Hey, there! Log in / Register

Hundreds gather at Holocaust Memorial to remember - and to vow to fight Nazis

Crowd at Holocaust Memorial vigil

Jews and supporters gathered at the Holocaust Memorial this evening to condemn the vandalism that left another of its panels shattered - and to vow to join with other victims of racists and Nazis in the fight to keep them gaining any more respectability than they already have.

Meanwhile, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports the arraignment of both the teen charged with smashing a panel etched with numbers representing Holocaust victims and a man charged with damaging flowers people had placed at the scene.

The Malden 17-year-old was released on personal recognizance in juvenile court on charges of disorderly conduct, malicious destruction of property over $250 and causing injury over $5,000 to a church, synagogue or memorial, the DA's office reports. He was ordered to stay away from the memorial and get some mental-health treatment, according to the DA's office, which adds police found him with a folding knife - with a blade longer than allowed by city ordinance - and a small bag of pot.

Witnesses, including an off-duty agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration and an off-duty Boston firefighter, chased the teen as he fled the location and held him until the arrival of Boston Police, the DA's office reports.

Said Bouzit, 37, who gave a local mental-health facility as his address, was also arraigned today, on charges of vandalizing a grave planting and disorderly conduct after a witness spotted him "causing damage to flowers placed at the site," the DA's office reports. He had bail set at $5,000 in Boston Municipal Court, but even if he could make that, he would remain behind bars because the judge revoked his bail on an earlier charge of assault and battery on a corrections officer.

The evening vigil was organized by If Not Now Boston.

She won't normalize hate
Memorial towers

A man looks at the temporary replacement pane, flowers left behind and some of the smashed glass from last night, left as a reminder:

She won't normalize hate
She won't normalize hate
Violinist at memorial

The vigil was the second of the day. Earlier, long established Jewish groups in the Boston area joined with Mayor Walsh to condemn the vandalism - the second time this summer somebody has smashed one of its panes. Nate Morrow attended that vigil:

Vigil at memorial
Neighborhoods: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

The Malden 17-year-old was released on personal recognizance in juvenile court on charges of disorderly conduct, malicious destruction of property over $250 and causing injury over $5,000 to a church, synagogue or memorial, the DA's office reports.

This piece of scum should spend a few days in the slammer pre-trial, at least.

up
Voting closed 0

see "Bail, purpose of."

up
Voting closed 0

If he's guilty, trust the jury and courts to do the right thing. I'd like to see the kid suffer but not at the expense of a normal legal proceedings.

May his current freedom make the punishment he will soon receive seem that much worse. He won't get credit for time served as he awaits trial.

up
Voting closed 0

No Juvenile Does. Juveniles held pretrial do not get credit towards a sentence.

up
Voting closed 0

God Bless the Jewish people who have suffered and those Jewish survivors who have made great contributions. Will any reporter knock at the door of the nameless 17 year-old (name easily obtained) or the door of "Said Bouzit" to determine if they were motivated by President Trump?

Although buried in the media, the destruction of the Holocaust Memorial in June was done by an African-American from Roxbury, hardly the Trump demographic but don't let that get in the way. The ethnic-minority suspect caught on camera by WBZ TV-4, running from the Holocaust Memorial spoke broken English into the camera. Trump supporter?

Easy to see where this is going after the Trump smears. Now the media reports one suspect is a 17 year-old "child" and the other is "mentally ill."

up
Voting closed 0

Nt

up
Voting closed 0

Can we stop equating alt-righters, white supremacists, and racist fucknuggets with the mentally ill? Statistically, although people with mental health disorders come from all political sides, they are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. They are more likely to be deeply hurt, both at the personal and institutional level, by the sociopathic social cuts imposed by the empathy deficient far right currently in power. Life is hard enough when you're struggling with depression or addiction or hearing voices telling you that satan is watching without having every entitled jerkwad with a chip on his shoulder about not being able to scream the n-word in public lumped in with you.

Additionally, it removes a lot of accountability and responsibility from people espousing horrible views and committing violence. Just because most normal people can't fathom ever driving a car into someone just because they disagree, doesn't mean that the ability to do so automatically means a mental disorder. Just because an inability to decipher right and wrong is a symptom of many mental disorders, doesn't mean that every person who's decided "fuck it, I'd rather be powerful than morally clear" is mentally ill. Hold them accountable for what they are: selfish, angry, ignorant people fighting to keep anyone from a share of the pie they've been hoarding for hundreds of years.

up
Voting closed 0

Why focus on Trump supporters who are only possibly biggots when we can focus on Trump who's indisputably one himself?

up
Voting closed 0

While I agree with you that the two perpetrators probably did not actually cast a vote for Trump, this is a sign of what Trump is doing to this country. These people- the most impressionable, and dangerous- are seeing and hearing the hate and calls to violence that has come from 45 and his followers* every day. They may not be able to articulate it in a political discussion on a regional website, but they think this kind of behavior is OK.

* for instance, I have a hard time believing that Alex Jones's audience is anything BUT the mentally ill and angry teenage boys.

up
Voting closed 0

hilariously gullible old white dudes. Did you see Jon Oliver's bit on how he makes his money?

He's essentially a snake-oil huckster filling time between ads with obscenely hateful conspiracy theories like "Sandy Hook was a false flag operation". Except snake oil almost certainly tastes better and has more health benefits than the risible junk he sells to people suffering from excess gas, muscle pain, creeping dread about waning boners, and other sundry afflictions of olds, backed by a comically phony surfer-dude doctor who bogusly touts an MIT education.

