Washington state and California. Unlike his suits in other states, his Boston suit does not include the state or state officials as defendants.

In recent months, federal judges in several states have tossed his suits, saying, among other things, that protecting against a deadly virus is a legitimate government interest, even if private facilities were somehow being controlled by the government in this case, which judges have said they were not.

In the Texas Shriners case, the judge specifically dismissed the charge that Shriners was acting as an arm of the government in requiring employees to get vaccinated against Covid-19, saying that the hospital's decision to offer vaccinations under an agreement with the federal government was different from its private, non-governmental decision to require employees to get vaccinated.

In the Washington Shriners case, the judge concluded that because the 14th Amendment most immediately applies to people in certain classes, such as people targeted because of their race, ethnicity or gender, and that people refusing shots are not one of those classes, a court would have to determine whether the particular state action in question - in this case to require employee Covid-19 vaccinations - serves a "legitimate" state interest. The court concluded that the goal of the vaccination requirement, "to slow the spread of COVID-19," was a legitimate state interest - especially in the context of a challenge brought by "former healthcare workers employed by a children’s hospital."

The judge in the Washington Shriners case discounted the argument the vaccines were experimental, in a decision that noted that in August, 2021, the federal government formally approved the sale of a vaccine by Pfizer, with a brand name and all, and that vaccine was identical to the one that was already in use under an emergency federal order:

These claims fail from the outset because, as this Court and several others have now concluded, Plaintiffs cannot establish that the Proclamation [by Washington governor] subjected them to any kind of "investigational" drug use. ... [T]he Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine available to Plaintiffs before the October 18 deadline was not "investigational" but instead fully approved by the FDA: the Pfizer-BioNTech and Comirnaty vaccines were identical in all but name.

The Boston Shriners hospital issued its vaccine mandate in September, 2021 and gave employees a month to either show proof of vaccination or file for a medical or religious exemption.

Schexnaydre has appealed all his losses; to date, no federal appeals court has ruled on them.

The case by Petrowksi and Abbey is different from most of the anti-vaccination cases filed to date in federal court in Boston, because according to their complaint, they not only refused shots, they refused to even ask for a medical or religious exemption, allegedly on 14th Amendment grounds, that even asking them to seek an exemption is a violation of their 14th Amendment rights to be allowed to continue working "without penalty or pressure."

The right is a federally secured right with which no other person can interfere by requiring an individual to seek a religious or medical exemption to exercise that right.

Other cases filed here have typically involved fired workers who either claim their religions forbid them from getting shots - because their body is a temple that shall not be defiled or because they claim the vaccines are the product of aborted fetuses - or because they say they have suffered ill effects in from their first shot or from other vaccines in the past and didn't want to risk their health.

According to their complaint, the two Shriners RNs claim that all of the Covid-19 vaccines allowed starting in late 2020 remained "unlicensed investigational new drugs" even as millions of people got them.

By ordering workers to get the shots, the hospital was participating in experiments run by the federal and state governments, they charged. Federal law gives them the right to not participate in medical experiments and the 14th Amendment grants them the right to be treated equally with the vaccinated - in this case, remaining on their jobs at a hospital that treats children at particular risk of infection - and to have their requests to go unvaccinated heard by "an impartial decision maker."

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees Plaintiffs the right to (1) enjoy the benefits of a federal program (a property right), (2) exercise statutory entitlements (a property right), (3) refuse public disclosure of their private health and identifiable information (right to privacy), (4) refuse to become human subjects under federally funded research activities (right to bodily autonomy and integrity), and (5) refuse unwanted investigational drugs and unwanted medical treatments (right to bodily autonomy and integrity), without incurring a penalty or losing a benefit to which they are otherwise entitled.

The two Shriners RNs are seeking enough damages both to make them whole and to make Shriners think twice about ever trying something like what they did ever again.

GBH News reports on efforts by councilors in the three cities, including Boston's Enrique Pepén (Hyde Park, Mattapan, Roslindale) to lift Massachusetts's current standing as the only state where tenants have to pay fees to apartment brokers who work for landlords.

Handmaid snapped both ends of the city's largest Christmas bow, on the Flour and Grain Exchange building on Milk Street downtown.

