A homeless man with a penchant for stomping other homeless men is charged with beating a 43-year-old homeless man on May 18.

Dennis Connolly, also known as the Stomper for his alleged prediliction for stomping other homeless men, was found not guilty of threatening a police officer yesterday.

The jury deadlocked on the issue of whether Connolly used a box cutter to threaten a South Boston store clerk who allegedly found him shoplifting in April. The Suffolk County District Attorney's office said it will re-try Connolly on the charge, in a trial scheduled for March 10.

Connolly remains in jail, held in lieu of $1,000 cash bail.

Comments from somebody claiming to have been a juror in the case:

... [F]rom the beginning I knew he was guilty of assaulting the store clerk with the box cutter aka knife! It does not take much, just a little common sense, which the judge stated "not to check out the door". However my fellow "pickled head" juror members who found him not guilty could not seem to get it! They felt sorry for this JERK because he chooses to be a violent alcoholic instead a happy one. Let's face it there are a lot of alcoholics but they all don't go around stomping, stabbing or killing innocent people. Dennis clearly stated in his medical records that he does not want to stay sober. A drunken person should be held responsible for his actions just as any other person, considering the fact that he is a menace to society ...

Comments from somebody else claiming to be a juror who says the vote was 6 for not guilty, 4 for guilty and 2 undecided.

Dennis Connolly, the homeless guy whom police say likes to stomp on other homeless people, is scheduled for trial this morning on charges he used a box cutter to rob a South Boston convenience store and then threatened a cop earlier this year, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office.

Connolly allegedly flashed a box cutter at a clerk the Store 24 on West Broadway on April 29 when the clerk tried to stop him from shoplifting. When arrested, he allegedly told a booking officer:

If you show up in court, I swear on my dead mother's soul something bad is going to happen to you.

Bostonist this morning has had this to say about Dennis Connolly, the so-called Stomper (update: see the comment below about the post being deleted):

Not surprisingly, Connoly killed one of the witnesses to the first murder outside St. Anthony's Shrine on Arch Street on August 13.

Actually, it is surprising, since the very Herald story used as the source of the above post notes that Connolly has not yet even been charged with the Aug.

Spare Change News, the newspaper by and for homeless people, says the Herald erred in making a connection between "the Stomper" (the allegedly violent homeless guy with a predeliction for stomping other homeless people) and the recent death of a homeless man in Downtown Crossing. Mark reposts Spare Change News's article (and gets a comment from a Herald editor dismissing the Spare Change News report):

HERALD SPREADS FALSE PANIC AMONG HOMELESS PEOPLE
Dennis Connolly didn't kill Steven Neiber, witnesses tell SCN ...

Earlier: The two-newspaper town

My standard newspaper disclosure.