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DA: Teen wasn't even looking when he opened fire inside Forest Hills station

An argument between two groups of teens inside Forest Hills station on Monday ended with one kid opening fire with a gun, hitting two women who had nothing to do with the beef, and missing his antagonists completely, a prosecutor said today.

West Roxbury Municipal Court Judge Mary Ann Driscoll set bail for Reginald Price, 18, of Jamaica Plain, at $50,000 for the 2 p.m. incident, which sent one of the women to the hospital with life-threatening back injuries. Driscoll set bail at $25,000 for Price's pal, Nicholas Bootman, also 18 and a student at West Roxbury High School. But Bootman won't be getting out of jail if he makes bail - Driscoll revoked his bail on earlier juvenile charges, which include assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

Assistant Suffolk County District Attorney Lauren Greene had asked for $75,000 bail for each for the "absolutely brazen behavior" in a crowded T stop. Although Greene only identified Price as the actual shooter, both were charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a person over 60, illegal possession of a gun and ammunition, carrying a loaded weapon and discharging a weapon inside a building.

Greene told Driscoll that surveillance video showed the two walking in the station lobby when they got into an argument with three other guys, all clad in red jackets. She said the two began walking towards the exit out to the 39 bus area. When the three guys in red jackets - who have not been found - seemed to follow, she said, Price pulled out a gun and from "his right hip area" began firing behind him.

Greene said he fired at least six shots. Greene said the woman hit in the back is now in stable condition at a local hospital.

Transit Police officers, who heard the shots, found the two not long after a couple blocks away on St. Rose Street, Greene said.

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

Doesn't exist anymore!

More of BPS's finest, i'd love for my kid to be paired with one of these fine young men for a group project.

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But that's what the assistant DA called it - she didn't specify which of the two (?) schools at the West Roxbury Education Complex.

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and who decided that was a good name for an school?

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Driscoll revoked his bail on earlier juvenile charges, which include assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

Another one man crime wave seemingly unafraid of the law. What kind of potential punishment does it take to dissuade people like that from a life of violent crime? Anything at all?

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Well, Bootman was facing charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, so since he wasn't convicted in a court of law, he does have the right not to be imprisoned.

Now, he has been charged with a greater charge, so the bail in his first offense has been revoked, as he did something while out on bail. If he gets found not guilty on the earlier charges, the bail from the newer charges comes into play.

That's how bail works. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.

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What part of "what potential punishment does someone need to motivate them to not commit violent crime" did you not understand?

If you've already been arrested, charged, and bailed out on a major charge, what more does it take to convince you to not re-offend while out on bail?

These alleged criminals have to fear of consequences.How does one deal with that sort of person in an effective manner?

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I guess we found out that this is one of those cases where criminal charges were not a deterrent.

Sadly, there are too many cases like this.

My guess is that he is some kind of sociopath, so we'll read his name again a year after he is released. And if Adam is still doing this, the comments here will be nasty.

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I think gang ethos and an 18 year old brain explains this insanely reckless behavior but I'd want to talk to a sociologist who is familiar with the research before I decided. I would not be surprised if trauma was an element, too. Kudos to BPD for apprehending without incident. Now the long hard and uncertain work of rehabilitation begins. The Globe reported recently on a guy who came out on the other end with a good job and a future. It can happen.

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If you've already been arrested, charged, and bailed out on a major charge, what more does it take to convince you to not re-offend while out on bail?

Answer that and you get a Nobel Prize.

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juvenile charges of A&B. Not the same as being charged and tried in a normal (i.e. adult) court of law.

But let's continue deluding ourselves in the outdated belief that treating suspects of serious crimes differently because of their age is a good thing and will work wonders in solving the increasing problem of youth crime.

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Some of these kids have zero regard for human life and are completely reckless. The last shooting at Ashmont, Transit PD was RIGHT THERE on the platform. Sounds like they weren't too far away this time, either.

Since nothing seems to deter these thugs, we need the courts to come down on possession of illegal firearms. Keep them off the streets so they can't hurt people. Seems like every other time we read about illegal possession here on UHub, it's a second and subsequent offense on their already long BOP. Massachusetts seems to only take a hard line on gun laws when it's affecting the people who want to follow the rules. So while BPD releases a statement about "one less gun" and Evans doesn't think taxpayers should even own rifles, we gloss over the criminal carrying it. The gun is "off the street", so the thug who gets probation might need to look around a bit for another one. You think the kid who gets caught running with a piece was off to the woods to plink at Coke cans?

It's good to see Driscoll revoking bail, but two innocent women have been shot. Our system sends the message that illegal possession of firearms isn't taken seriously...cause it isn't. Start enforcing mandatory minimums. Maybe the ones who aren't deterred by the law will push forward, or maybe they'll get caught carrying and actually sent to jail before they can kill someone.

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to loosen the restriction of cruel and unusual punishment and bring back the stockades to Boston Common. A few days left drying out in the hot sun shitting your pants while people crackle and throw rotten tomatoes at them might make them change their tune a bit. A little bit of humility is very humbling for people. Some of these guys think they are above the law, maybe cutting them down to size and popping that ego they have will cut this bullshit down.