Cynthia Donovan walked into her local Stop & Shop yesterday and saw all these plushie Marties for sale. No batteries needed, but they also don't stand there flashing yellow in impotent rage because they have no hands to pick up that stray lettuce leaf that is blocking their path.

The city reports officials and departments are adding Bluesky to the social-media platforms they post to. There's a list of city officials already on Bluesky.

WBUR has been following a new immigrant family from their arrival to Massachusetts to their finding a new home here.

The Boston Public Health Commission reports the bloom is off Sprague Pond on the Readville/Dedham line: Water samples taken Nov. 20 and 26 show that the toxic levels of cyanobacteria reported earlier this month have dropped back to safe numbers.

Analysis of testing samples taken in the area on November 20 and 26 demonstrated cyanobacteria levels below the state’s safe limit of 70,000 cells/milliliters (mL) of water.

In high levels, toxins produced by the microorganisms, also known as blue-green algae, can kill dogs.

Sprague Pond, off Sprague Street at the Dedham line, is one of Boston's two designated "great" ponds; the other being Jamaica Pond.

Boston College is fighting back against a worker who's suing it for disregarding what he claims is his religious right to not get a Covid-19 shot in a way that other organizations facing similar suits cannot: It argues it has its own religious rights under the First Amendment to require workers to get vaccinated.

In April, Avenir Agaj, who worked as a landscaper, sued BC in US District Court in Boston, arguing his 2021 firing violated his rights as a follower of Bogomil, a 10th-century gnostic Bulgarian breakaway from mainstream Christianity whose sacred texts were destroyed as heresies by both Catholic and Orthodox leaders but which he says bar him from ingesting "filth," such as vaccines.

In a response filed yesterday to his suit, Boston College argues that, as a Catholic institution, its demand that workers get vaccinated against Covid-19 or lose their jobs, was an exercise of its own religious rights under the First Amendment, in this case, because of a mandate by Pope Francis for Catholics to be vaccinated:

Boston College is a Jesuit, Catholic institution. On December 17, 2020, Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, ordered publication of a Note regarding vaccination in response to COVID-19. Ultimately issued by the Vatican on December 21, 2020, the Note referred to vaccination for COVID-19 and the "duty to protect one’s own health but also… the duty to preserve the common good" against the "grave danger" of the "otherwise uncontainable spread of a serious pathological agent…" Boston College’s vaccination policy adhered to and was informed by Church teaching on this subject. In issuing and acting on its vaccination policy, Boston College was engaged in the free exercise of its religious beliefs.

BC also argues that his initial application for a religious exemption did not even specify which religion he was an adherent of, let alone which of its specific tenets prohibited him from getting vaccinated, but that, in any case, it had more secular reasons for firing him - similar to those argued by government agencies and hospitals that have faced similar suits: BC says it had no way to provide a "reasonable accommodation" that would let Agaj stay employed, that in fact, granting his request would create "undue hardship." The filing does not detail just what sort of hardship the school would have faced.

The answer also implies BC has somehow obtained a detailed understanding of Bogomil beliefs:

If Plaintiff had a sincerely held religious belief, or routinely followed a sincerely-held religious practice, which Boston College denies, Boston College’s vaccination requirement was not in conflict with plaintiff’s religious belief or religious practice.

Earlier this month, a federal judge concluded that Agaj's follow-up to BC's denial of his exemption request did have just enough details of his beliefs to warrant letting him continue his case, if not enough to grant him victory and damages before trial:

Agaj has made a prima facie showing that his bona fide religious beliefs and practice were the reason for the adverse employment action against him. Boston College's motion to dismiss will, accordingly, be denied as to Agaj's religious discrimination claims.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that the state wiretap law bars Suffolk County prosecutors from using video recorded by an undercover cop buying drugs from an alleged dealer in East Boston and Brighton because the cop didn't get a warrant first.

The video - and audio that a lower-court judge had earlier dismissed as evidence - were taken in 2020 of alleged sales by Thanh Du, whom Boston Police began investigating after a drug user died and, with the agreement of that user's family, officers searched his phone and found text messages with Du arranging drug purchases.

According to the court's summary of the case:

In transactions arranged using this telephone number, an undercover officer made purchases from the defendant on three occasions. Each time, the defendant approached the officer on foot at the agreed-upon public place, spoke with the officer, and then sold him packages of purported heroin or fentanyl in exchange for one hundred dollars.

