“Keeping up with the Joneses, Celtic’s Style.”
If this is a third homicide how much does it have to do with Dan “Search and Avoid” Conley’s “inmate’s run the asylum attitude’ towards police misconduct and prosecution.
This is why people keep their bathrooms clean. If you don’t the gross stuff will grow and stink and eventually make the bathroom an unhealthy place which is exactly the opposite of why you have it. To keep you clean and healthy.
Yup, call me Chauncey Plumber
Please share widely!
Any unexamined space, when finally examined, is gross. To put it mildly.
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p>My husband moved our son’s computer some years ago. Its computer table was too heavy for me to move for cleaning – and too low to the floor to get a vacuum under. Well.
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p>Once it was moved there was a dead, putrifying mouse. Funny how much nicer that room smelled when THAT was cleaned up.
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p>Now that I am 60 and the arthritis is worse, in fact, I have others I pay to do heavy cleaning every two weeks.
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p>I would like to rely on the police to do their own “housecleaning” – but I gather they could also use some paid help with the heavy cleaning.
so you get way too many bullies, jerks, and morons in uniform. Solving homicides is not the BPD’s strong suit- they’re pretty good at writing traffic tickets, beating up unarmed drunk guys, and helping to imprison the innocent.
Where are your remarks and requests asking FarnKoff to back up their statements with links? Or am I the only person who needs to do that?
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p>Personally, I would ever want to be a cop. There are too many a-holes out here doing everything they can to hinder crime enforcement. Violent crime in Roxbury and Dorchester couldn’t be much worse, and yet every attempt by the police to stop crime is challenged by some group worried about civil rights, discrimination, blah blah blah. It’s no wonder so many cops stop giving a crap after a few years.
were in Roxbury JohnD?
goes to New England Baptist and I still have pretty good friends in Dot, I travel through Roxbury about once a month. Of course I see it every night on TV when they report the shootings and stabbings, but that doesn’t capture the feeling of being there. And for what is worth, I avoid going there as much as possible but typically have to pass through it to get where I’m going.
have you ever been the victim of a violent crime?
That was a joke (I assume I can joke here like others, or can I?).
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p>No, other than college and prior years, I have never been a victim of a violent crime. My apartment in Dorchester was robbed and my car was stolen once, I have never been injured. Part of that is the defensive lessons you learn growing up in Dorchester (like avoiding Roxbury at all costs). Luckily there are many bad things in the world which I have been able to avoid, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
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p>Many people have been victims
Nobody shits on Dorchester worse than certain people who grew up there and then left. It has something to do with their sense of having moved up in the world.
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p>What would you do if you made a friend from Roxbury? Refuse to visit?
Wanting more for your kids will make people leave any shithole, including about half of Dorchester. The wonderful schools, the busing, walks along parts of Dot Ave… Parts are still nice, but not too much. Many people have left Dorchester, after they get a good job and can afford to live someplace else. It may be moving up in the world or maybe finally being able to do things you couldn’t do before. Having a nice yard, parking off the street, leaving your car or house unlocked without fear of burglary, good public schools… But if you want to call it moving up I’ll go for it.
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p>For those who want to stay there, good luck. I still remember much of it fondly. The sections that border Roxbury, Mattapan and other sections are just too dangerous. Do you agree? Are the crime statistics made up? WOuld you walk down Blue Hill Ave at 2:00 on Friday night? I can walk down my town at that hour with no worries at all.
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p>If a friend lives in Roxbury I probably would visit him, but at a place outside Roxbury. Life is too short.
Good for you if the suburban ideal is your preference and you’ve been able to make it happen. (Not too many suburbs where people leave houses unlocked anymore, though.)
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p>Here between Savin Hill and Uphams Corner, we have driveways, yards, some great neighbors, and crime is not an overwhelming concern, just something to be aware of and take precautions.
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p>I can’t imagine being in your skin as you drive through here, feeling like your life is in danger. That’s really weird.