Alex Jones's supporters are indeed Fish-level morons, but I'm guessing that on average, they're not very young.

up
Voting closed 0

Thanks for the clip. The only Alex Jones listener I've known personally was in his early 20s at the height of our... relationship.

Technically "alumni" means "former student," so you can use the term even if you haven't earned a degree. If you're a dirtbag and are trying to mislead people, that is.

up
Voting closed 0

would be smart enough to refer to himself as an alumnus.

up
Voting closed 0

backed by a comically phony surfer-dude doctor who bogusly touts an MIT education.

up
Voting closed 0

We've been assured that President Trump didn't fare well with young African Americans or foreigners. So are you telling us that "Said Bouzit" and the 21 year-old African American from Roxbury were inspired by Trump to damage the Holocaust Memorial? I give you credit for admitting they probably didn't vote for him.

The mystery is the 17 year-old male from Malden (another Trump hotbed) who the media is now describing as just "a kid" and "not a hate crime" even though prior to 2013 he would be identified. This is the person who prompted the current Boston controversy and Governor and Mayor to speak out. Just asking a reporter to knock on some doors. Background? Questioning and answering. The Socratic method. Don't bother, it might ruin the meme.

up
Voting closed 0

concept, but one doesn't have to be a Trump supporter to feel emboldened to act on one's ignorant hatreds by the toxic miasma of bigotry that Cheeto Hitler has tacitly and explicitly engendered from the very beginning of his political career, which he based on the patently racist lie of birtherism.

Is it pathetic or hilarious that closeted neo-Nazis like Fish continue to lamely attempt to deflect from our President's obscene defense of the anti-American dregs of our society? I'm gonna have to say both, in the same way I would both laugh and wince at a hobo dropping a ripe turd on the table at a nice dinner party: a reminder of the bottomless well of crass, benighted human folly festering amidst of our purportedly enlightened society.

(Note to Fish: you're represented in this metaphor, but not by the hobo. Okay, you probably need more help. You're not the table, either.)

up
Voting closed 0

But don't you WANT people to be inspired by Trump?

up
Voting closed 0

A tactic of people who practice deception in their comments is often revealed in their choice of words within their commentary.

In the first paragraph of his latest word salad dump, he starts of by using two words:
"We" and "Us." Subliminally, the Fish employs these words in an attempt to convey the idea that he is part of the collective of people on the site...that "we" share his thinking and ideas - he is one of the mainstream posters.

Fish then moves to establishing (since we and us are part of his thinking) his ground rules of what the dialog is going to be about. He begins by saying there is a "mystery" whatever that is suppose to mean.

Then he refers to the "media" in general terms in an oblique arrempt to create a villian - he is not blaming "us" but someone is responsible for the "Boston controversy" - the same tactic that Donnie Two Scoops uses.

Fish now believes he has "us" - it is now open season to take an unsupportive shot at anyone he feels like - this time it was the Gov & Mayor.

Notice also he throws in some "cop talk" (knock on so doors) - he does this to maintain his street cred.

Finally - as is typical of trolls - he offers some pseudo intellectualization to his posting by employing phrases like the "Socratic Method" - people won't think he is smart unless he sounds like it.

He offers nothing to the dialog - just wants to chime in hoping he will get someone to talk to him. After all, it is pretty damn lonely out there when nobody wants to speak to you

up
Voting closed 0

Thanks for the breakdown. It's important to understand the disinformation techniques of the nutjob right.

up
Voting closed 0

Vandalizing a grave planting? There's dead people under that memorial?

up
Voting closed 0

Wait until you find out that there aren't dead people under a good chunk of graves in a given cemetery.

Would you feel better if there were some holocaust dead under the memorial or something?

up
Voting closed 0

Yes, it would make me feel better about the "vandalizing a grave planting" charge. I feel better having a government of laws, not men. Don't you?

up
Voting closed 0

Here, you poor little thing, I'll help you out. Just did a search that took all of ten seconds (I'll even call out the specific section that applies - ooooh, magic!):

https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Chapter272/Sect...

Section 73. Whoever wilfully destroys, mutilates, defaces, injures or removes a tomb, monument, gravestone, American flag, veteran's grave marker, metal plaque, veteran's commemorative flag holder, commemorative flag holder representing service in a police or fire department, veteran's flag holder that commemorates a particular war, conflict or period of service or flag, or other structure or thing which is placed or designed for a memorial of the dead, or a fence railing, curb or other thing which is intended for the protection or ornament of a structure or thing before mentioned or of an enclosure for the burial of the dead, or wilfully removes, destroys, mutilates, cuts, breaks or injures a tree, shrub or plant placed or being within such enclosure, or wantonly or maliciously disturbs the contents of a tomb or a grave, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years or by imprisonment in the jail or house of correction for not more than two and one-half years and by a fine of not more than five thousand dollars. In addition, the court shall order any person convicted of an offense pursuant to this section to pay restitution to the owner of the property that was damaged, destroyed, mutilated, defaced, injured or removed.

up
Voting closed 0

Oddly enough, that law protects potted plants, but not cut flowers.

up
Voting closed 0

Never has, never will.

up
Voting closed 0

...because I'm in no way qualified. And I understand that we want to avoid slandering the mentally ill in this way. So it's an oversimplification, but I think where people are going is that not all mentally ill people are racist, but many racists are mentally ill to some degree. No idea if it's true, but in this day and age, hardcore racism certainly would seem to indicate a certain disconnect from reality anyway.

up
Voting closed 0

Just another reason among the many of why I love this city.

up
Voting closed 0