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Man shot at Boston Common bandstand; suspect runs into T station and onto Green Line tracks

Parkman Bandstand

Bandstand scene. Photo by David Finnerty.

Somebody was shot around 6:45 p.m. at the Parkman Bandstand. A suspect ran into the Park Street MBTA station and then onto the Green Line tracks towards Boylston Street. Boston Police officers and state troopers ran onto the tracks after him.

The homicide unit was called in due to the severity of the victim's injuries. Green Line service was halted.

Police were also looking for two possible suspects on Vespas. All three suspects are in custody. One was nabbed near Park Square, the other at Pearl and High streets.

Mkbeet reports:

Was getting into a car on Tremont and bullet hit the car windshield.

She adds she's OK:

Just there were a lot of shots fired. At least 5 or 6 that I heard.

Qwerty02130 reported:

I'm on a green line train near boylston. Saw a guy in a green shirt walking down the tracks. A few minutes later saw police.

Emerson College told its students to shelter in place, which David Finnerty knows because he found a phone on the Common somebody left when they ran on hearing the gunfire and it turned out to belong to an Emerson student and he saw the alert come in.

Rachel Kohn watched a suspect get arrested at Tremont and Berkeley:

Arrest on Tremont Street

Lisa Johnson reports two cops boarded her inbound trolley at Arlington:

Cops on a trolley
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Comments

No movement on red either.

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A lot of crap going on there lately....

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Reporting a shelter in place at Emerson, current as of just before 7:30.

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That part of the Common is a blatant open air drug market and homeless shelter. The mayor is deaf, dumb, and blind to the elephant crapping in the open in front of him. It's almost as bad as Melnea Cass Boulevard at Mass Ave for zombietime certain days of the week.

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They're called all kinds of names, all kinds of accusations fly, and there are protests and demonstrations. I can't really blame them for their lack of being 'pro-active.'

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Next time you see a protest, you might want to find out what it's really about (hint: It won't be that authorities are overreacting to crime).

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"Mayor Walsh..says something needs to be done about the violence," Anna Meiler, WBZ-TV.

IMAGE(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk143/nfsagan/Capture%20Anna%20Meiler%20-%20Copy_zpsywnb4ahh.png~original)

Marty Walsh on WBZ-TV:

"These last few shootings has been teens involved and uh you know you know they don't even know how to write a book report and they run around carrying guns the City of Boston.

And we need we need people to step up now and help us. We need activists in the community to help us and stop pointing fingers and stop blaming.

Let's go out there and do our job." Marty Walsh, Mayor of Boston.

I do my job.

Watch the video.

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So are we going to put up surveillance cameras on every street corner where guns are fired?

BostonHerald:

Daytime shooting puts more cops on Common
Bob McGovern Friday, September 15, 2017

Police have increased patrols as two motorcycle officers ride by the Parkman Bandstand.

Authorities are beefing up security on the Common — including around-the-clock patrols and permanent surveillance cameras — in the wake of a brazen daylight shooting that sent visitors scrambling for safety and had neighbors and park caretakers sounding the alarm.

“It’s a comprehensive approach,” police department spokesman Lt. Michael McCarthy told the Herald yesterday. “We are trying different things [shotgun approach] to make sure we address community concerns [because of you].”

(A note: BPD shows no such urgency with implementing body cams nor a shotgun approach.)

In response to the shooting, McCarthy said there will now be two uniformed police officers on walking beats, around-the-clock in three eight-hour shifts, at both the Common and the Public Garden.

Police are also going to increase drug enforcement in and around the Common and the Public Garden, McCarthy said, which means authorities will be cracking down on the use and sale of all drugs — including marijuana.

“It will be a zero-tolerance approach to violations, whether it’s smoking, or the sale and distribution of marijuana,” he said. “If that is witnessed, or observed, our undercover ­officers will act on that. We are not taking this lightly. There will be some changes made down there.”

The increased security measures also means adding surveillance cameras, “similar to the ones we used during the Free Speech Rally,” McCarthy said, referring to the protests that took place on the Common Aug. 19.

Currently there are no cameras on the Common itself, McCarthy said, adding that current surveillance is isolated to surrounding streets. The cameras will be installed, “within the next few days,” he said.

“Any additional eyes and ears we have can only benefit what we’re trying to do, and that’s trying to make it as safe as it can be,” McCarthy said. “We expect it will have an impact on the quality of life issues that the community has raised as an issue.”

