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DA: Gangbanger was wearing body armor while driving through rival turf with loaded gun

An expired inspection sticker proved the undoing of four alleged gang members, including one braced for action, late Wednesday night, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

According to a statement from the DA's office, officers on patrol near the Lenox Street housing project had just gotten word a carful of toughs from the Washington Street gang were on their way over, when they spotted a black Acura Legend with tinted windows and an expired inspection sticker at Hammond and Tremont streets around 11 p.m.

They turned their blues and siren on and tried to get the driver to pull over, but instead he sped up and led them on a high-speed chase down Tremont and Ruggles, prosecutors say. At one point, somebody tossed a gun out of the car, the DA's office says. The chase ended, the DA's office says, at Ruggles and DeWitt, when the car slowed and the driver and a passenger jumped out:

[The driver] allegedly exited from the driver's seat, leaving the car to cruise driverless into another vehicle, while [one man jumped] from the left passenger's side. Officers pursued both men on foot and apprehended them while another officer approached the car’s resting place on Dewitt Drive.

The DA's office says that after Tyronne Seams was dragged out of the car - he didn't get out willingly - they discovered him wearing a bullet-resistant vest under his clothes, a vest that turned out to have been reported stolen:

"My probation officer told me I should wear one for protection," he allegedly told police after being read his Miranda rights.

The gun, meanwhile, was recovered, the DA's office says, adding it was "a .38 caliber Taurus Special firearm with an obliterated serial number and five rounds of ammunition."

Seams, 24, Jonathan E. Brown, 19, Fred C. Palmer, 20, and Ricardo O. Fields, 28, all of Dorchester, were arraigned today in Boston Municipal Court on charges of unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, carrying a loaded firearm, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Seams was also charged with using body armor during the commission of a felony and receiving stolen property; Fields was charged with possession of a Class D drug with intent to distribute, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, and the civil offense of not having a valid inspection sticker.

Judge Annette Forde ordered Seams, Palmer and Fields held on $25,000 cash bail each and Brown held on $15,000.

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

you would be surprised at the number of expired inspection stickers/fail to insepct that leads to gun arrests.... Good job

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or failure to signal / failure to stop at a stop sign.

Criminals wouldn't be criminals if they were smart; they'd be working on wall street.

;)

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Correction: The smart criminals work on Wall Street.

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these kids all posted 25000 cash and won there case dont judge a book by its cover? Times are evolving.

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in this case all were acquitted and all posted bail. The police report was fabricated the cars inspection was up to date. not a good job bad cops infringinging on the rights of citizens.

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Why don't manufacturers put the serials in multiple places, along with micro laser etching them into/under the stocks, ect; much like car companies do now a days with VINS?

Thugs aren't that smart, and making it harder to scratch out serial will make it easier to track the distribution, and sources of illegal firearms.

And don't give me any 2nd amendment rights, government will round us all up hoohaa. Gun owners and sellers have a duty to make sure these punks don't get guns, as much as they have the right to carry.

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Guns put the serial numbers on the "reciever" which is basically the handle of the gun where all the other parts fit into (barrell, magazine, springs etc). So many of those parts are interchangable that it would be impossible to assign one number to several of these parts.

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I figured that, but why isn't the receiver stamped multiple times, and microscopically laser etched? There's ways you could so and make it almost impossible for a thug with common tools to get rid of the firearms ID.

Per the comment below, I know the NRA is reflexively against such things, but my question is why.

We need more common sense from both sides on this issue; but one side seems impossible to budge, while the other is just hair brained in their disgust for firearms.

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The gun manufacturers do what legislatures tell them to do. Do you think they have an interest in helping trace illegal gun distribution across the US? If your answer to this question is anything but an unequivocal yes, look at a little thing called the Tiahrt Amendment. Law enforcement (namely the ATF) wants to share tracing data that already , exists (no new requirements of manufacturers at all), but one of our federally-elected officials sponsored legislation limiting tracing data completely, and it went completely under the radar. Believe it or not, our very own Mike Capuano voted yes, and he's a nawthern boy.
This is what we get for being checked out when it comes to the details on who we elect. As long as it's a throwaway decision that isn't in the forefront of constituents" minds, Mike Capuano will fly under the radar and vote with the NRA, because why not? No one will notice...

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I suppose all knife manufacturers should have a national database of serial numbers and tracking of each piece of cutlery sold every year. Along with every other inanimate object people buy and sell which can on occasion be used in a lethal manner.