On each occasion, prior to the defendant's arrival, the undercover officer activated an application called "Callyo" on his department-issued cellular telephone to create an audio-visual recording of his interaction with the defendant. In the recording of the first transaction, the defendant can briefly be observed approaching the undercover officer, and the two then discuss the sale while the camera is pointed down at the sidewalk for most but not all of the discussion. The recordings of the second and third transactions more clearly show the defendant's face, and the defendant again can be heard discussing each transaction with the undercover officer. After the third transaction, police arrested the defendant.

Two of the sales were in a laundromat on Paris Street in East Boston, the other in the parking lot of a CVS on Market Street in Brighton, according to a summary of the case by Suffolk County prosecutors.

Du was charged with three counts of distributing class A drugs.

His lawyer moved to have the phone recordings because they were "warrantless interceptions of his oral communications in violation of the wiretap act."

In its ruling today, the SJC agreed, saying the law, which prohibits "secret" recordings applies despite an argument by the Suffolk County District Attorney's office that the recordings were hardly secret because the undercover officer held his phone in his hand as he recorded and so "the cell phone would therefore have been visible to the defendant." Prosecutors cited a federal case in which a lawyer recording police making an arrest on the Common had his own arrest and charges voided after a court ruled he had made it clear to officers he was recording them openly.

But the court noted prosecutors didn't make that argument before the Suffolk Superior Court judge who heard the initial evidence-suppression request and wrote that an appeal to the state's highest court was the wrong place to make a novel argument like that in the case.

The court also noted that the wiretap law has an exception for law-enforcement officers who first get a warrant to make recordings - but that the officer didn't do that in this case.

"[T]he Commonwealth has presented no other basis for disturbing the motion judge's conclusion that the defendant was secretly recorded in violation of the wiretap act," so the only question for the justices to consider was whether to disallow the use of video from the recordings - the lower-court judge said prosecutors could use it, but not the audio.

The court concluded that prosecutors could not use the video, either, because portions of it show Du's face, which could be used to identify him, and the law prohibits the use of "contents" that includes "any information concerning the identity of the parties to [the wire or oral] communication or the existence, contents, substance, purport, or meaning of that communication."

The recordings in the case clearly violate that, the court concluded:

First, the footage shows one of the speakers - here, the defendant - meaning that the footage contains "information concerning the identity" of a party to the communication. ... Second, the footage shows the person engaging in the unlawfully intercepted oral communication and therefore contains "information concerning . . . the existence . . . of that communication." Id. The wiretap act's plain language thus requires suppression of the video footage as "contents" of the oral communication; "[i]t is not our function to craft unwarranted judicial exceptions to a statute that is unambiguous on its face." Hyde, 434 Mass. at 604.

Case docket - Includes written arguments by prosecutors and Du's attorneys and amicus briefs.

Anya Levy Guyer was at Jamaica Pond this morning when workers began setting up to take down one of the pond's odder, but most beloved trees - the one that had long bent down toward the water, but which began dying late in 2022, a process that accelerated this year as the once narrow split in its trunk grew ever wider and the tree began to pitch itself ever lower into the water.

Last year, somebody put a little notebook and a pencil on a string around the tree for people to record their memories and say goodbye. The notebook quickly filled up, and somebody added another, and then another and another, until, finally, park rangers removed them all.

Despite the split turning into a large hollow in the tree's trunk, it still sprouted leaves this past spring. But unlike during past droughts, when the bottom of the tree's outermost branches stayed well above the water, this year, they just kept getting lower and lower and by the end, remained under the increasingly low pond surface.

The tree in December, 2021, when its branches reflected off some still water on the pond:

The Zoning Board of Appeal yesterday approved developer Greg McCarthy's plans to convert a vacant six-story office building at 129 Portland St. into 25 apartments.

Also yesterday, developer Kambiz Shahbazi's KS Partners submitted a proposal to convert an 11-story office building at 15 Court Sq., off Court Street downtown and next to the Pi Alley garage, into 80 apartments.

Both projects would be under the city's office-to-residential pilot program, which seeks to bring more life to downtown through tax breaks for building owners who convert office space into apartments.

The zoning board McCarthy's plans unanimously.

Shahbazi is proposing 42 studios, 20 one-bedroom apartments and 18 two-bedroom units in the 1899 building, which his company bought in 2019 for $29 million. About 14 of the units would be rented as affordable.

