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Suspect shot, cop injured in Dorchester incident
By adamg on Sun, 01/09/2011 - 12:45am
Seized weaponA chase through the streets of Dorchester ended with police shooting one of four men after he allegedly pointed an assault rifle at officers.
The man shot by police, Marvin Veiga, 21, of Dorchester, was the brother of a teen who officials say exchanged gunfire with police before fatally shooting himself in the head this past April, a source said.
Police say Veiga and three other gang members were on their way to murder somebody with some high-powered weaponry when members of the Youth Violence Strike Force tried to pull them over at Adams and East streets around 11 p.m. yesterday. Instead, the driver sped off and tried to get onto I-93 at Freeport Street, only he failed to make the turn onto the ramp and crashed into a guard rail, police say. Three of the four then got out of the car and ran through nearby streets such as Everdeen and Mill streets:exc
During the pursuit of one of the suspects, officers observed him to be in possession of an assault rifle and commanded him to drop it numerous times. The suspect ignored officers' commands and instead turned and pointed the rifle in the direction of the officers. As a result of the suspect's actions, one officer discharged his firearm, striking the suspect in the leg. The suspect was transported to Boston Medical Center with a non-life threatening injury.
Morrissey Boulevard by Freeport Street was briefly shut down as police hunted two of the suspects. Police set up a command center on Freeport Street to process evidence and witnesses; homicide detectives were on scene, along with officers from across the city. One officer was hurt during the pursuit.
Seized gunPolice say they recovered a loaded military style assault rifle from the scene as well as a .40 caliber handgun and approximately forty rounds of ammunition and several face masks.
"This is a clear case of a group of gang members who were on a mission to carry out a senseless act of violence," Police Commissioner Edward Davis said in a statement. "The intervention by our courageous officers undoubtedly thwarted a homicide. This level of gun violence is unacceptable and illegal guns must be a priority at all levels of government."
Veiga, 2007Veiga, who allegedly aimed the rifle at officers, will be charged with two counts of assault by means of a dangerous weapon, carrying a large capacity rifle on a public way, two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm, possession of a machine gun, possession of a firearm with an altered serial number, unlawful possession of ammunition, possession of a large capacity feeding device, possession of loaded firearm and resisting arrest.
Osvaldir Mendes, 23, of Dorchester was charged with refusal to submit/stop for officers, unlawful possession of a firearm, possession of a machine gun, possession of a firearm with an altered serial number, unlawful possession of ammunition, resisting arrest, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, being and armed career criminal and a host of other motor vehicle violations. Takari Elliott, 18, of Dorchester and Daronde Bethea, 18, of Milton were charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, possession of a machine gun, possession of a firearm with an altered serial number, unlawful possession of ammunition, possession of a large capacity feeding device, possession of loaded firearm and resisting arrest.
Innocent, etc.
Original post updated Sunday afternoon with information from BPD.
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Comments
Relevant to Arizona, Kind Of
What do apparently-crazy would-be assassins and apparent gang member would-be cop killers have in common? They both benefit from the easy availability of firearms to people who have no business possessing them.
I don't know anything about the kid who shot Rep. Giffords yesterday or the one who pointed a gun at a Boston cop last night. From the news articles, one looks like a complete nut and the other looks like a violent gangster. How do people like this manage to end up with firearms? Why do other people support that access?
It's good no one was seriously hurt in this situation and really good the cops managed to stop this crew before they killed someone.
I don't really see how it is
I don't really see how it is relevant to Arizona, but I your question of how did they get their hands on (looks like) some military caliber weapons? Though I can guess who support them, where's there's money, there's always someone who is willing to sell it (and I don't think it is the guys who originally bought those guns with regular license and everything).
That's the problem. There's
That's the problem. There's absolutely no way to track these weapons, and the NRA would give anyone hell for even mentioning to try to find a way to trace and track illegal weapons, to figure out a way to stop the supply.
The conspiracy nuts that went and caused a shortage and made it so no one can buy ammo anymore are worried that big brother will track them.
Simply put, competent and responsible people should have free access to firearms, but there should also be a means of tracking the sale and transfer of firearms from person to person in the case the firearm is used illegally.
Serial numbers could easily by randomly and microscopically etched into multiple areas of the parts of a gun, making it virtually impossible to find and remove. Thus making tracking the weapon easier. But they'll have nothing with it.