He has equally charming things to say about New Orleans |
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p>And yes, I do think skin and class have everything to do with it. tblade put it best in the NOLA discussion:
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p>But frankly it doesn’t seem like you give two shits about the people afflicted by this year’s flood, you just wanted to take the opportunity to express your resentment of the Black people and low-income White people of New Orleans and Hollywood celebrities. I’m fine with differing view points, but tenuously-supported, race-bating, blame-the-victim, Limbaugh-spawned talking points do not qualify as “ugly facts”.
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p>johnD’s response (predictably) was to deny listening to Limbaugh.
Limbaugh is not listened to so much as he is regurgitated.
I never missed a Dot Day parade until very recently. Maybe things are always “relative” to our existing surroundings. When I lived there I didn’t feel very concerned for my safety since most crime then was usually limited to people involved in the wrong thing anyway. But I did want something more for my kids and crime was moving to close to home and touching people who were truly innocent bystanders. I’m glad you still feel comfortable there but I would not walk down Columbia Road at night and would avoid it now even more.
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p>It wasn’t until I left that I started noticing how often the 11:00 News starts with a shooting or stabbing in Dorchester. The numbers are staggering and real. Soldiers might get used to bombs falling around them in a war and maybe Dorchester residents get accustomed to the current violence there. Like I said, my Mother still lives there so there is no happiness in me about what is going on.
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p>And if you don’t drive on Blue Hill Ave, Ruggles St, Dover or Columbia Road with a certain “awareness” of the possible crimes around you, then I would wonder if you really were from Dorchester. Maybe saying “my life was in danger” is an exaggeration, but not by much.
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p>Good luck.
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p>I leave my keys in my unlocked car every night. Took awhile to drop the habit of locking it.
That all sounds reasonable except for letting the nightly news dictate your feelings about a place you yourself felt relatively safe in. My “awareness” is just part of general mindfulness, I don’t have to think in terms specific to crime all the time – that way paranoia lies.
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p>Violent crime spiked from 1985-95, then went down to unheard-of lows, before creeping up again in the last few years (but nowhere near what it was). A TON of people left in that first period, especially with kids. I find many of them have been unable to adjust their perceptions. The reality sucks for people on some streets, but the numbers are not staggering, not by typical urban standards.
Thank God I’ve moved up. I won’t post anymore stories about crime on Roxbury or North Dorchester since it would become a daily blog on its own.
When are we going to wake up and seriosly zap these people. Get some of those no good Boston Cops send a message.
is a pretty strong message, I think. What they’re saying is that some of these guys are either not well trained or are psychologically unfit for the job.
about the BPD’s low clearance rate for homicides– if the situation has drastically improved since then, let me know.
Then there’s this odd piece from the Herald about the overtime scandal that never really took off.
On corruption, there was drug evidence tampering, cheating on the police exam, the steroid investigation, and of cource the Polido et al. Ironically enough, the Herald had a story today where it is claimed that the reason there are fewer good cops is the physical part of the training- too many fat guys signing up who thought they’d be solving crimes, not just beating people up and running juiced-up footraces. “They thought it would be like CSI,” scoffs the officer in the article. Little did they know, it’s apparently more like Reno 911. And the “psychological exam” that has “raised eyebrows”? I wonder if it was truly designed to “screen out” the corruptible, the aggressive, and the morally deficient, or to screen them in? For instance, would an overactive conscience make you a good or a bad “team player” in the eyes of the department? Is information about the psychological test publically available? If so, I’d be interested in reading more about it.
I’m wonder whether there is a part of the country — or the world — where police recruitment is done particularly well. As Farnkoff indicates, the attractions of policing don’t seem to match the needs.
