Sera Congi reports that the 200-lb. frame and device that fell on a woman at Harvard yesterday was a leftover from tests conducted by the T, the state and the federal Department of Homeland Security to see if sensors could provide early warnings of a biological attack on a subway system. Read more.
Roving UHub photographer Raymond A. snapped the newest falling-equipment zone, at Harvard Square station, where a utility box disassociated from the column it was attached to yesterday, hitting a woman who had to be taken to a local hospital for observation, a couple months after a ceiling tile almost beaned another rider at the station.
WCVB reports she was taken to a local hospital for observation. Photo of the aftermath.
It comes after another rider was almost beaned by a falling ceiling tile at the station in March.
The Harvard Crimson reports on a swatting attack that involved four black students being awoken by campus police in riot gear pointing rifles at them and ordering them to raise their hands and walk out of their rooms.
The false report was an apparent example of “swatting” — the act of placing a false emergency call with the intention of harassing a target by provoking a forceful police response.
Transit Police report arresting a Belmont man they say bit an officer hard enough to break his skin in a failed attempt to escape arrest on charges he was harassing and exposing himself to other passengers at the Harvard Square Red Line station around 3 p.m. yesterday. Read more.
Cambridge Police report arresting a local man on unarmed robbery charges at a Harvard Square bookstore yesterday - after first getting him up from the floor where employees were keeping him pinned. Read more.
The MBTA reports that over the weekend it inspected ceiling tiles between Central and Andrew this weekend to make sure none are about to fall on riders' heads. Meanwhile, the removed ceiling-tile count at Harvard, where a rustily connected, water-filled tile nearly did conk one rider, is now up around 100, the T says.
Panel falls in a cloud of dust in front of woman, who then looks up, in T surveillance video.
The MBTA has begun removing ceiling panels at the Harvard Red Line station after one of the 20-to-25-pound panels fell ten feet to the platform, narrowly missing a rider - and plans inspections of all its ceiling panels at all its stations to reduce the need for riders to worry about getting hit in the head with one, interim MBTA General Manager Jeff Gonneville said today. Read more.
Cambridge Police report successfully taking into custody a man they say "pulled a weapon on his health-care worker and then barricaded himself inside his large, multi-unit Massachusetts Avenue residential building apartment" this afternoon. Read more.
Cambridge Police report arresting a man who set a bush on fire in the 1000 block of Massachusetts Avenue early yesterday - and also charged him for a dumpster fire in an alley off Mount Auburn and Athens streets the day before. Read more.
Joshua Lupkin shows us the scene this morning outside Harvard's Barker Center, where some of Harvard Square's tougher toms tried intimidating Remy the Cat, but Remy stood, or sat, his ground. Read more.
The Harvard Crimson reports on the imminent opening of a Harvard Square outlet of a New York ice-cream chain that sells ice cream in fish-shaped waffle cones aimed specifically at the sort of discriminating customers who want to instantly post photos of themselves with their cones on Instagram.
A bunch of Nazi LARPers showed up at the Boston Anarchist Bookfair in Harvard Square on Sunday to try to look as menacing and tough as one can in khakis, but bookfair volunteers managed to fend them off through the sneaky maneuver of locking the doors until the Nazis' attention span timed out after ten minutes and they left. Read more.
Cambridge Police report they are looking for a man they say has groped women in Harvard and Porter squares this year, after which he darted away, "running on his toes."
Police say he's now a suspect in three attacks: Read more.
Greg Cook took in the annual Honk procession from Somerville to Cambridge over the weekend.
So did Frank Solensky: Read more.
Robber waits for more money from teller. Surveillance photo via FBI.
A Jamaica Plain man was indicted this week on charges he held up a TD Bank branch on May 2 while wearing a blue Brooklyn Dodgers cap - less than a week after another man, wearing a similar blue Red Sox cap held up the same bank and the same teller. Read more.
Cambridge Police report a boneheaded robbery at Wusong Road:
A manager of a restaurant located in Harvard Square called to report that someone stole the arm to their skeleton that they had for decoration in front of their establishment.
The thief made good his escapula, but police say a surveillance camera snapped photos.
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