It's very easy to swap parts
It's very easy to swap parts and there's the entire aftermarket industry. I don't see how this could work unless all ammunition had serial numbers. Even then, there's such a large stockpile of ammo and smuggling it's hard to see how any kind of stamping would be effective.
That's my point. All parts
That's my point.
All parts would be microscopically stamped and simple information would be kept to tie those part numbers to their owners to build an idea of where and how guns and gun parts are entering the illegal black markets.
They'd be better then the current serials which can easily be seen and scratched off which renders tracking useless. These would be microscopic, or somehow embedded into the material during casting/machining. Any part that is swappable, would have it's own serial and history.
Law enforcement would be bared from accessing the database unless they have some sort of warrant on a weapon used in a crime.
That's just one idea, and it's not at all comprehensive. But as it is now, there's no way from police to track and stop the illegal gun trade. And some would even argue it's against the gun lobby's interest to allow it.
If you look at the picture,
If you look at the picture, you can see the serial number right on the side of the rifle. It's also on the side of the pistol. These guys weren't trying to hide anything.
Also, every legal sale/transfer of a firearm in Ma is tracked by the state police. You can't buy ammo in the commonwealth without a firearm license.
The problem is that these guys were criminals. They have the luxury of ignoring our laws while all the law abiding gun owners have to jump through arbitrary and frivolous laws and restrictions.
Yikes!
"possession of a machine gun"
I'm not sure if it's still the case, but I think that used to carry a life sentence in Massachusetts.
UPS CREW
They and that killer in Arizonia are members of the USELESS PIECE OF S""T Crew which appears to be exploding in this country
Trust-fund anarchists and the
Trust-fund anarchists and the pseudo-philosophical Marxist potheads at, or dropped out of, a college campus near you are restarting the murderous tradition of Bill Ayers & Co. What can we expect from a bunch of otherwise idle and openly radical kids further egged on by aging granola at universities and like minded kooks across the internet. I feel like I'm in a bad rerun of the 1970s.
One wishes that we could send all the lefty kooks and reactionary right militia types to some remote desert some place where they could battle it out at a safe distance from the rest of society.
Although in the Arizona case it appear the pinko asshole in question might be schizophrenic.
Exactly right... but not even close
Did a bomb go off at the Pentagon? Did someone blow up the Haymarket statue again? Was a police station bombed?
No? Oh yeah. A Democratic Congresswoman who voted for the health care bill and had her home broken into for her trouble was shot at by a guy who railed against non-English speakers and a "government conspiracy" to create a new world currency. That's not exactly the "pinko" agenda.
The guy was an avid fan of
The guy was an avid fan of the Communist Manifesto and his favorite youtube video was of flag burning. His 'friends' described him as a far out lefty and a big tie pot head obsessed with mind control and "conscience" dreaming (whatever the hell that is). Does that really sound like a hyper patriotic capitalist bible thumping tighty righty tea partyer type to you?
Two problems
1. This fellow doesn't seem like either a lefty or a rightie - just a nut job. He's got some wacko ideas from Column A and some wacko ideas from Column B. Mix those up with a hefty dose of mental illness and you get an equal-opportunity murderer who shoots both a Republican judge and a Democratic Congresswoman and random bystanders to boot.
2. The rhetoric that's been coming out of the mainstream right-wing (i.e. major party candidates, Representatives, and media figures) lately is simply stunning. Putting gun sights on maps to symbolize elected officials and holding signs about reloading at political rallies is beyond the pale of decent public discourse. The absolute worst of the left-wing in the sixties and seventies (i.e. Black Panthers, Weathermen), who used similar rhetoric, were outside the mainstream then and largely don't exist now. The popularization of violent eliminationist rhetoric in the mainstream right wing (Palin, Bachmann, etc.) today may well have had something to do with why this nutjob decided a good outlet for his insanity was to try to murder this particular Congresswoman.
This terrible event was not directly caused by any political faction. It was more Taxi Driver than a political assassination; the political figure actually killed was not the target, and was of the opposite party.
That said, the Tea Party types are repeating as farce the tragedy of the Sixties. The wild-eyed lunatics who stuck up Brinks Trucks or hijacked planes to Cuba have their modern counterpart in deluded fools who see on Fox News that talking about murdering judges and congressmen is just fine and tote their guns around at political rallies. They have no coherent ideology, no coherent argument, but are whipped up into a froth by the cynical provocations of morally bankrupt political grifters. This event was predictable - was even predicted by the target herself - and these events will continue to occur until something is done about the eliminationist rhetoric.
