Boston College

The Heights reports city officials were concerned about keeping participants in the planned Last 5 walk safe - especially after more than 17,000 signed up for it on Facebook. Instead, organizers are now planning a vigil for 4 p.m. Friday on O'Neill Plaza.

Six BC students will graduate this spring with criminal charges over their heads after they allegedly broke into a Brighton apartment on March 16, tore the place apart, urinated all over the apartment and ripped a gas line out of a basement dryer, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

The six seniors were arraigned in Brighton District Court today on charges of breaking and entering in the nighttime and willful and malicious destruction of property over $250, the DA's office says.

According to the DA's office:

El Pelon Taqueria reports these guys wandered into its Chestnut Hill outlet a little after 5 p.m.

The Heights reports Stephanie McCaffrey's suspension over tweets cracking wise on the Penn State sex-abuse case (no link to her Twitter feed because it's disappeared).

The Boston Fire Department reports nobody was injured when some piperidine spilled around 9 p.m. on the second floor of the Merkert Chemistry Center, but that firefighters trained in hazmat responses had to go in to clean it up.

H/t Kristina Muskiewicz for correcting the spelling of the stuff.

A Boston College vice president e-mailed students today to report an investigation by campus police found no basis to a freshman's story that she was the victim of two racially motivated attacks over the weekend. According to one account, she told police a man hurled a racial epithet at her Friday night, stabbed her and then found her the next night and began kicking her where bandages covered her stab wound.

But her story didn't hold up, Vice President for Student Affairs Patrick Rombalski wrote in an e-mail tonight: "BCPD has concluded that no threat was ever present to the BC community or to the individual," He added, however, that police are continuing to investigate a separate report that a driver yelled a racial epithet at another student as she walked on campus.

Rombalski's complete e-mail:

A player on the BC football team was arraigned today on charges he used his cell phone to record the sounds of his roommate and a woman having sex, then played it for others; all very illegal under Massachusetts law. Channel 5 reports.

State Police say four days' of dives into the Chestnut Hill Reservoir produced no traces of Franco Garcia, a Boston College student last spotted shortly after leaving Mary Ann's in Cleveland Circle early on Feb. 22:

We searched the reservoir with divers and sonar for four full days with negative results. Likewise, all ground and air searches earlier this week have not located any evidence. The searches have been exhaustive, and have encompassed the water, surrounding wooded areas, residential areas, BC facilities, reservoir pump houses, and abandoned buildings. While the search of the reservoir is over the investigation by Newton, State, Boston, and Boston College Police will continue through other investigative methods. Anyone who thinks they may have seen Franco should call Newton PD or call State Police by dialing 911 on their cell phone. Nothing, including foul play, has been ruled out. We remain hopeful that we will be able to bring Franco home to his family alive.

Find Franco Garcia Facebook page.

Franco Garcia was last seen Tuesday night at Mary Ann's in Cleveland Circle. He made a phone call around 1:15 a.m., possibly on his way back to the BC campus, but he hasn't been heard from since - and his car is still parked at the school.

If you've seen him since then, or know anything at all about what's happened to him, contact Newton Police detectives at 617-796-2104.

John Carroll can't help but wonder who's behind Boston College Subpoena News and posting news about the college's fight to block subpoenas related to material in its archive of IRA interviews: Could it be the archive's director?

BFD at BC. Photo by BFD.

An explosion in a basement chemistry lab at Boston College around 10:45 a.m. forced the evacuation of the building and the shutdown of Beacon Street.

The Boston Fire Department reports the explosion was in the Merkert Chemistry Center. The student who apparently caused the explosion fled to her apartment on Faneuil Street in Brighton, where EMS and BFD decontamination units responded to treat and decontaminate her. She had been working with thionyl chloride, "a reactive compound that can explosively release dangerous gases upon contact with water and other reagents."

After she was decontaminated, EMTs brought her to St. Elizabeth's Hospital for treatment of cuts and minor burns, the department reports. There were no other injuries and damage was confined to the basement of the chemistry building.

