And no, I’m not talking about Milena del Valle’s tragic death in the Big Dig tunnel. I’m talking about the murder of Analicia Perry, who had stopped by the shrine where her brother was murdered four years ago last Saturday, only to be murdered herself.
From the article, it sounds like Ms. Perry’s life was one brimming with promise. She lived in a tough neighborhood, and had a daughter at the age of 16, yet she had graduated from North Cambridge Catholic High School (whose principal described her as a “model student”), she was already a skilled hairdresser, and she planned to go to college.
What has happened to the city of Boston? A decade or so ago, it seemed like gang violence was way down, and we were talked about as a national model for how community policing can work. Today, um, not so much. No police commissioner. Dirty cops (have to agree with Bruce on how to handle that one). And violence that seems to be spiraling out of control.
I’m very, very glad that the Governor, the legislature, and everyone else involved is now so engaged in fixing the Big Dig, since obviously it needs to be done – though it’s a disgrace that it took someone actually losing her life in the tunnels to make it happen. But let’s face facts here: a lot more people have died on the streets of Boston (43 this year, so far) than have died in the Big Dig. Saturday night it was a young woman just trying to remember her murdered brother. Where is the Governor with his magic markers? Where are the Mayor’s daily press conferences recounting the steps he took in the last 24 hours? Where is Kerry Healey, the trained criminologist? If Romney isn’t going to let her do anything on the Big Dig (and he’s not), maybe she should direct her attentions elsewhere.
Where is the outrage?
When Kerry Healey came on board, I hoped that she would be able to make a difference in the way that we approached crime. After all, as a trained criminologist, this is theoretically her field of expertise.
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Instead, in the last four years, violent crime has gotten worse in the Boston area and I feel like neither the local or the state reactions have been sufficient. Not only that, but the cooperation between the local and state police has been non-existent.
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So, how exactly has our top criminologist been helping us out? Where’s the bold new police ideas, either those that work or those that the police can challenge? They haven’t come out in the last four years. Among the many damning qualities that Healey has, I think her lack of contribution to our approach on crime is up near the top. After all, if she can’t change things that she actually knows something about, why trust her to effect change in subjects that she is less familiar with?
When offered extra state cops by Romney, Menino’s impulse was to say no – partly so that his BPD guys can max out overtime, partly b/c of turf.
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I’d love to imagine the conversation where Healey convinces the Mayor to let her “help out.” Puhlease.
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Back when Romney/Healey was elected in 2002, Boston didn’t perceive itself to have a crime problem. And as numbers get worse in any domain, Menino’s governance reaction tends towards closing the inner circle, not opening it.
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And if Healey independently tried to execute any crime-fighting ideas for Boston at a state level – anything that dealt with actual crime-fighting, anything besides “giving Boston money to hire teens in summertime,” which is our bizarre primary strategy of record – he would have gone ballistic, citing a power grab (a charge that with all due respect, I suspect that you, Hokun, would have been the first to pin on her; but please correct me if I’m wrong and you generally support Republican state electeds jumping in on municipal turf controlled by Dems, and cite the other examples where you think it’d be a good idea now).
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We agree that city-state reactions are terrible. But the reality is that violent crime is primarily a city issue, just as staunching illegal immigration is mostly a national issue – the state is just not well positioned to be more than a junior partner.
I think Menino said no for a number of reasons. Generally speaking, stateys suck at being beat cops. At the risk of being obnoxiously offensive…
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Stateys tend to be more arrogant, both with citizens and fellow cops. They just don’t play well with others. If Romney offered them to me, I might just let them do what they do best — give tickets. Have ’em enforce red lights, blocking-the-box (getting stuck in an intersection and therefore blocking perpendicular traffic) laws, speeding laws, and what not.
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I don’t think Menino has done a bang-up job on crime prevention recently, but I don’t think bringing in stateys was the answer either, especially given the recent fistfight between a statey and a city cop outside the Fleet Center not too long ago (can’t find link!). My non-expertise instincts tell me that more foot patrols, recruiting more non-white cops, smaller blocs of public housing, and more after school and summer jobs and development activities all play a role in reducing violent crime.
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I do tend to agree that the immediate prevention and investigation of violent crime is a city issue, but methinks lots of violent crime could be avoided with better state budget — not just more local aid for cops, but more after school programs, summer job programs, and the like.
….is essentially along the lines of what you said – let them handle the easy stuff in the back bay and kenmore square etc, and shift many more boston cops to the hot spots.
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of course if you’re a boston cop whose usual beat is to hang outside fenway park, and then Da Mayor says instead you’ll be hoofing it around ashmont b/c “stateys” are now watching the scalpers ply their trade, well, you’d be pissed. which is why it doesn’t happen, despite the obvious desperate need for this step at huge levels (there has been a minor increase in dorchester/roxbury patrols).
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i’m not sure i buy your suggestion that state cops are more arrogant.
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can you back that up a bit?
between being a pure traffic cop (either white gloved or issuing tickets) and patroling heavy pedestrian areas. A huge difference.
