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Maybe he was trying out for a role in Grand Theft Auto V

By adamg on Wed, 12/23/2009 - 9:14pm

Boston Police charge that when they tried to break up a fight between Jose Cosme of Quincy and some other guy at Parker and Tremont Streets in Roxbury around 8 a.m. today, Cosme jumped into his car and led officers on a chase that ended in Charlestown only after he:

Roared past Madison Park High School, managed to evade cops when they crashed their cruiser, drove over a raised median, sped the wrong way down Shawmut Avenue, sideswiped another cruiser and two other cars - sending two people to the hospital with minor injuries - got onto 93 North with a flat front tire, plowed into yet another car and finally came to a stop on Spice Street, where he got out and tried unsucessfully to run away from police.

Cosme now faces charges of assault and battery, operating after suspension, driving to endanger, speeding, failure to stop for a police officer, two counts of leaving the scene of an accident with personal injury, four counts of leaving the scene of an accident wth property damage and assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon.

Innocent, etc.


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Three teens arrested for failed robbery down the street from Stony Brook station

By adamg on Wed, 12/23/2009 - 4:12pm

Capt. John Greland at District E-13 reports two 18-year-olds and a 16-year-old were arrested last night after a passing motorists noticed them trying to mug a woman on Boylston Street, near Germania Street and scared them off.

Neighborhoods: 
Jamaica Plain
Topics: 
Crime
Free tagging: 
Stony Brook


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Boy chokes on food at school party; goes into cardiac arrest

By adamg on Wed, 12/23/2009 - 3:28pm

Channel 4 reports the 7-year-old student at the Quincy School in Chinatown was rushed to nearby Tufts Medical Center this afternoon. The Herald reports he was revived by two school nurses.


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Where's Santa?

By adamg on Wed, 12/23/2009 - 3:22pm

One good Santa deserves another in SomervilleOne good Santa deserves another in Somerville

Scott discovers where Santas are cloned.

Copyright Scott. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.


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MBTA acknowledges service-alert system didn't work after Red Line derailment

By adamg on Wed, 12/23/2009 - 2:22pm

The MBTA's chief technology officer is apologizing for delayed notices about yesterday's Red Line derailment. In e-mail to people who wrote to complain, Gary Foster says the service-alert system failed "just minutes before the incident on the Red Line" and wasn't brought back up until 5:22 p.m., or more than an hour after the Red Line came to a halt.

His e-mail follows:

This email is in response to your note to our General Manager’s Office regarding yesterday’s derailment and delayed Service Alert.

On behalf of the MBTA I sincerely apologize for the lack of an appropriate Service Alert being delivered. This was not a procedural issue. It was a technical problem that occurred just minutes before the incident on the Red Line. The appropriate action was followed by MBTA staff and the Service Alert system was not operational until 5:22PM. That is the exact time the ALERT you expected was posted on our Web Site. There is a lag between posting and the delivery on mobile devices, depending on your service provider.

As the accountable leader responsible for the MBTA web site and associated services it is my intention to assure that the entire web site performs and is available around the clock, especially in situations like rush hour yesterday afternoon. We have completed a root cause analysis of the technical problem encountered and are developing mitigation plans and performing a post incident review to identify improvements to our system and assure this incident does not occur again.

Thank you very much for taking the time to write us about your concerns and for riding the T.

Best regards,

Gary S. Foster
Chief Technology Officer

Spokesman Joe Pesaturo declined to be more specific about what went wrong with the alerting system, citing the T's policy's on information security.


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Red Line to be shut between Alewife and Harvard Jan. 2-3

By adamg on Wed, 12/23/2009 - 11:49am

So workers can fix the tracks, the T advises. Regular service is scheduled to start bright and early on Jan. 4.


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Court gives Salem police right to tell loud-mouthed preachers with megaphones to knock it off on Halloween

By adamg on Wed, 12/23/2009 - 11:34am

The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld the disorderly-conduct conviction of a Philadelphia preacher who likes to show up in Salem on Halloween and use a megaphone to demand that revelers repent.

The court said the First Amendment did not give Mark Marcavage the right on Halloween, 2007 to frighten people by bellowing at them - often through a megaphone a foot or less from their faces - or to seemingly threaten them with a Bible he waved in his hand. And police showed "admirable restraint" in giving Marcavage repeated warnings about his megaphone, the court ruled.

With a crowded square becoming filled with growing numbers of drunks in a city known for its violent outbursts on the holiday, police had the right to try to confiscate his megaphone when they grew concerned for public safety, the court said:

The defendant held tightly to the megaphone and verbally protested the confiscation. Two officers assisted the supervisor, and pushing and shoving between the defendant and the officers resulted. Then, the defendant "went limp," which caused him to fall into the fountain, bringing the officers to the ground with him. Immediately thereafter, the officers stood up and arrested the defendant. The crowd was noisy and raucous, and the area was congested and became dangerous. The defendant, by refusing police orders and resisting the confiscation of the megaphone, drew a hostile crowd that was out of control. The police were concerned for their own safety as well as the safety of the crowd.

Complete ruling.

This is not the first time a court has ruled Marcavage's right to free speech ends at other people's ear drums.


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Newton man gets only probation for violent crime even though court agrees ruling seems to violate common sense

By adamg on Wed, 12/23/2009 - 10:58am

The Supreme Judicial Court today upheld a Newton man's sentence of five years of probation for armed home invasion despite a state law that seems to state rather unambiguously he should be sent to prison for 20 years.

Earlier this year, Jacob Zapata pleaded guilty to breaking into his pregnant girlfriend's Newton home and attempting to kill her and their unborn child. A judge sentenced him to five years in prison on the attempted murder charge but only five years' probation for armed home invasion, despite a 2004 amendment to state law that states anyone who breaks into an occupied home with a weapon "shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for life or for any term of not less than twenty years."

The Middlesex County District Attorney's office appealed, saying the law was pretty clear in removing judicial discretion from sentencing in such cases. But the state's highest court blamed the state legislature in not explicitly specifying that probation was barred in the 2004 amendment:

When the Legislature intends to bar probation, it knows how to say so explicitly. In this context, the Legislature's decision in 2004 to remove all language from [the home invasion law] that expressly prohibited probation leaves a question in our minds regarding its intent with respect to the availability of a probationary sentence.

The court added:

We recognize that this result, which has the effect of offering a sentencing judge a choice between probation and a mandatory minimum prison term of twenty years, may seem contrary to common sense. Standing alone, the statutory language in the first sentence of [the law], "shall be punished by imprisonment ... for life or for any term of not less than twenty years," would suggest a legislative intent that a defendant convicted under the statute could be sentenced to only a term of incarceration, not probation. However, we must read this language in the context of the 1998 and 2004 amendments, and for the reasons we have discussed, they render ambiguous what might otherwise be clear.

Complete ruling.


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Aren't all the trains on the Blue Line new?

By adamg on Wed, 12/23/2009 - 10:14am

I ask because the MBTA is reporting a dead train at Airport.


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Incident at Logan

By adamg on Wed, 12/23/2009 - 10:08am

Robert Buderi tweets around 9:50 a.m. from his plane to Dallas/Ft. Worth:

wow. Our flight AA 1133 just rtrnd to logan after takeoff. Made emergency landing. Something went very wrong. Emerg vehicles here.

Channel 4 tweets Logan says the plane had a rudder problem and so turned back.


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