I take it you didn't pay
I take it you didn't pay attention to the rhetoric coming out of the main stream left for the last 8-10 years? It's two sides of the same corroded coin.
Please show me where Biden did what Palin did
I seem to have missed his map of "surveyor's symbols" on Republican congressional districts. And I must have been dozing when Joe Lieberman and John Edwards tweeted about "reloading."
Beware Compulsive Centrists and -esque Contrarians Bearing False Equivalencies.
Democrat Harry Mitchell
Democrat Harry Mitchell Places Opponent in Crosshairs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epdJWNA65oY&feature...
Markos Moulitsas (really the biggest Tea Party support out there!) put a “bullseye” on Gabrielle Giffords’ district:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/25/1204/74882...
"A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy"
-Paul Krugman, December 17, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/opinion/18krugma...
“A spoiled child (Bush) is telling us our Social Security isn’t safe anymore, so he is going to fix it for us. Well, here’s your answer, you ungrateful whelp: [audio sound of 4 gunshots being fired.] Just try it, you little b*stard. [audio of gun being cocked].” – A “humor bit” from the Randi Rhodes Show
“..And then there’s Rumsfeld who said of Iraq ‘We have our good days and our bad days.’ We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say ‘This is one of our bad days’ and pull the trigger.”
-From a fundraising ad put out by the St. Petersburg Democratic Club
“…but the kind of people who would buy a car that increases the risk to other motorists in an accident can’t be reasoned with. They’re selfish and stupid. It’s unfortunate that drivers must worry that their SUVs are being targeted by insulting stickers and Molotov cocktails, but one thing’s for sure: It couldn’t be happening to a more deserving group of people.”
-Ted Rall winks at ecoterrorism
“F*** God D*mned Joe the God D*mned Motherf*cking plumber! I want Motherf*cking Joe the plumber dead.” –
-Liberal talk show host Charles Karel Bouley on the air.
“Republicans don’t believe in the imagination, partly because so few of them have one, but mostly because it gets in the way of their chosen work, which is to destroy the human race and the planet. Human beings, who have imaginations, can see a recipe for disaster in the making; Republicans, whose goal in life is to profit from disaster and who don’t give a hoot about human beings, either can’t or won’t. Which is why I personally think they should be exterminated before they cause any more harm.” –
-The Village Voice’s Michael Feingold, in a theater review of all places
“I know how the ‘tea party’ people feel, the anger, venom and bile that many of them showed during the recent House vote on health-care reform. I know because I want to spit on them, take one of their ‘Obama Plan White Slavery’ signs and knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads.” –
-The Washington Post’s Courtland Milloy
My Congressman Eric Cantor, and you and your cupcake evil wife…” “Remember Eric…our judgment time, the final Yom Kippur has been given. You are a liar, you’re a Lucifer, you’re a pig, a greedy f***ing pig, you’re an abomination, you receive my bullets in…your office, remember they will be placed in your heads. You and your children are Lucifer’s abominations.” –
-Obama campaign contributor Norman Laboom
Clearly the right-wingers have a monopoly on repugnant political discourse.
Going down your list here
1. Target image over J.D. Hayworth occurs at the same time the voiceover says he's a target of an Justice Department investigation. It's pretty clear what the connection is there - and it's not guns. So that's a misrepresentation in this list.
2. Markos Moulitsas - no, the thing you say is there isn't there. There is a phrase "target list." It's pretty clear what "target list" means, and it's got nothing to do with violence. More like business jargon. Target date, target number, etc. Bullseye? That would be whoever gave you this list just making things up.
3. This is correct. Krugman should not have said that. It isn't appropriate.
4. I don't see a link to audio here, but I believe that Randi Rhodes put something like that on there. Her show was often inappropriate. This might be why it was never mainstream.
And on down the line, it looks like a miscellany of minor figures and also-rans saying some really rude things. I've really never heard of most of these people (is Ted Rall someone who needs no introduction?... lessee, ah, he's a cartoonist.), and I read the paper every day.
All in all, I think you've halfway proven your point. That is to say: you've demonstrated that left-wing people sometimes say the kind of things that are on rightie talk radio every day. You have shown that right-wingers do not have a monopoly on repugnant political discourse. The people you list above should not have brought these statements into public discourse.