Former commissioner Ed Davis lauded the idea of adding cameras, saying it’s a good way to police a large, open area like the Common.

(A note: On Marty Walsh and the surveillance state!! Don't forget the proposal to automate surveillance of social media that Walsh and Evans tabled temporarily because the people and the ACLU fought back)

“It’s a complex issue that can probably be solved with more technology,” Davis said regarding how to police the Common. “It seems that this particular area is more conducive to technology instead of a big influx of personnel.”

(snip)

The new security measures come after a shooting by the Parkman Bandstand Tuesday evening that left a 19-year-old Hyde Park man in critical condition as hundreds of panicked parkgoers fled the area. Three men were taken into custody that night and were released Wednesday.

Police have not put out a motive for the shooting,

(snip)

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.

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Keep guns off the street?

Keep knives off the street?

You can't seem to keep convicted felons with multiple pending charges off the street

You can't seem to help drug addicts and the homeless off the street.

You can't seem to get snow off the street.

#STOPTHEBLAMEGAMEMARTY

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What exactly would you like the city to do about this?

It's not like there are any easy fixes for this.

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There is a church across from Park Street Station that helps the homeless, and several shelters in the downtown area; St. Anthony's, The Vet's shelter. The nastiest "wet" shelter in the city is on Boyleston Street just past the common (wet shelter meaning that you can still be drunk or using and stay there). These shelters do great work for the community, but they are also too naïve about what members are doing one block down the street. Once they take over the common, it becomes a magnet for all kinds of crime from all over the city.

Somehow, the Public Garden is always clear of nonsense and the Common is the unofficial safe zone for drugs and crime. Whatever they are doing right in the Garden, they should do on the Common too.

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So, who's the best replacement for the tweedle dumb in office who rather brush coats with GE executives than fund summer programs and fight gang violence?

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It was beautiful. It was safe all the time. There was no drug dealing and there was no violence, none at all. All the area children were in the park because there was always puppet shows and free popsicles.

I remember young couples courting and all races and religions bounding together for sing alongs and impromptu light theatrical performances.

This was all true before evil Marty came into town and ruined everything.

I remember when Boston had all those summer job programs way back in 1990 and 1991 when there was nary a kerfuffle let along a shooting in the city. What a great place it was.

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.

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It is frustrating to me that the mayor will not take the heat for the lack of a response to the long island closure. Yes, it's not fair to blame Marty for the bridge closure-but everything that has happened since then are unreturned balls in his court: The endless posturing about a new bridge that we all knew from day one was never going to be built and the actions relating to facilities management that reek of the city trying to dump the land off to a private owner. And if you really believe that the Melnea Cass/mass ave/on ramp area has not gotten 10x worse since the closure you are fooling yourself. I have found the Common is unchanged during the day, where the difference is notable is at night when all the people who used to take the 275 across the bridge are still there-and before someone tries to point out the available space in Pine street, just know that Nashua and south bay both offer more luxurious and safer living conditions. I apologize for the length but it's so frustrating to me that people are willing to excuse this administrations abhorrent policy on the issue of homelessness and addiction treatment-the above comment made my blood boil.

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Not making us very sympathetic to the homeless if you are linking this violence to them.

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It's Emerson College.

And yes, we got calls and texts about this to shelter in place.

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Dumb mistake.

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Service on Green Line between Park and Kenmore was still suspended at 8:30pm. Just got kicked out of Park. Crime tape is up along entirety of Common between Park and Boylston.

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I was in that very place about 5 weeks ago to see Commonwealth Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'. All the sound equipment was on the Parkman Bandstand.

Business for the drug dealers was probably really slow during the run of the play.

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I've attended the Shakespeare on the Common for many years. I always noticed as soon as the show was over and all were heading off the Common, the "night people" would move in to their respective areas and we would kind of switch places. Some of the younger members of our group remarked on the dressed up ladies walking through the common at midnight - something about walking in the grass with those stiletto heels. LOL.

Although there was a stabbing one year, I never worried about gun fire.

I hope this isn't going to become a regular occurrence now. Drug dealers are one thing, getting shot by stray bullets is another.

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I saw a group in the middle of the Common, on scooters around 4:10ish PM last night. They were hanging out by some benches, in an area where I routinely see drug deals going on. I thought, how can scooters be ridden to the middle of the Common? No more than 100 yards from the scooters was a Park Ranger police-type car, sitting on the sidewalk, but no one was in it. I wonder if this was the same group that was involved in the shooting.