The Boston Fire Department reports a sulfuric-acid spill at the Boston College science building left one professor with "very minor burns" around 6:20 p.m.

The department's hazmat team responded to the spill at 2609 Beacon St. to evaluate and clean up the spill, of about a quart of the H₂SO₄.

In May, firefighters evacuated two BC buildings and a few nearby houses as a precaution during a possible chlorine spill.

The Supreme Judicial Court today threw out drug evidence against two BC students because campus police didn't have a warrant or clear, voluntary permission from the students to search their room.

Remember that crash involving the seven BC students in an SUV that got hit by a trolley on Comm. Ave.? Brian McGrory reports the T suspended the trolley driver because he was doing 35 m.p.h. at the time, when the trolley shouldn't have been going more than 10 m.p.h. And now it's pursuing perjury charges against him, because he allegedly failed to tell investigators about his multiple driving infractions before the T hired him.

The Heights reports an attack by Boston College officials on the veracity of an MBTA investigation into an April 25 crash between a trolley and a Jeep loaded with BC students at Comm. Ave. and South Street.

"As a result of our discussions with the students, we have serious concerns about the MBTA's seemingly deliberate campaign to assign full blame for this unfortunate incident on our students," [BC spokesman Jack Dunn said.

BC didn't go so far as to blame the T for the crash, which sent several of the students to the hospital, the paper reports. Instead, the college says the driver may have been distracted by other traffic on the road.

UPDATE: Trolley driver suspended for exceeding speed limit on that stretch of track.

MBTA Transit Police have charged seven teenagers with being minors in possession of alcohol after a midnight crash between a Jeep and a Green Line trolley on Commonwealth Avenue at South Street.

The Boston Fire Department reports an ammonia leak at Conte Forum this morning.

Benjamin Knott, 18, is scheduled for arraignment this morning in Brighton District Court on charges he ran into Bethany Pfalzgraf while she was walking along St. Thomas More Road early Sunday. BC Police fond Knott and his car nearby; Channel 25 reports Pfalzgraf remains in critical condition.

The Heights reports plans are in the works to monitor noise from Modstock this spring, to prevent more problems with neighbors.

The Heights itself opines neighboring residents shouldn't let their feelings about "university expansion, the passage of the Master Plan, the possibility of residence halls on the Brighton Campus, the degradation of the neighborhood brought on by absentee landlords and the havoc students are known to wreak in the community" color their judgment about parties on campus.

According to the latest WBZ Traffic on the 3s report, the T is apparently bussing between Blanford and Packards Corner on the B line.

Nothing on the T web page yet, although they do mention an earlier failed streetcar on the C line at St. Marys.

BC official apologizes to residents for Saturday party that was supposed to end at 11 p.m. but instead raged on through the wee hours, the Globe reports.

Boston Police report that around 1:15 this morning, the dude decided it would be interesting to walk up to an occupied car at 1950 Beacon St. and bend back the moving windshield wipers. Unfortunately for him, police say, the car was occupied by two plainclothes Boston police officers:

Officers quickly exited their cruiser, approached the suspect and displayed their badges while identifying themselves as police officers. While officers were in the process of identifying themselves, the suspect became less than polite and proceeded to berate and belittle the officers.

Charged with being a disorderly person.

Innocent, etc.

Wicked Local Allston/Brighton catches up with the story of a BC lad who, on being told at 4 a.m. to end a loud party on Comm. Ave. allegedly told police he "knew the law" and that they had no right to be there. They were apparently so intrigued by his theory that they invited him to continue the discussion on a ride down to District 14.

Hello out there in UniversalHub land. I have determined that what the internet lacks most of all is a personal blog about some schlub's experiences in and around [insert major city here]. I have decided to rectify that problem my moving my ramblings over here.

I will be blogging about Boston politics, the T, local music, dining, bars, sports, and life from the perspective of a 21-year-old Revere native now living in an apartment in Chestnut Hill, where I will be a senior this fall at Boston College.

Michael Pahre reports.