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Violent beginning to New Year at South End party
By adamg on Thu, 01/01/2009 - 4:06pm
Four alleged thugs from Boston and one from Brockton were arrested early today on charges they held up two men at gunpoint at a Reynolds Way party, then beat them up and threw them down some stairs, Boston Police report:
The [first] victim then went on to explain to officers that one of the suspects initially approached him in the party and stated to him, "You don't want to lose your life tonight!" According to the victim, after the suspect made that statement to him, he attempted to leave the party when he was confronted by five suspects in the hallway. In the hallway, the victim reported that one of the suspects brandished a handgun and pointed it a the victim and yelled, "You don't want to die! Give it up!" The victim reported to officers that the other suspects all motioned like they too were armed, and they started reaching into his pockets. The victim told officers that the suspects told him that they were taking his watch and phone if he wanted to leave alive. After the suspects took the victim's watch, he was beaten up and thrown down the stairs.
Isiah T. Thigpen, 24, of Boston, Aaron D. Bloudson, 21, of Dorchester, Wendell C. Nunes, 25, of Dorchester, Yancey M. Williams, 21, of Dorchester and Demetrius L. Williams, 22, of Brockton were each charged with armed robbery and asault and battery. Bloudson was also charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute; Williams faces a charge of possession of cocaine.
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Comments
Armed robbery, threats of
Armed robbery, threats of violence with lethal weapons and violence with lethal weapons should carry big sentences.
Suspects charged with armed robbery should be tested for substance use, and substance use - cocaine, crack, pcp, - should qualify the crime as aggravated armed robbery and carry a bigger sentence.
Drug possession and use on its own should carry small sentences.
Egg freckles?
Why? Do you really give a d*mn what someone has in their pockets if they've got a gun to your head? Are you similarly suggesting that a stone cold sober rapist should get a lesser sentence than one who was wasted when arrested?
Again, why? Several decades of nation-wide statistical evidence shows that drug use is not lower in jurisdictions with tougher drug laws.
Polls of federal judges (both liberal and conservative) show that the majority think that our current drug-focussed mandatory-minimum laws have led to prisons filled with more non-violent drug offenders, leaving less room for the truly violent predators.
Even the lead attorney for the Senate committee that initially drafted the first mm laws two deacdes ago admits they have been counter-productive and is working to change them.
Here's a thought - let's concentrate on punishing people who commit violence against others - for the act of violence itself.
rotten egg stench
Given the choice of being robbed by a guy with a handgun or a guy with a handgun coked out of his mind, which perp would you choose and why?
Drug possession and use on its own should carry small sentences.
For the reasons you state, "evidence shows that drug use is not lower in jurisdictions with tougher drug laws" is why drug possession and use on its own should carry small sentences.
Here's a thought. Try not to be so obtuse.
Given the choice of being
The law can't turn back time, Margolot. If someone has robbed me at gunpoint, and is later arrested and charged, I don't care whether they were stoned or sober at the time - I want them to be punished for threatening me with a gun and robbing me.
If the robber has shot me, will my chest cavity care whether the bullet came from a gun held by someone with cocaine in their pocket? No!
If someone rapes your mother, do you want them to get a lesser sentence if they can show they were sober when they violated her? Do you want some slacker who was caught on a street corner with an ounce of blow to spend more time in prison than your mother's rapist because the prisons are filled to bursting? Because that's what happens now - that's the reality you are supporting when we allow drug possession laws to take precendence over laws against actual acts of violence.
Riiiight. So since laws against stand-alone drug posession haven't lowered drug use rates (and have filled our prisons - at great expense - with non-violent offenders leaving less room for the truly violent), you believe the answer is to make these drug possession laws harsher and put even more non-violent offenders in jail. Brilliant!
Here's one back at you - instead of trying to fix a problem by doing more of what isn't working, try to look at the facts without bias or prejudice, and come up with a different workable solution.
Given the choice of being
Who the fuck asked about time travel? Not me. I asked you a straight forward question. If you don't want to answer it, that's your choice. If you won't, I will.
I'd much rather stare down the barrel of a gun being held by a sober punk than a punk jacked up on coke, crack or pcp. The one jacked up is more likely to pull the trigger even if you comply. That criminal is more dangerous to your safety.
I can't believe you wouldn't answer the question.
Do me a favor. Don't bother replying to my comments. I'll do the same for you.
Nice mouth on you there -
Nice mouth on you there - this is a public forum, try to ditch the obsenities.
To begin with, your hypothetical question is meaningless as we don't get to choose the state of mind of attackers. But even if we put that irrationality aside and consider it, there is the problem that you've blithely assumed that a stoned robber is more likely to kill you than a sober one. Evidence? (TV cop shows don't count). For all we know, in the real world, drugged up attackers are more likely to drop their gun, or react too slowly when their intended victim runs away, or get distracted by the cracks in the sidewalk and forget what they were doing. And since we're just pulling suppositions out of the air, what does it say about a particular person's capacity for violence if she can blow her victim away while she's fully sober and knows exactly what she's doing (and is capable of remembering and repeating the crime)? Isn't that individual even more of a threat to public safety than some stoned idiot who may stumble out into traffic while running away, or be too forgetful to stick to one alibi, or just go OD in a dark corner somewhere?
Who knows? Who cares? As I said before, we have decades of nation-wide data showing that harsher possession laws and mandatory minimums do not reduce drug use or violent crime. So in the absence of any deterent value, why should we make the same act committed by two individuals have different penalties based solely on whether drugs were involved? And the answer is...we shouldn't. When someone commits an act of violence, we shouldn't care what they have in their pockets or blood, whether they have a college degree, whether their dad spanked them too much when they were young, what color their skin is, who they voted for in the last election, whether they took $5 or $500, whether their victim was a jerk or a swell guy, etc etc.
Perpetrators of violence should be punished for the acts of violence they commit.
Know what else controls the prison population?
Executions.
You know who's judgment
You know who's judgment isn't infallible?
Men.
No they do not. States with
No they do not. States with the death penalty have significantly higher rates of both violent crime and prison occupancy than those without. And since 1970, US violent crime rates - including rape and homicide - have risen more slowly (and since 1993 have dropped more quickly) in states without capital punishment.
Yeah....right, Will.
Ha ha ha!
(Sorry, Jeff---this reply was to Will LaTulippe). Somehow, it ended up below your post, for some reason.)