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BPD are driving around the Common. I hope this is a regular routine, because for today, it's too late to close that barn door.

News trucks are parked on the grass. Sometimes I feel reporters are the stupidest people around. Their 'remotes' do little to orient viewers to the area, or to yesterday's crime. Standing in front of the bandstand adds little to the story.

*Plus, the news vans idle all day (or run generators), which should certainly piss off many of you here on U-Hub.

/rant

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BPD are driving around the Common. I hope this is a regular routine, because for today, it's too late to close that barn door.

I hope it isn't a regular routine, because it doesn't seem to accomplish much but disrupting people who aren't breaking the law. It seems like they'd be more effective if they got out of their cars and walked. Am I wrong about that?

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There are bike cops on the common and in DTX on a daily basis. That is more effective than walking since they can carry things like first aid supplies and can cover a lot more ground while still seeing what is going on.

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Good work and a great job chasing these gunmen down the tracks and arresting them. Not to nitpick but where were the Transit Police?

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Agree, great job on fast arrests. Thanks, BPD.

My AM rant was a general one about big increased presence in an area the few days after a high profile incident. There may be valid reasons (PR, or if there's a chance of a suspect returning to the scene...) But in general I feel it's "closing the barn door after the cows escape".

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The City has to get serious about policing the Common, and be more proactive and not just reactive. This is the second major incident this summer, and I've seen many more 'minor' incidents as well. Only after a stabbing in broad daylight near the fountain did the city post a marked car at the corner of Park Street, and stopped people from 'camping' overnight along the Park Street side of the Common. This took care of the problem until Labor Day, when the marked patrol seemed to disappear. I noticed the homeless population migrated further into the Common, and trash and litter would accumulate throughout the day. By the end of the day, it would look like a bomb went off along Tremont Street.

However, the homeless people dealing with substance abuse issues are less likely to cause violence like this. I have noticed groups of young people who just hang out in Common all day, when they should either be working or in school. They tend to get loud, fight and trash the area with litter.

The Boston Police, MBTA Police and the Park Service needs to keep up the 'broken windows' approach by enforcing basic ordinances against loitering and littering, and it needs to be done consistently as long as warm dry weather continues. But once the ACLU gets involved, well..

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But once the ACLU gets involved, well..

1. Citations please. What's your beef with ACLU - facts please, not "but I heard".

2. The ACLU gets involved when the stuff that is in a certain critically important document gets trampled by "expediency" and "getting serious about harassing law abiding citizens" and "police deciding they are special and exempt from the laws". The document that you are probably still fuming over because you actually had to read it before taking a 10 question quiz in high school and the teacher was sooooo mean!

The ACLU doesn't get involved when police obey the law. Simple.

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Your post is spot on. Back when the stabbing happened in early summer, I wrote that it was only a matter of time until something like that happened again. Guess what? Something like this will happen again due to the way the city handles the park.

Don't mean to paint broad strokes, but when you have a perpetual homeless encampment, the Common gets trashed. When the Common is trashed and there's no police presence (the cruiser was at the corner of Park and Tremont for two nights following the stabbing and then gone), people see that and decide that it must be OK to loiter, drink, and sell drugs all day. When that happens, it attracts more people with bad intent to come and stick around. Then, they start to fight and you get this sort of nonsense.

About a year ago, a pot dealer was arrested for dealing in the park and had a handgun in his backpack. So, obviously the city isn't blind to what's going on, just allowing it to continue.

Step up bike patrols, don't let people camp out in the park, just do something so that no one else is getting hurt here.

Feel free to disagree with this post all you want, but my view is supported by plenty of these kinds of incidents now over a very short period of time.

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I live on Boston Common, right across from the bandstand. We have two dogs, I walk the Common and the Public Garden no fewer than four times a day. They are enjoyed by thousands and thousands of people each day the vast majority of who have nothing to do with drugs or violence.

The characterizations of life on the Common here are fascinating. One wanting to understand how Donald Trump got elected just needs to see the irrational fear that drives the posting here about how awful things are.

The Common is a large park in an urban area people, grow up.

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WCVB reports the three people taken into custody have been questioned and released. http://www.wcvb.com/article/3-questioned-in-boston-common-shooting-relea...

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