Boston Police tweet a State Police K-9 bit a Boston Police officer during a joint search on Norfolk Street early this afternoon. No word on how serious the bite was.

The Globe reports.

Boston today lifted its moratorium on new permits for sightseeing vehicles.

Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis says there's no longer any reason to limit the number of permits for tour vehicles given that the original reason for the moratorium - the Big Dig - is long finished. The moratorium went into effect in 1998.

In February, a Medford man sued Boston in federal court over the ban on new licenses. Assuming the city's decision today doesn't make that case moot, it wasn't even scheduled for pre-trial motions before May, 2010.

You may have read the other day about Michael O'Brien's suit against several Boston police officers, alleging they nearly choked and beat him to death when he started recording them after a minor fender bender involving his friend.

Read his entire complaint on the alleged incident on Hanover Street, which O'Brien says started when his friend clipped a double-parked BMW belonging to a guy who claimed to be a federal agent.

The city and the sued officers have yet to respond to the complaint, filed last week.

Associated Press reports on a lawsuit filed Tuesday by a Middlesex County jail guard against Boston Police, whose officers he says threw him to the ground and beat him in March when he wouldn't stop videoing them responding to a car accident involving a friend of his. Police say they have yet to see the suit.

Matt Conti reports Boston Police will be asking motorcyclists to voluntarily reduce the noise their bikes make as a good-neighbor gesture. The City Council passed an ordinance that would have forced quieter mufflers, but it's currently held up in court.

Kerry responds that people who can't stand the sound of revving bikes should move to Newton.

Location

Channel 7 reports on the collision with another car at Cummins Highway and River Street around 2:30 a.m.

In a get-together with a group of local political bloggers (and me), mayoral candidate Michael Flaherty compared Downtown Crossing to a wartorn Iraqi city, would not rule out replacing Police Commissioner Ed Davis and said a hidebound, vindictive City Hall is stalling vital development and driving young people out of the city (David Kravitz has a live-blog summary of the discussion; I have some more here).

Justin Barrett, who re-ignited controversy over Gatesgate with racist e-mail about Gates, filed a federal lawsuit against the city yesterday. He's demanding unspecified damages for his pain and suffering - and an end to efforts by Police Commissioner Ed Davis and Mayor Tom Menino to bounce him from the force, at least without a hearing.