In both cases, the buildings would have no off-street parking for tenant and would preserve the ground floor for commercial space.

Under the city's pilot, developers get 75% off standard residential tax rates for up to 29 years. One condition is that at least 17% of units be rented as affordable; another is that the city gets a 2% cut of the sales of a building during the abatement period. At the time the Wu administration proposed the program, developers of new buildings were only required to commit to 13% affordable units - last month, the specification was increased to 17% across the board.

15 Court Sq. filings and meeting/comment schedule.

The Boston Fire Department reports firefighters responded to 29 Keystone St. in West Roxbury for a fire around 2:30 p.m.

The department reports three residents were injured seriously enough to warrant transportation to a local hospital.

The fire started on the second floor; firefighters were able to keep it from spreading to the first floor, the department says.

Boston Police report arresting a teenager on murder charges for the June 28 death of Edwin Diaz-Geraldo, 20, of Brighton, who was shot and then crashed into a house at 24 Fifield St. in Dorchester.

A passenger in Diaz-Geraldo's car suffered a broken leg in the crash, police say.

Police did not identify the 16-year-old because of his age. However, court records show Jeremiah Carlos Ramos was arraigned today in Dorchester Municipal Court on charges of murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of a loaded firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition.

Judge Jonathan Tynes ordered the teen held without bail at the Suffolk County jail. He is scheduled for a probable-cause hearing on Dec. 23.

Police got an arrest warrant for Ramos yesterday.

Police say fugitive-unit officers spotted and arrested him today on Homer Street in East Boston - where they added additional charges for the loaded gun they say he was carrying: Delinquent for unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of a loaded firearm and unlawful possession of a high-capacity firearm.

In a separate case, a 17-year-old was charged in September with murder for his role in man's death during a home invasion on Trent Street in Dorchester.

Innocent, etc.

The founders of the currently named BOS Nation say they've heard critics of their name:

We want to assure you that we have heard your feedback and are actively listening. We share your high expectations, and together, we will build a storied club that reflects the essence of the beautiful game and the character of our dynamic city.

To that end, we have launched a deliberate process through which we will seek out, listen to, and reflect on input about our team name from fans, supporters, and a group of advisors assembled to reflect a diverse range of voices and perspectives. We are approaching this work with an open mind and will report back as soon as we have more to share.

A name change couldn't come soon enough for Rev. Laura Everett, who thinks there's no question the name needs to change, and immediately, and not just because of a launch that was both transphoboic and insulting to the region's other professional women's sports teams:

"BOS Nation" is now forever tied to a transphobic, exclusionary, and misogynistic launch campaign that somehow managed to offend everyone except the male teams of Boston in its launch. "BOS Nation" is in grave danger of nationalistic usurpation, and already tainted with transphobic exclusion.

We’ve done plenty of scrutiny.

BOS Nation must go for the team to survive.

Via Seth.

At a hearing on public-safety issues downtown and around Boston Common today, Elizabeth Vizza had a request for suburbanite do-gooders who keep coming to the Common to feed the homeless: Stop!

Vizza, president of the Friends of the Public Garden, which also looks out for the Common, said well meaning suburban feeders who think they are "saving souls" are actually harming the Common and even the people they're trying to help: By feeding people with mental-health and substance-abuse problems on the Common, the out of towners are keeping them from seeking out meals at the well stocked kitchens at nearby places such as St. Francis House - where, unlike on the Common, the hungry could also gain access to the help that might help them get into treatment, and get them away from the sometimes violent drug dealers who menace not only them, but residents and tourists just trying to enjoy one of the city's key parks.

At today's hearing, called by City Councilors Ed Flynn, who represents downtown, and Julia Mejia, Vizza, downtown and Beacon Hill residents and city officials said that crime - and equally important, the fear of crime - has gone up over the past six months as people ejected from Mass and Cass wound up on the Common, particularly around the Brewer Fountain, and nearby areas, such as the intersection of Winter and Tremont streets, but even on the other side of Beacon Hill, such as the Appleton Footbridge to the Esplanade.

While downtown and the Common have always had populations of homeless and people with drug problems, the past year has seen an explosion in their numbers, and far worse, in the often violent drug dealers who prey on them, they said.

