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BPD warns of outside agitators trying to provoke violence at Ferguson protests

Boston Police Commissioner William Evans has written an open letter to area college students about how to protest whatever decision that Ferguson grand jury reaches:

I ask that if public demonstrations occur as a result of the decision they are done with respect to our neighbors and businesses, responsibly and peacefully.

The Boston Police Department respects the rights of individuals to assemble and advocate for their opinions and causes. We are asking students to be mindful that there may be outside agitators trying to provoke and instigate otherwise peaceful protests.

Boston has overcome much, and we have a strong history of coming together in times of challenges and crisis, as demonstrated in our community during the Boston Marathon. We showed then how Boston stayed united and we can show that again with Ferguson and all of the important issues facing us in society today.

Pending the imminent grand jury decision, if you choose to demonstrate please do so in a way that would make your school, your family, and your city proud.

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Comments

Non violent protests speak volumes.

It shows discipline, self control, self respect, respect for others.
Dignified actions in getting the message across.

Violence and mayhem shows ignorance and brutality.

When you have to look in the mirror.....
Will you like the person you see days later?

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Or else the BPD might shoot and kill you with a crowd control round for protesting like they did to Victoria Snelgrove.

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So you're saying the accidental dead of someone after a game, where the crowd turned into a riot to destroy property is the same as people willfully planning to destroy property because they don't like the way the justice system works? Wow.

Victoria's death was sad and needless. The media glosses over if she was rioting, or just drunk. The millions of dollars her family won in lawsuits will never bring her back.

How many people have been killed in sports related riots because the fans went wild in other cities / countries with or without the police?

Maybe you need to realize black people die every day in Africa, many of them by other blacks, by disease, by starvation - if there is something to protest, to destroy for, why not that?

Is Michael Brown's pointless death much worse than the tribal genocide that goes on in the thousands in Africa?

First World Problems, my friends. Much of the world is suffering, and these deaths, though tragic, come about through circumstances which led us here. Maybe if we didn't stare so hard at these one off deaths, and look at the bigger malaise affecting our country, they could be avoided.

This is why, for example, people insist on getting upset at cruelty to animals, but walk over a homeless man lying in his own piss so they can get a latte.

Wake up.

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and mostly unrelated to my comment. You seem to just want to verbal diarrhea your feelings on the michael brown case and somehow minimize it by saying there are "blacks" dying in africa? Uh. What? Im talking about the police and their arrogance.

I am not equating an accidental death with as you say "willfully planning to destroy property because they don't like the way the justice system works"

what I am saying is the BPD is arrogant and attempting to be revisionists, both with this release and also with Evan's WBUR interview.

They specifically tell college students not to "riot" ten years after they shot a college student dead for rioting? Sorry but I dont think /any/ amount of property damage justifies killing someone. I also dont rioting and property damage is appropriate and would never encourage it but to me, the police response is much more despicable.

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the poor drunk girl hanging with drunk, out of control rioters is comparable to fighting, not the shooting of a possibly innocent young man, but ALL that is wrong with YOUR world! They are exactly the same.

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was victoria snelgrove protesting? the red sox not winning the 2004 American League Championship Series in six games instead of seven?

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There's no evidence that she was rioting. She was out with friends after the game, there happened to be some others who were rioting in that area. If a riot erupts in a crowded area, not everyone there is automatically a participant or in any way at fault. The BPD response was despicable, just firing in to the crowd indiscriminately.
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2004/10/22/postgam...

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It was just a crowd crush after the game.

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I'm not excusing anyone's actions, but explosives going off, fires set, vandalism, tossing bottles at the cops---kind of sounds like a riot. What a horror that both the cops and the revelers can't get their act together and some poor kid has to pay for it.

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Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS was at Yankee Stadium. This was not a crowd exiting a game at Fenway Park.

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pretty good chance the only "outside agitators" would be BPD undercovers.

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What happens when the BPD undercovers are not known to the State Police, Homeland Security, or the T police?

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I don't think that happens. You should read up on BRIC. BPD works very closely with the State Police, Feds, and other local agencies - especially when it comes to policing protest. This was the subject of an ACLU/NLG probe, that UHub was among the first to publicize.

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yep. i imagine they are acting on a "HOT TIP" that they saw on some anarchist facebook group or something. bpd is watching.

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Have they no sense of irony? No passing familiarity with history? Their language speaks louder than their words. Reactionaries have been spouting this crap since the Reconstruction and before. Beware the other.

I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

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I used to have one of those back when the washing machine was on the porch.

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fits neatly in a bedside drawer ;)

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Cambridge? Somerville? Maybe Lexington and Concord?

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when their personal Starbucks barista is out sick.

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What is with u all and your anti police attitudes? Have you been mistreated by law enforcement, or do you just love complaining that much? Does BPD have a history of racism and corruption? Please do tell

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I have been mistreated yes. I had no less than three members of the BPD lie in court documents about me and two are detectives. All three are known liars but still get paid by us to run around our fucking city.

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Please do tell more, because I have a feeling it was a usual case of "dis crack ain't mine, I didn't do nuttin."

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Is that your best "black" dialect? Funny, because it doesn't sound anything like the post you responded to but hey--thanks for demonstrating that racism is alive and well. Back to the basement with you.

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I've heard Latins, Asians, and oh my gosh even whites speak this way. Who said ANYthing about blacks? Oh yah, you did.

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Who's keeping it real here exactly? Don't play dumb--unless you really truly think that Anon wrote "dat ain't my crack" or whatever to convey his idea of Asian dialogue in a discussion about Ferguson.

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Non mea est

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Does BPD have a history of racism and corruption?

You mean like the Stuart case, or when Whitey Bulger had a bunch of cops on payroll? Yeah, no history of racism and corruption...

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Know why it's infamous? BECAUSE IT WAS A VERY RARE OCCURRENCE. Know why most people pay little attention to the regular, banal slaughter on the streets? Because it's commonplace.

Come up with something better than one case that happened decades ago. As for Whitey; what does that do with racism? He ran a CRIMINAL OEGANIZATION, no different than the criminal gangs and corruption we have in 2014. Seriously, get some updated material.

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A man murdered his pregnant wife? Sadly, not that rare, particularly when a woman is pregnant.

Searches of peoples homes without warrants,etc? Maybe it was rare in the Back Bay. In Mission Hill, it was far too common in that era and fully supported by the people who were running the BPD. See also Acelyne Williams.

Sorry, but it matters. Not because it happened at all, but because it blew the cover off a longstanding pattern of abuse of state authority regarding people in particular neighborhoods.

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Please, take your logic, facts, and rational way of thinking some place else.

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Maybe you can refer back the the strike of 1919

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