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Flyers fan got extended stay after Winter Classic - in the ICU

The Boston Licensing Board decides Thursday what to do about an incident at a Park Square bar Jan. 1 that left a Flyers fan in the ICU and his son under arrest.

Brian Leonardo and his wife Margaret told the board this morning that bouncers at MJ O'Connor's, 27 Columbus Ave., choked him into unconsciousness after a rowdy but good natured verbal battle between Flyers and Bruins fans the night before the two teams met on the ice at Fenway Park. Bar workers said Leonardo attacked bar workers, was in the process of overpowering a bar worker on the ground and that his son ripped his shirt off outside in the winter chill and threatened to shoot somebody. Whatever reason Leonardo collapsed, they said, it wasn't anything they did.

About all the two sides agreed on was that Leonardo kicked in a window - the couple has agreed to reimbuse the bar $850. The couple told the board they arrived at the bar with their two sons and a friend around 8 p.m. and were having a good time teaming up with other Flyers fans in trying to outchant the Bruins fans at the bar.

But shortly before closing, a bouncer decided he'd had enough and began to escort one of the sons out. The couple, the other son and the friend followed, then realized they were outside without their coats. Leonardo acknowledged he was angry - especially because they didn't have their coats - and that he kicked in the window. But then, Margaret Leonardo said, eight black-shirted bouncers rushed out and tackled her husband. One held down his legs while another choked him, she said.

"I was screaming, 'Oh my God, oh my God, let him go!" she told the board. "He was blue and finally they let him go and he was blue and unresponsive and I'm screaming he's dead!" She said all the employees then fled into the bar. Somebody else, she said, applied CPR until the ambulance cam to take him to Tufts Medical Center, where he was intubated and put on a ventilator, she said, adding he was in the ICU for three days and a step-down ward for another day.

The club manager and a barback, however, painted a completely different picture. To start, they didn't have eight people on duty that night. The Leonardos, they said, had gotten very belligerent toward the end of the night - to the point where one of the sons began tussling with a club worker. Barback Paul Beaulieu told the board he helped escort the elder Leonardo out - by placing his hand on his back and urging him out. There was no fighting or struggling, he said.

But then, once outside, the Leonardos turned angry and Leonardo kicked in the window, he said. They began yelling they wanted to get back in to talk to the owner. Leonardo, he said, grabbed him and began to wrestle with him. "I was pinned under him," he said. He said he never touched the man's face, but instead applied a bear hug and kept telling him to calm down. All of a sudden, he said, he did calm down - which is when he realized he'd collapsed and needed emergency help.

Meanwhile, Beaulieu and manager Bob Hannaford said, one of the sons was getting increasingly irate - he ripped off his shirt and threatned to "fuck you up" and shoot somebody.

"He was out of control, belligerent," Hannaford said. "He was attacking me. I thought he was going to beat me up, I was just trying to protect myself." Hannaford said bar workers called police at least twice - once when the Leonardos were being escorted out, again when Leonardo collapsed.

Board Chairman Daniel Pokaski said he could understand the son's anger - his father is lying there, possibly dead.

Board members said they will not vote on whether to sanction the bar until after it reviews surveillance video from inside the bar and from a camera mounted at a nearby office building.

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Comments

Of course they need to see the videotape. This isn't the City Licensing Board...it's goddamn CSI:BLB!

This is the part where Pokaski says:

"Of course the son was upset that winter night, you had his father..."
*takes off sunglasses*
"...out cold."
The Who: "YEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"

Isn't there a police report? DA summation? Anything from the people who are *actually* supposed to lay out law and justice for the licensing board to base any of its actions on? Why is Pokaski running this thing like it's a one-horse town?

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My apologies for the abbreviated post. Now that tourist season is upon us, I should probably find someplace other than Quincy Market to write up meetings; not conducive to serious writing.

A Boston detective who investigated the incident and the first responding officer both attended the hearing and testified. The detective, Richard Chin, said the video didn't really tell him much - all he could see were people milling about, basically. He also said the only phone call on record to police was from the neighboring McCormick and Schmick, but he allowed as how that might have been for a separate incident (you'll recall from the original post that bar staff said they called 911 twice; the issue is important because it's one of the violations at issue).

The first responding officer (Evans, sorry didn't get his first name) arrived to find an unconscious victim (Leonardo). His main role after that seemed to be to take statements, which, as you read above, conflicted rather dramatically.

The criminal complaint against the younger Leonardo was dismissed pending the family paying the bar $850 for the window. The elder Leonardo acknowledged having a few drinks over the course of five hour, although he added "I was not totally intoxicated." But he said he didn't think it would matter, since the family was planning on walking back to their hotel nearby.

For what it's worth, somebody from BPD always testifies at the violation hearings. Often it's the responding officer or detective (Boston has several detectives who basically patrol the city's bars at night). If not them, then one of three or four of these detectives will read the report from the investigating officer.

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Then, my point would be: Why does Pokaski need to see the tapes? The cops saw the tapes and said they didn't learn anything from it. Pokaski isn't an investigator, hell, the closest he's come to being an arbitrator on anything is his time as a criminal court clerk. He's overpaid to do a simple job and in the end he acts like a Wild West hangin' judge with the manners and sensitivity of a jackass. He doesn't need to view the tapes unless he doesn't think the cops did their jobs.

The only reason he even gets away with any of the crap that he does is because the licenses for alcohol are SO few for this city that everyone in front of him has to beg and plead not to piss him off so they can get/keep their license. He runs his fiefdom like a spoiled king. He needs to be reminded that he serves at *our* behest...and I'm done behesting him.

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