But I agree, jail time or the threat of jail time isn't working. What else can we do? Our laws only allow for so much punishment, maybe its time to try new tactics.

Its appears (to me at least) this has just gotten worse and not better. It's time to try something else now.

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You need to prove it was a deterrent then. Seeing as they still had crime, murder, and negligent homicide back in the day, It seems it didn't work.

Also, crime has been decreasing in the city and state. The numbers tell us that.

If you really want to stop this, you have to deal with the problem. When someone can make $2k a week off of drugs and illegal firearm sales, instead of working in the legitimate economy, guess whats going to happen? Especially when the black market turf needs to be metered out under the radar of law enforcement. There will be people willing to take on the high risk high reward job, and they will protect it with street justice since they;re already running afoul of the law.

Make legitimate work pay, and make black market work more risky and less profitable and the worst of the crime will melt away. That means higher real wages, harder sentencing for violent crime, and legalizing drugs / taking steps to eliminate black markets and bring them under regulation and normal law.

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You need to prove it was a deterrent then. Seeing as they still had crime, murder, and negligent homicide back in the day, It seems it didn't work.

Yes also we didn't have the block attitude that many of these kids have today. Back then kids were submissive. Today, they balk at anything these days and think there they are 'bad ass'. Let's see how bad ass they are locked to a stockade, wetting and shitting themselves, while having people cackle at them. I bet it would stop it no time. Like I said humiliation is a deterrent.

The other thing your missing is that as a whole, times have changed. Back then (say 1800s) we didn't have high powered machine guns, or gangs or drugs or things like that. You don't know if there would be a deterrent if you don't try. Times are very different now. And yes this can work for and against my idea.

I think my whole point is, whatever we're doing isn't working.

And I'm sorry I just don't believe your last two paragraphs will work. The "War on Drugs" that has been going on for decades has proven this just doesn't work. Maybe legalization is the answer since it would remove the black market aspect, but the way we do it now to combat drugs isn't working, at least in this case.

I stopped short mention this because I didn't want much of a pissing contest about the topic but everyone says "more out reach". As much as I'd like to think it works.. and no, I an not saying it doesn't work at all, but works far less than we think it does. Why? because you can't FORCE kids into these programs. Yes the courts can, but if they are just unwilling to change, they won't change no matter how many times you push them into teen programs (i.e. MGH Roca, teen work programs, etc).

You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot force them to drink. This rings true with this issue. You can force the hand all you want, but if they just don't want to, they won't.

I mean what other options do we have? And what can be done quickly before another one of these shoot outs happen and hit more innocent people.

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I think my whole point is, whatever we're doing isn't working.

I thought the statistics show that we're at an all time low on crime? Like you said the war on drugs is a failure and the opiate epidemic is a good illustration of that. But when you look at murder and theft rates for the 70s and 80s and compare them to today, I think we're far better off. Just think if we dealt appropriately with the drug issue and deprived a lot of criminals of their drug income. (And then imagine if we had a manufacturing sector to provide jobs to a portion of these young people -- assuming a chunk of them would still be a problem, just because there's one in every crowd...)

Not much of a consolation for those women with bullets in their backs, I'll admit, but I can think of a few things I'd try before the stocks.

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The problem isn't new or easy to fix - it boils down to home environment. These kids are a product of their domestic and neighborhood experiences - far more than the BPD or the BPS. Good luck trying to solve that one with laws and programs.

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Works in some of the heavier sections of town.....

I always thought based on my own naturalistic observations:

Legalize/ tax/ regulate drugs and then all the "troublemakers" will have to get jobs. Its really that simple but then theres the issue of the police "market share." Lol.

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I've long thought that those couple of hours after school gets out is one of the most dangerous times to ride the T.

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that those hours account for a lot of the crime at Forest Hills. It's not a particularly unsafe area generally but it's like the meeting of the waters for every middle and high school kid on this side of the city. Not surprising that beefs get played out there.

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You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control. Man, we need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost five thousand dollars… five thousand dollars per bullet… You know why? Cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars there would be no more innocent bystanders.
Yeah! Every time somebody get shot we’d say, ‘Damn, he must have done something ... Shit, he’s got fifty thousand dollars worth of bullets in his ass.’
And people would think before they killed somebody if a bullet cost five thousand dollars. ‘Man I would blow your fucking head off…if I could afford it.'

--Chris Rock

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/98949-you-don-t-need-no-gun-control-you-...

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esp when the High Schools get out? there's usually enough trouble around there to justify having someone in/near the station. I rarely even see any MBTA staff in there during rush hour.

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Quite often there are at least 2-4 T police there during the high school mass exodus. They don't always just stand in a single spot. They move around to observe what is happening.

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I'm often in there when the high schools get out and there's usually 3 or 4 T cops right there by the info booth. As it is, T cops heard the gunfire, so they must've been in the station at the time, if not in their usual spot.

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Innocent bystanders lives matter.

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