Many of the issues you cite above are definitely serious issues which need to be addressed. The BPD union is one of the worst around for protecting cops that should be fired and possibly arrested. Overtime scandals, in Police, Fire or any other public department should also be an offense for dismissal. Cheating, fat guys, steroids, selling drugs… all of it is nonsense and I have no objection to severe punishment and dismissals. I hate unions, especially when they protect people who are guilty. I’ll skip the Phoenix story until the smoking lamp is on.
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p>But what proof is this that the BPD killed this kid?
Why has the idea of “personal responsibility” gone away? People who go out breaking the law are taking many risks including their lives. Whether it is bank robbers or public rioting, there is a chance you will get hurt. I am sure the last thing the cops wanted to be doing that night was herding a large crowd of drunken violent people bent on destruction.
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p>Do you have any proof that the guy who just died was from a “cop-induced” reason? Have they done an autopsy yet? Did he have any previous medical conditions?
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p>Psychologically unfit??? Would the Police officers you hired, ask the crowd nicely to stop breaking the windows, maybe send a text message to the crowd to stop burning cars? Change their uniform color to a more friendly color to make the crowd obey their orders, shouted in 17 languages plus sign language?
My sense is that Farnkoff is referring to the Victoria Snelgrove incident when a 21 year old was killed by a “non-lethal” weapon. Police had to drastically change crowd-control rules as a result of those tragic events:
Talk about personal responsibility.
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p>Obviously, the destruction of property isn’t how most of us want to celebrate victories and it’s not appropriate behavior. But joking about “zapp[ing] these people” (college students, I presume) may not be as endearing as you hope.
Nothing is perfect and this was an unfortunate accident. Hopefully the Police will use these and other non-lethal controls better in the future. What additional personal responsibility would you like to see.
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p>My use of the word “zap” means to arrest and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law to reduce further disasterous and dangerous behavior. By this I mean a sentence of more than “writing a short story” about how sorry they are.
Had Woodman not been breaking the law he’d still be alive today. Violating open container-laws shouldn’t carry a death sentence, but I will admit to a bit of schadenfreude over it.
It’s not the cops fault he’s dead. It’s partly his fault, partly God’s.
The sooner these college kids start realizing that the city isn’t their playground, and that there are consequences for their behavior, the better off everyone will be.
if the police had adhered to proper protocol, this young man would most likely still be alive.
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p>The Bo Po just like to kill Emerson college students, I guess.
and how wasn’t it done? Plus he attended Emmanuel.
to threaten witnesses with arrest, for instance
What if the cops chased him down the street and he collapsed and died. Would that be their fault too? You think a guy with a heart condition and an outstanding warrant from similar asinine behavior would be smart enough not to wise-off to a group of cops.
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p>I am jumping to the defense of the Police since being a good American citizen I believe in innocent until proven guilty, right? Other than inuendos on both sides, do we have any proof yet?
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p>A friend of mine is a mechanic. He often complains about customers whose cars have secondary problems after he fixes their car (e.i. a day after changing their oil, their fan belt breaks and they blame him). Sometimes the fan belt was just going to break, and other times the work being done caused the last thread of the belt to finally break. But… changing the oil was not the cause of the fan belt break.
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p>So… how much will the parents sue for $50M, $100M?
but, of course, we won’t know which results we can trust to be accurate
Confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions and avoids information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs. It is a type of cognitive bias and represents an error of inductive inference, or as a form of selection bias toward confirmation of the hypothesis under study or disconfirmation of an alternative hypothesis.
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p>We see it on this blog site often, on all sides.
good column about the incident today. Davis has already made his mind up, apparently without talking to witnesses other than the police themselves. I hope the whole series of events get investigated by a Civilian Review Board at some point.
The guy’s lawyer criticized the Police for not interviewing the involved Policemen right after the event when the data was fresh in their minds. The Police Union’s attorney says police, like everyone else, have the right to speak to an attorney before being interviewed. Should we suspend Police Officers rights in order to get the truth? Is it only criminals who are innocent until proven guilty, or just instances that you feel is appropriate?