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I wouldn’t want a statey in Copley, near Fenway, or around Faneuil. Local knowledge is critical in these areas, and the Statey wouldn’t likely have that knowledge. He’d be less able to help lost motorists or tourists, wouldn’t have as keen a sense on how to handle an emergency (with respect to local roads, paths, etc), and so forth. Of course, this is generally speaking — the statey might have grown up in the apartment overlooking his newly assigned beat. But generally speaking, the guy who’s been assigned there for months/years will naturally be better at working right there.
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I can only back up my arrogance claim with personal experience through interaction and the conversations I’ve had with three relatives (an NYC cop, a Yonkers (just N of NYC) cop, and a NY state trooper. All three agreed that once guys work for the state, they tend to be less interested in people, more insulated and arrogant. Maybe that’s just New York, but I doubt it.
Having the State Police do really intensive traffic patrolling in the mean streets of Boston might actually do a lot of good. I’m guessing that most drive-by shooters aren’t all that great with the rules of the road. That might not be a bad way to staties and BPD to cooperate.
I’m confused by your sarcasm, David, in that you’re inventing something that wasn’t proposed, and then responding to it.
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The question is whether we should have a substitution effect. Currently, few Boston police officers are on the mean streets. Most are simply not stationed there. They are spread in low-crime neighborhoods and downtown.
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The question is simply: should we have state cops handle the easier stuff, so we can shift more BPD to the high crime spots, as a way to deter drive-bys in part through Broken Windows gun arrests et al?
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Again: not state cops in Roxbury. State cops near the Prudential. Therefore less BPD cops near the Prudential. Therefore more BPD cops available for Mattapan.
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The previous commenter’s view is that even traffic direction in Kenmore Square cannot be handled by state cops, as he sees them as clueless and arrogant, and therefore we should maintain the status quo. I disagree, but at least he addresses the proposal.
you weren’t being sarcastic, in which case i’m REALLY confused by the drive-by shooters don’t follow the traffic rules thing. which would be my bad for not understanding your point.
My point is that different police forces are good at different things. A much bigger police presence in the areas where the shootings are concentrated has got to help. So let the staties go there to do what they do best. And my guess is that by stopping the folks who flout the rules most flagrantly, they’ll be stopping a lot of the guys who are causing the real trouble.
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It’s not the best thought-out proposal ever. Just an idea off the top of my head as to how the BPD and the staties might be able to work in the same part of town without treading on each other’s toes too much.
I get pretty annoyed at the “turf wars” that get played out over federal/state/municipal issues when the answer is usually all of the above.
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Healey could have come out with a position paper or speech showing how other large municipal areas improved their violent crime with state resources; it’s an area where she’s almost uniquely qualified among state politicians of either party to hold a bully pulpit. She could have offered to reallocate state resources to give state officers traffic duty or police detail duty. Or maybe there are more creative and useful solutions out there.
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I have little to no doubt that Menino would have turned down anything that reduced police overtime or threatened his own authority, but having a legitimate crime-fighting option from the Republican side would at least put another idea on the table and actually lead credence to the idea that Republicans actually have ideas or are tough on crime or can actually contribute to the political dialogue.
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Call me an idealist or maybe just crazy, but I think politicians who have special skills owe it to their constituents to exercise those skills in office whenever the chances arise. If the Lt. Gov is too scared to confront a mayor in something she is supposedly a subject expert in discussing or too ego-driven to lower herself to talk to him, that’s just pathetic governance regardless of what party anybody is in.
It’s certainly tragic, but since it’s an election year, we all know that something will be done to address the violence in Boston.
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I’m sitting here right now in Springfield – you know, that WMass town that has an almost equal per-capita murder rate, and a much higher poverty rate – and the attitude on Beacon Hill seems to be “let ’em fend for themselves, we have our $15 billion tunnel to attend to!”
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(and I say that as someone who worked on the Big Dig)
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Maybe a change in the corner office can help both our cities…
Boston violence gets all the attention, even on blue blogs. Springfield has been all but forgotten by Willard and the lege. Willard installed the finance control board and promptly forgot that Springfield exists. Thank you for the reminder. Just imagine if someone from Springfield (not to mention any names) had stepped up to the plate and fought for some of those wasted Big Dig funds to be utilized in the forgotten city.
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I know one gubenatorial candidate who understands what Springfield needs. His name is Deval Patrick and he just opened an office in Springfield!
In defense of state officials, this is primarily a City of Boston problem, and responsibility. The state is willing to help but Tom Menino must lead. The Ted Williams Tunnel is state property so Romney has the ball there. But not in Dorchester.
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Some years ago, Richmond, VA had a very similar outbreak of gun violence. By working hand-in-hand with the feds, Richmond was able to apply the very tough federal gun laws and serve up some very harsh sentences … in federal court, and sentences served in federal prisons. The city, Justice Department and, IIRC, BAFT all worked hard together.
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I cannot find a citation to the City of Richmond’s experience, but I’d be interested to know what Menino has done to avail himself of federal assistance, and their success. Of course, it requires cooperation with the feds, but all Mumbles seems to want to do is grandstand by blaming guns, complaining about laws in NH and GA, and running a ridiculous — I’d venture ineffective, too — gun buy-back.
