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Parts of Harvard Square shut in police hunt for Philadelphia murder suspect
By adamg on Tue, 08/06/2019 - 12:19pm
Heavy police presence. Photo by Davina.
People working or living near JFK and Eliot streets in Harvard Square were told to shelter in place as police conducted what turned into a successful hunt for a man wanted for murdering his father in Philadelphia.
At 12:45 p.m., Cambridge Police reported they had captured Sohan Panjrolia, 31, at the Ben & Jerry's on JFK Street. State Police, who participated in the search along with federal marshals, said Panjrolia had driven up here and parked in the Eliot Street garage.
Panjrolia, who once took classes at the Harvard Extension School, is charged with shooting his father repeatedly, hitting him in the head.
This is the second time in two days that local police have captured somebody wanted for murder out of state. Yesterday, Boston Police arrested a Boston man, Javier Castillo, 30, on Homestead Street in Roxbury, pn a warrant charging him with a murder in Chicago on Dec. 26.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
Helicopter, etc.
Helicopter hovering. Large police presence. Some streets closed off...
In custody
Just received a text that a suspect is in custody, and the shelter in place order is lifted.
Assailant now in custody
Shelter in place has been lifted.
Suspected to have killed his father
He was on the run from Philadelphia
https://patch.com/pennsylvania/philadelphia/man-shoots-father-head-assau...
Very sad
Suffers from schizophrenia.
Had access to an assault rifle.
We somehow expect families to be able to take care of people like this and keep them from harming themselves and others.
Well we could reopen all the
Well we could reopen all the psychiatric beds that were closed from the 1970s onward. But civil libertarians would have a shit fit over the dramatic increase in involuntary commitments despite the repeated failures of home based care. Half the homeless population would be cared for in institutions and not on the street if the beds were available.
The vilification of psychiatric facilities by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest caused so much harm to this country and ruined so many lives it isn't funny.
Wrong movie
The one that caused all the upset was Titicut Follies, and it was a documentary about Bridgewater State Hospital, a truly horrible Massachusetts institution.
vilification?
Yes. Like the vilification of the cages that the US is stuffing kids into.
Of course it never had anything to do with the horrific conditions that people were expected to endure. Oh no - its those awful civil libertarians making you look at the torture, rape and squalor who were the problem!
You must be one of those people who attacks investigative journalists for exposing the extreme conditions of jails and asylums rather than understand how horrible they are/were.
Please learn some actual history around why this change happened before commenting again.
There are options between "ruining family's lives" and "just sticking somebody somewhere to die and forgetting about it".
lol literally nobody who
lol literally nobody who professionally works with or engages with the mental health system is going to tell you that we shouldn't open more beds.
yup
But I bet he could get that assault rifle easier than he could getting medication for his mental illness.
Hate to say that but lack of access to help and medication is usually what happens.
Maybe for some people. Mental
Maybe for some people. Mental illness or not, I doubt a Harvard grad would have trouble accessing meds. It’s too easy to go off the meds if you just don’t like taking them.
Hate to let a good crisis go to waste much?
Try getting an Assault Rifle in this state.
Legally, you can’t. But dont facts get in your way.
Don't let geography get in the way of your rant
There are whole swaths of the country where one can, relatively easily, at least compared to here, acquire an assault weapon. We don't have a wall at our borders; if he murdered his father with a rifle, there wasn't much to keep him from bringing it up here.
Pennsylvania
A journalist got one in 12 minutes after the Tree of Life massacre.
This guy was in PA, not MA. He would not have gotten that weapon in MA.
The idea that "family members
The idea that "family members" need to control people like this is nuts. Especially elderly parents who may be financially strained and physically unable to cope.
Then the notion that "well, families will just have to keep people from getting guns" is doubly insane.
This goes for people who are not violent, just prone to psychosis, too. It just doesn't work.
we’ll there is a new law in MA
Which let’s family members petition courts to revoke gun licenses of family members who have shown something that warrants a revocation (mental illness, recent violence or threats, etc).
Family members can also petition courts for some alcohol or drug issues and have the court system mandate the person get some help, and of course family members can report if someone threatens harm to themselves or others and that person can be hospitalized involuntary for periods of time.
But in most cases family members can’t make others take medication or go to the doctor. And like swirly alludes to, most of these people aren’t going to be violent anyway.
Federal law is that anyone
Federal law is that anyone involuntarily committed to an institution is a prohibited person and cannot legally possess a firearm without petitioning for a rights restoration.
Problem is getting someone involuntarily committed to an institution is damn near impossible now thanks to the lack of beds, lopsided patient rights advocacy, and an over emphasis on community based care which has devolved into "here is a pamphlet and a prescription".
The Sandy Hook shooter's mother spent six months trying to get him institutionalized before he murdered her, stole her guns from a locked safe, and murdered all those poor children.
We need to reopen the mental hospitals. Throwing pills at people and expecting everything to be fine isn't working and hasn't been working for 30-40 years now.
Meanwhile
President Trump removed some of the mental health check protections.
Mandated help in this state
Mandated help in this state is useless. It’s a few weeks to a month, enough time to get some meds in the body and have them telling the docs what they want to hear. Then they come out, go off the meds, get in trouble, and start the process all over again.
You
You have no idea what you are talking about. This guy had far more access to mental health services than he had to a concealed carry permit. He was a Harvard grad. Here is my homework assignment for you: go to your local police department and apply for a carry permit. Just apply, I didn't say buy one, just apply. Report back. You'll learn.
Irrelevant
You don't need a CCP to get an assault rifle, or other firearm. All you need is a car, and you can drive to a gun show in some lax-law state, buy your lethal weapon of choice, and drive it to wherever you want.
Obviously he didn't have to
Obviously he didn't have to go through any registration process to get the assault weapon. Black market is thriving.
That photo
The intersection looks like that every morning. Between the recent road work and the new Harvard building that intersection has been a mess of blocked lanes and detail officers for years.
There are NEVER that many
There are NEVER that many cops out there. The intersection is often jammed up because drivers cross the intersection on JFK and then the light turns red. And then the left-turning traffic from Eliot can't move. I go through there both ways every day.
Ok?
Not sure what that has to do with the story but...
Yo skippy!
Yo skippy! This wasn't a traffic report!
It is legally difficult to commit a mentally ill
person. Even a schizophrenic, a very serious mental illness. It is difficult to get them to take anti-psychotics, get them to go to outpatient clinics in a 'community setting'.
Please put partisan politics aside. Both Democrat and Republican governments, advocates for the mentally ill in the 1960s, 70s especially, share responsibility, the now infamous 1970s era ACLU lawsuit, are responsible. Many seriously mentally ill need to be institutionalized, not drugged up in outpatient 'community setting' clinics, and sent back out onto the streets.
In my life, I've never seen a situation as bad as it is now. Homeless shelters, jails, prisons are the replacements for humane care in a psychiatric hospital. It's scandalous.
I agree
We need to change this. We went too far in the other direction with de-institutionalization.
Money
As I recall, cutting costs was the driver for closing mental institutions. There were people who predicted that putting all the mentally ill out on the streets would not end well, but they weren't influential. My recollection is that Gov. Dukakis played a large part in the deinstituthionalization policy.