However, you have failed to show that there is the degree of vitriol on the mainstream left that there is on the mainstream right. I think you could probably say Krugman has the stature on the left that Beck does on the right, but Beck is out there every day spouting inflammatory conspiracy theories, and Krugman is mostly whining about insufficient stimulus packages. And (who's this guy...) former congressman Harry Mitchell doesn't really have the public impact of Bachmann or Malkin, let alone Palin.
The Malkin list I won't go over. Malkin is either flat-out batshit crazy or a very skilled grifter. She's an example of how bad our public discourse has become, not a credible commentator on that problem.
It's pretty clear what the
All righty then; you're OK with violent imagery if it merely implies archery instead of firearms (though Palin's "Giffords in the crosshairs" in the lefty mind consists of a cartography symbol on a map.)
As far as DailyPOS and "the thing you say is there isn't there"...
Making things up?
It's in the penultimate paragraph of the DailyPOS post, highlighted for the reading-impaired.
I'm okay with target imagery
When it's used in the context of a legal investigation.
I don't know what this has to do with archery, Dave. Is there a target image with concentric circles that I missed? It seems like you're grasping at straws here.
As for bullseye, that is indeed my mistake. Although the word "bullseye" doesn't appear, the words "bulls eye" do appear towards the end of the post, after paragraphs and paragraphs about organizing and getting out the vote. As you might have expected, I will argue that in the lack of any reference to violence or firearms, this has nothing to do with violence or firearms but is the same metaphor in common usage. You would have to be a rank idiot to think otherwise. But Mr. Moulitsas should avoid use of these terms, because the world is full of rank idiots.
Could you give us some examples?
I really haven't seen the sort of things I've seen and heard from the likes of Palin, Bachmann, and Beck from anybody in the mainstream left. Perhaps I don't receive that information in my newspapers or radio. Could you give us some examples of what and who you're talking about?
Not really my favorite person
Not really my favorite person in world, but she does have a lengthy list:
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/10/the-progressi...
I will concede there are loons on the left
What separates them from the loons on the right, however, is that they do not have a national TV network or "mainstream" politicians espousing the same views.
There's quite a difference between some loser with a sign at a rally (and for every one of those signs on Malkin's site, I think we can agree we'd find comparable signs at Tea Party rallies) and somebody with a national audience of several million people.
Bias
No. There's no difference. Just your own bias.
Please
Yeah, there's no difference between sitting representatives spewing hate and columnists glibly advocating hanging Joe Lieberman in effigy.
Did You Miss Haviland's Posting Above This Sub-Thread, Adam?
He cites some folks with pretty strong media ties and sizable audiences.
(I'm not choosing sides, by any means, nor vouching for the quotes or their authenticity. Just seems like some of you didn't see that post, is all.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
I'm sorry, but I'm still failing to see the equivalence
The right's rhetoric came from an Alaskan Governor -- not just on one crosshairs map, but in several gun-related statements including a notorious bit about "reloading" -- a sitting member of the house of representatives from Minnesota and a candidate for Nevada's Senate seat who veiled her intentions about gunning down lawmakers (the "second amendment solution") about as thinly as one can. If Malkin wants to play to the fringes, the are no shortage of white supremacist and militia sites from which to cull a "GOP culture of violence" list. But, where the right is concerned, you don't have to dig that far.
There's more than one type of
There's more than one type of right winger, they're not all bible thumping flag wavers. A lot of what falls under the tea party label is vintage Libertarian. It goes without saying the guy is disturbed but beyond that he sounds like Ron/Rand Paul follower. When you hear somebody going off about their warped reading of the Bill of Rights and the gold standard they're usually a Paultard. Of course all of Paul's followers will tell you're they're independent thinkers but so will hipsters, they're a movement and this guy was parroting some of their script.
listen up, troll
An innocent 9 year old was executed by an anti-government psycho... which hardly fits the left-wing profile. Could you hold off on your Herald-esque hate-filled agenda for a couple days? In the meantime, stay classy.
Have you ever been on
Have you ever been on Democratic Underground? They have as many anti govt. whackos as the right. It's just that that the main stream news likes to focus on the right wing.
There's plenty of crazy to go around. You seem to be the one escalating the nasty comments.
I have NO idea what you're
I have NO idea what you're talking about... I don't google extremist political sites. I'm not escalating anything, merely pointing out that the left isn't to blame.
So what was the probable
So what was the probable cause for pulling the car over in the first place?