The problem isn't guns themselves, regardless of whom is selling them, it is who is using the guns. The only way to keep those who shouldn't be using guns from not using them is to keep the repeat offenders IN PRISON.

What kind of justice system allows a thug, whom obviously is connected enough to be getting all sorts of hardware and henchman, to get out on parole without the slightest fear of being implicated in another brazen crime? This punk obviously has no fear of the law and that is the result of multiple FAILURES by law enforcement, PROSECUTORS, AND JUDGES.

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kinda.

You have a chance of running away from a knife. Accidental knife deaths are pretty low. It's much harder (less personal) to stab someone in a fit of rage than shoot them. You have a slim chance of running away from a projectile weapon, such as a firearm.

I believe in 2nd amendment rights, and that law enforcement shouldn't get into the way as the city of Boston does' but there should be common sense limitations and penalties for the stupid, the reckless, and people looking to profit from enabling them. That's where the middle ground should be. The laws were written when the most advanced technology was the riffling in the barrel of single use rifles, and when handguns were nothing but pistols.

And yes, I'm for much sticker sentences for crimes committed while armed, and/or while intoxicated. Both point to people even less stable, since they need and will use both to their own end.

The only way to keep those who shouldn't be using guns from not using them is to keep the repeat offenders IN PRISON.

I agree, but even the NRA is opposed to that. What of accidents and manslaughter? And should the public have to endure a "wait till he does something stupid before we lock him up" policy. Irresponsible gun owners aren't just gang bangers and wanabe thugs.

Hell, a buddy of mine's dad left a loaded and cocked glock on his dinning room table with young children in the other room once; and got quite a berating from my buddy. Bad form, but still careless.

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I forgot to add that I've never heard of a drive-by knifing.

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Why did juries escape your wrath? They are not involved with sentencing, but certainly, they are at least as involved as the other folks you hit.

And I think you actually highlighted the problem that everyone else was suggesting. You DON'T have to be connected to be obtain all of that hardware. You just have to have a car, or a supplier in a state where it is real easy to get it. Hell, that applies only to the local distributors - in some neighborhoods, John T. Gangbanger can just walk down the street to that local distributor who just came back from Georgia or elsewhere with the hardware.

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The "court system continually fails us" argument is a very tired pony that needs to be put to bed, for once and for all. Unless there is an issue of proof that requires dismissal (like any other case), there are no breakdowns of minimum-mandatories for firearms in Massachusetts courts. YET any time a story is published about a gun-toting thugs, there's always a portion of reader comments that references the "systematic" problem of prosecutors "letting thugs out of jail" that simply doesn't exist.
Bottom line: you get caught with a gun, you serve at least 18 months. The FIRST time. If you qualify for an armed career criminal or subsequent offense enhancement, you're looking at state prison for 3, 5, 7, 10 or 15 years, and if there's a breakdown of THOSE minimum mandatories, it's to ENSURE that Mr. or Ms. Repeat Offender is convicted and that they go to Big Boy jail for an appropriately long time. Check the facts and tell me I'm wrong. Otherwise, it's time for a new horse.

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That when some gangbanger gets arrested for a serious gun murder or crime, 9/10 times that gangbanger has been charged with anywhere from 30-70 crimes and it makes us wonder why that ganbanger was ever allowed in public again after his last 10 crimes he was arrested for.

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Responding about the hypothetical thug who does something violent and who has 30+ prior arrest: arrests for trespass, disorderly conduct, and motor vehicle violations show that the police know that a kid is a bad actor and they're giving him the attention he deserves. And maybe he'll have a gun or crack on him during those incidents, or maybe he won't. But you don't do significant prison time for motor vehicle crimes. So to then look back and say, oh, this kid has been arrested 30+ times, we should have seen this coming, why was he on the street, etc, without context about what those arrests are for and what a realistic punishment for those crimes would have been is to paint a false picture of what is really going on in the criminal justice system. in fact, 30+ arrests shows that the police are as on top of the situation as the Constitution allows. It's up to the thug to decide whether he's going to take it to the next level, and once he does, he'll hopefully be caught and held accountable.

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How many of these guys do you think were hopeless to begin with? And how many just got born into a shitty situation, run through probation and jails that didn't rehabilitate, and then kept getting dumped back into the same shitty situation?