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The Boston Globe ran a grapphic the other day plotting the geographic location of every shooting this year. I was stunned at the compactness of the 4 groups of dots on the map. Why haven’t the BPD gone onto the streets, on foot, to patrol these area? These gun crimes keep happening on the same streets in the same neighborhoods. I bet they are committed by the same bad guys.
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How about cameras on every street corner? Works for London.
How about cameras on every street corner? Works for London.
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1. I don’t want Big Brother.
2. Lack of gun crime in London is distinctly due to a lack of guns in London. You might consider looking at other crimes, like muggings, to chart the effectiveness of cameras on street corners.
what the folks trying just to live their lives in those neighborhoods would say. I’m guessing a good number of them would take some Big Brother if it means getting the bad guys off the streets. Most likely it’s a small number of people causing most of the trouble.
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Thing about cameras, though, is you’ve got to use them. Apparently the place where Ms. Perry was killed is actually visible from BPD headquarters. If they’re looking but not seeing, there’s no point.
There have been a lot of suggestions made here but amid a fog of public safety impotence. It’s hard to coordinate between the feds and local, cameras are too Big Brother, and even if they were installed, nobody would be monitoring them…and so on.
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Very defeatist. Not very comforting.
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Here’s my advice to all law-abiding citizens, if neither the mayor nor the governor nor the BPD can do anything about your safety, short of issuing press releases and televising their hand-wringing:
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Go down to BPD HQ and apply for your Massachusetts firearm permit.
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You’ll have to protect yourselves, because it looks like no one else can help you.
As one of those who lives in Dorchester, I can say that getting a firearm permit would do zero for my safety, and woulod probably actually decrease my sense of safety. And thinking that my neighbors had guns out of a nervous desire to defend themselves would make me feel even less safe.
I followed the news broadcasts on this. I listened carefully to the neighborhood people who were commentating on this horror.
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What I found most unnerving was what appeared to be almost resignation on the part of the people I heard. Maybe I am over reading, but it seemed to me that this sort of thing is accepted almost as a normal way of life.
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As a child of the seventies, I miss demonstrations in the streets and insistence that something be done. Maybe itâs time a little more fur flew at city hall
I agree that there hasn’t been as much activism as there should be, but it HAS been happening. ess than a month ago, city councilor Sam Yoon organized donzens of young people to push City Hall for a larger funding increase for youth jobs and other programming in the city budget.
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The young people were ignored, and when they made their displeasure visible, they were forced to leave the chamber (and don’t believe that such behavior is inappropriate for a Council meeting–discussions of union contracts ten d to be FAR more raucous). Yoon’s effort was voted down along strict racial lines, with all the councilors of color voting for it, and all the white councilors voting to keep the budget as it was.
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The councilors of color include two at-large, who represent the whole city–Yoon and Felix Arroyo–and two district councilor’s, Roxbury’s Chuck turner and Dorchester/Mattapan’s Charles Yancey. If Bostonians want to voice some of that outrage or support the flying fur, they should call the other councilors (whomever represents your district if it’s not Turner or Yancey, as well as at-large councilors Michael Flaherty and Steve Murphy), and express your disappointment that they didn’t support Yoon’s effort to fund more youth jobs.
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it’s a duanting problem, but this is one clear step people can take, and it does more than just shaking our heads at the carnage.
in meaningful and substantive ways if anything significant is to be achieved in our societal response to this increasingly tragic state of youth on youth violence in our communities.
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Understanding this problem as being, in part, a public health problem and using the science of public health to address it, is very important and useful when thinking about the various resources adn skills and programs that must be brought to bear to end this upsurge of tragedy.
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Dr. Debra Prothrow-Stith at the School of Public Health at Harvard U has done some very good work in this area.
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Having a more functional and more cost effective health care system in the state, and the country for that matter, would be an enormously valuable tool to use in responding to this youth violence problem. And public health programs should absolutely part of any health care system but we have created this artificial separation of public health from physical health.
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I believe this artificial and harmful seperation of healthcare from public health programs results, in part, from how we have allowed the provision of physical healthcare services to increasingly be treated as a commodity, e.g. Chapter 58’s Romney-Care “Individual Mandate” but thus far, public health has remained where it belongs–in the public domain. (Although around the world there is a evil trend of multi-national corporations to privatize public health, e.g. Coca Cola’s campaign to privatize drinking water supplies in developing countries. See the group Corporate Accountability Int’l, based here in Boston’s So End to learn more about that!).
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Establishing a constitutional right to comprehensive and sffordable health insurance is also one of the multi-factoral peices that would help us as a society to successfully addess this tragic and frightening problem. Please sign on to help this effort at http://www.HealthCar…
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Anti-poverty work is also a crucial component of effective and sustainable responses to the youth violence problem. Hello, Mr Romney and Legis’, please raise the minimum wage to a measly $8 and hour.
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More factors are at play here, of course, but let’s commit to coming to some agreement on the priority items and then doing what we, as a COmmonwealth, can do for each of them.
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Good question, David: “How many more must die in Boston?” — I am obligated to respectfully point out that that question relates, with MUCH higher numbers, to the fact of widespread uninsurance as well as to youth violence…