Traffic stop
According to the BPD release. Luckily for police, criminals are spectacularly bad drivers; it's amazing how many people with serious outstanding warrants, guns, etc., get nabbed because they run red lights or stop signs, fail to sign when turning, etc.
not a machine gun
That's a Colt AR-15 Sporter Match HBAR, as clearly marked on the body. Semi-automatic. Not a "machine gun."
Apparently BPD is too stupid to even know how to use wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_gun
I'm pretty sure they know what a machine gun is.
And made the appropriate charge. There could have been another gun in the car (modified Tec-9's are gang favorites) or this AR-15 could have been modified as well.
or, more likely, they just
or, more likely, they just charge them w/ everything and let the courts figure it out.
No that wouldn't happen with gun charges.
So no, you are wrong. Why not add conspiracy to commit murder if you just wanted to add a bunch of random charges and let the courts figure it out?
Do you have any proof that
Do you have any proof that this AR was modified or that they had some other machine gun? It seems like that would be newsworthy.
I was just putting out another hypothesis. It has at least as much basis as your theory.
If you look at the Colt, the safety has 2 positions, Safe and Fire. There is no auto selector. Considering that the parts for an auto conversion (drop in auto sear, or DIAS) is north of $10K, I doubt they have one.
It is not a machine gun.
I have not seen the report or court complaint
So no, I have no proof. But these guys aren't going to mistake an AR-15 and a machine gun on a court complaint. And my theory is backed from years of experience of writing and reading thousands of arrest reports and court complaints for gun charges. A mistake like this is very unlikely.
And 10K is what you would pay if you wanted to buy it legally (which I think you can in some states). Although I've heard the AR-15 is very hard to convert, a good machinist can make it happen I am sure.
The actual charges arraigned
The actual charges arraigned in court today were unlawful possession of a high capacity weapon and high capacity feeding device, which both carry between 2.5 and 10 years in prison under Ch. 269, Sect. 10(m).
Well there we go.
No machine gun charge after all.
TEC9's? What, in their Mustang 5.0's?
Tec 9's? Jesus man, it's been a while for you, hasn't it?
Lots of Tec 9's out there you dink.
gangbangers love that thing. Small, cheap, and pretty good at close range and unlike the AR-15 it is actually very common to see a converted Tec-9
Small, cheap and junk.
Small, cheap and junk. Jam-o-matics. Tec-9's stopped being made in the mid 90's. There aren't many out there like you say.
Why do you have such insight into 'gangbangers' thoughts and purchasing habits? You seem so quick to dismiss everyone else as uninformed.
AR15s are the most popular sporting rifle in the world these days.
When is the last report of machine gun fire in Boston? The only news reports that I can find are of that poor kid at the gun range.
They are horrible.
http://www.universalhub.com/crime/20100923-da-4300...
But they are out there because they are cheap. My point was that the Tec-9 has been charged by the Boston Police as a machine gun because it can be easily converted into an automatic weapon.
The only thing I have dissmissed are the assumptions that
1. The Boston Police charged these people with possession of a machine gun because they are dumb. They should know an AR-15 is not a machine gun, it is an assault rifle.
2. The Boston Police charged these people with possession of a machine gun because they wanted to simply let the courts sort it out.
I dismiss these assumptions because I've actually arrested people for these crimes, written court complaints and reports for these crimes and seen hundreds, possibly thousands of other arrests, reports and court complaints for gun crimes. So that is how I know what gangbangers like to carry for their crimes.
Machine Gun
Here is what a machine gun is, as a matter of law (MGL c. 140 Sec. 121). If you can hold down the trigger and shoot more than once, its a machine gun. These words aren't just thrown around by prosecutors, so I'm willing to bet this gun (whether modified or not) fell into this definition. I'll await the anticipated tirade about how outrageous and dangerous to our liberty the definition is.
“Machine gun”, a weapon of any description, by whatever name known, loaded or unloaded, from which a number of shots or bullets may be rapidly or automatically discharged by one continuous activation of the trigger, including a submachine gun.
Too Stupid?
I hope Boston cops making charging decisions are smart enough not to use an online encyclopedia that you make up as you go along.
Back to the case at hand
Bail for Veiga was set at $500,000, but even if he could raise it, he wouldn't be getting out because his bail in another gun case was revoked, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports. Bail for Mendes, the alleged driver, was set at $150,000, but he also won't be going anywhere since his bail on an earlier drug charge was revoked. Bethea and Elliott were held in liue of $100,000 bail.