Flynn pointed to stabbings at the fountain and across Tremont at Winter Place and said a few months ago, a woman standing at Boylston and Tremont suffered a broken nose when somebody just went up to her and punched her in the face.

Vizza said things got so bad this summer that Berklee College pulled its students out of a performance series at the Brewer Fountain after an incident in which a woman with mental-health issues began harassing the students, then eventually took her clothes off and jumped into the fountain. Only police were able to get her out, she said.

Katherine Kennedy of Beacon Hill, who has two children, 5 and 7 months, that she filed the first of a series of 311 reports about discarded needles on Sept. 9, when she walked her oldest child to her first day at preschool. She continued: "Sept. 30. Oct. 7. Oct. 9. Oct. 11. Oct. 12. And Oct. 15." Kennedy started her statement by pulling items out of her diaper bag, which ended with her holding up the sharps container she now carries for discarded needles.

"I accept that raising a family in the city is complicated," she said. "I accept trash, cigarette butts, nip bottles and even broken glass, but this is unacceptable."

City Councilor Sharon Durkan, who said she lives just a short walk from the Common on Beacon Hill, however, said a recent series of swarms by police have restored some semblance of order and even peace to the fountain and nearby areas on the Common.

BPD Deputy Supt. Dan Humphreys said the on-foot swarming is part of a "giant pivot" by Commissioner Michael Cox to get officers out of their cruisers in general and to target certain areas particularly affected by the dismantling of the tent city at Mass and Cass: The Common, the South End and Andrew and Nubian squares.

"We are doing a very intentional redeployment of officers" into those areas, he said, adding the department is using both 311 and 911 reports to figure out where to send officers, which includes not just areas with high crime rates but where reports indicate "a fear of crime."

"This is the beginning," he said, adding officers on these patrols, known as "interaction groups," are even told to file their own 311 reports on things that are not direct police issues, but which are quality of life issues, such as discarded needles.

Humphreys added the department is also beginning to pay more attention than it once did to traffic enforcement, which can't come soon enough for Rishi Shukla, a 25-year downtown resident and co-founder of the Downtown Boston Neighborhood Association. Shukla said that in addition to the rise of open drug dealing and use across downtown, downtown's 12,000 residents now also take their lives in their hands just walking out their doors.

"We can't have mopeds, scooters and bikers running through red lights, hitting pedestrians and having near misses," he said.

Flynn repeated his call for a "zero tolerance" policy, in which criminal offenders are sent off to state prison on even their first offense, as opposed to the revolving door he said now dumps them right back on the Common to commit more crimes and get arrested. Flynn, who has also called repeatedly for cutting city budgets, also called for more police officers - and services for people with mental-health and substance-abuse issues. He also called for finding a way to restore arrest powers to city park rangers, who lost them in 2021. Nobody from the Suffolk County District Attorney's office attended the hearing.

Durkan, however, cautioned that the issue is not black and white, that the Common is not some black hole of terror and that "creating unnecessary fear" risks driving away the businesses that might want to move downtown, investing in the neighborhood, creating more eyes on the street and hiring local residents.

Flynn, who in August demanded an end to all events on the Common, denied fearmongering and also said that he does so represents downtown, after council President Ruthzee Louijeune said Durkan represented the area.

Both councilors and other officials agreed that the homeless need help and caring and that much of the problem is the dealers, especially of fentanyl, who prey on them.

Shukla said he agreed on that point, and with Flynn that the DA and the courts need to simply stop letting people back out onto the street, that downtown residents shouldn't have to walk in fear and that parents in particular shouldn't have to worry about their children "bearing witness to violence."

"How many times can our officers arrest a person only to see them back on the street?" he asked.

Shukla said he appreciated the hearing, but noted it's not the first and said he doesn't want to be asked in six months to attend another one with nothing getting done. Instead, he said, if he had his druthers, he'd assemble city and state officials, police, representatives from local social-services agencies and colleges, then lock them in a room for a few hours until they came up with three or four key actions they would commit to take.

"We all have to do more and we all have to do better," he said.

Michael Nichols, president of the Downtown Boston Alliance - until recently the Downtown Business Improvement District - also called for more work to get drug dealers out of the area.

"Criminal drug dealing has tainted many of the jewels of our city, including Downtown Crossing," he said.