I don't give a free pass to the criminals who are victims of circumstances, and I think that a lot of them are such assholes that I don't care how they got that way.

But occasionally I wonder how much of these assholes ONLY start because Boston gave them violent neighborhoods, mothers using them to play the lucrative public assistance game, little opportunity, and not enough rehabilitation at the points they could've most used it.

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But in the end what can you do? We can't force people not to have babies if they can't afford to or shouldn't have babies. We also can't take those babies away if the parents aren't doing the best possible job. I'd say 99% of these gangbangers had losers for parents, or possibly had parents with genetic mental health issues that were not treated and the gangbanger also had mental health issues that are not treated by our American system.

And regarding the first anon: Yea, each gangbanger is going to have a wide variety of crimes on their record, and I don't expect anyone to be doing time for motor vehicle or tresspassing crimes. But these gangbangers usually have a good percentage of violent crimes on their records too.

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Agreed- but in order to hold then accountable for those violent crimes, you need witnesses who cooperate with authorities...otherwise, the system dismisses the case and moves on to the next.

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Some things run in families, but science really ain't there yet Pete.

Difficult to tell in any case if something is "genetic" or runs in families when you are talking about people living in generational poverty - people who were likely exposed to leaded gasoline, leaded paint, and various sorts of deprivation while their brains were growing.

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or even the worse one. My main issue was that people are having kids when they don't have the resources to support them.

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But you have to be careful about using terms like "genetic" when these things are still a matter of strong scientific dispute and where we have a rather nasty social history in this country of conflating the results of deprivation with "genetic defectives" breeding.

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I didn't mean to imply that a certain group of people might have something genetically wrong with them and that is one of the causes of violence or poverty or something. Just wanted to point out that people in the inner cities don't get the services that other people in this country get and if these mental health problems are genetic, then those in the inner city may be even worse off.

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well, it might be time for changing the laws for even stricter punishment, but that needs to come from us pressuring our legislators. The laws being followed to the T in these cases, and fortunately for our system the state brings up charges and needs to prove them.

It's easy to want a different set of rules for the people we think are the problem; but it's not the way we do things.

Even if we do, well need to decriminalize drugs and nonviolent offenders; as jails are already pushed to the brink as it is. Hell, ending prohibition in itself will solve much of the reason for the turf wars in many cities, where crime, drug profits, and cred are all tied up into the same thing; making money on drugs.

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The gang problems in Boston have nothing to do with drugs. In fact, most of the handgun violence in general has no connection to drugs. I'm sure a fair amount of the property crimes and robberies may be connected, but not the gang related violence.

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said in many cities, not Boston.

Boston's pretty lucky in that crime really isn't that bad here. There's a few trouble blocks, and it mostly comes down to that.

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you are behind on times fool the government wants PUNKS like you and every convicted felon to have a gun its a constitutional right no matter what state you are in you dont even need an id to buy a new gun just go to a gun show coming to a town near you.

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Wearing body armor near some of the projects isn't a bad idea.

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i do agree if u have grown up in any of these bad neighbors in boston u wold understand better!!! i have personally grown up in a HORRIBLE NEIGHBORHOOD IN BOSTON AND HAVE SEEN HORRIFIIC THINGS MYSELVES! i personally know one of these people thAT HAPPENED TO BE WEARING THE BODY ARMOR FOR HIS OWN PROTECTIN! HE IS 24 YEARS OLD AND HAS BEEN SHOT 6 TIMES ALREADY ONE BULLET WENT THROUG HIS BACK AN WAS 2 INCHES FROM HIS HEART!! HE ALMOST DIED AND HE HAPPENED TO B A LUCKY ONE>. YOU DONT HAVE TO BE A GANGBANGER LIKE THEY SAY TO BE WALKIN DOWN ANY STREET IN BOSTON AN GET SHOT AT!! HE PERSONALLY WEARS THAT FOR PROTECTION!! IAM SURE ANYONE GROING UP IN THOSE KIND O NEIGHBORS WOULD UNDERSTAND THAT IT IS HARD FOR YOUNG BLACK MEN IN BOSTON TO SURVIVE!! I THINK PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE BEFORE THEY STAR ASSUMING AN TALKIN BOUT THESE THINGS THYE DONT LIVE THROUGH EVERYDAY! YOU DONT HAVE TO B A GANGBANGER AS THEY SAY TO BE KILLED WALKIN DOWN THE STREET!

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