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Man gets three years on gun conviction thanks in part to his stalled out dirt bike

A West Roxbury man pleaded guilty to a variety of gun charges yesterday for an incident that started while police were investigating reckless ATV and dirt-bike riders on Ridgewood Street in Dorchester, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

According to the DA's office, police officers, already alerted to resident complaints about reckless dirt bikers on May 28, 2013, spotted an ATV take a right off Draper onto Ridgewood and followed it.

On Ridgewood, the officers observed a group of men clustered around the ATV and two dirt bikes. The ATV and one dirt bike sped off. The operator of the second dirt bike - later identified as Alexander Harris - couldn't kick start his engine, however, and the officers pulled their cruiser in front of it.

Prosecutors would have shown that Harris dropped the bike and started running while clutching his waistband with his right hand, a characteristic they recognized from their training on armed gunmen. Harris jumped a fence into and through a nearby back yard, then led officers on a foot chase that ended with his apprehension on Longfellow Street.

Additional officers retraced the path of Harris' flight and found two white socks and a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson Special loaded with five rounds of ammunition. The resident of the property where these items were found disavowed ownership of the gun or the socks.

Because the dirt bike Harris couldn't start did not have a license plate or registration sticker, the officers towed it from the scene and cited him for operating an unregistered vehicle.

Harris, 31, pleaded guilty to indictments charging him with unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawfully carrying a loaded firearm, and being a Level I armed career criminal because of prior convictions for drug distribution and firearm possession, the DA's office says.

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Comments

Only 3 years for a career criminal?

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armed career criminal = 3 years? and we wonder why criminals never learn.

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Sounds as though he plead out to the charges in lieu of a lesser sentence. So all the parties agreed on this sentence, not just the criminal.

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It's awfully hard to complain about the MA criminal justice system if you're going to use facts and reason. Take it elsewhere, Mr. Harvard.

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Yeah, 3 years for for riding an unregistered dirt bike which usually doesn't result in jail time and carrying a gun illegally which usually is an 18 month sentence in Boston I think. I don't get you people who think three years in jail is a short time.

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This is why we need to federalize gun crimes. If you want to stop people from carrying illegal weapons, it should be a mandatory 10 year sentence.

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GCA68 is federal law, and prohibits possession of guns and ammunition by certain classes of people, including convicted felons, for life, regardless of any state laws that may address licensure. People get arrested for "possession of a firearm by a person prohibited" all the time, even in gun-friendly states like New Hampshire. I don't know what the maximum penalty is, or what sentence is typically imposed, or whether the charge is one of those "pile-on" things that prosecutors add in hopes of compelling a plea bargain from the defendant.

There's also a federal law about being in possession of a gun and illegal drugs at the same time. That one gets prosecuted rather less often, but carries a theoretical ten year sentence as well.

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They didn't even get the gun from him. They found it. Three years on a plea or maybe he walks at trial because a jury doesn't believe he tossed it ... sounds pretty good to me.

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Additional officers retraced the path of Harris' flight and found two white socks and a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson Special loaded with five rounds of ammunition. The resident of the property where these items were found disavowed ownership of the gun or the socks.

- Sir, are these your socks?
- No officer, I swear, I've never seen them in my life. They must belong to the person that lives here.
- Well, son, we have video surveillance of you wearing this exact pair of socks just last week.
- I...man I swear it wasn't me no, no it wasn't me they aren't my socks! I don't even know where they came from because like I you know I always uh...I always wear sandals.
- Really.
- Yeah. Um. Except right now.

Maybe they were community socks, stashed somewhere hidden in case they're needed.

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Wait, he's clearly reaching for a gun, and the cops didn't shoot first?

How hard is it to put a small camera on the person of a police officer? Then the cops could just shoot people like this and then maybe they would die. And it would be on tape that they resisted arrest.

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