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Boston council president says several of her colleagues' homes 'vandalized' over weekend

City Council President Kim Janey is expressing outrage that several of her colleagues had their houses vandalized in an apparent protest over the police budget.

Mayor Walsh said the messages on paper were glued to councilors' homes and were related to last week's council budget vote, in which his budget, which transferred $12 million out of police overtime but did not make larger cuts to the overall police budget.

But WBZ reports that "report cards" on the councilors were merely posted at councilors homes, although in one case it was glued to a councilor's driveway.

FTPBoston, which has been fighting to defund police, took credit:

We will always continue holding our elected officials accountable.

Janey said:

Over the weekend a number of my colleagues on the City Council were targeted at their homes. As President, let me be clear: Vandalism is unacceptable!!!

She added:

I say this as someone who:

  1. does not equates human life with property
  2. believes in accountability and won't tell others how to show up to express their pain
  3. encourages protest as absolutely necessary in our struggle for liberation!

Hold us accountable! Express your frustration! But vandalizing our homes is NOT okay!

And me taking time to even write this post is a distraction from the larger goal of the transformative change that I believe so many of want to see and are fighting for.

Janey was one of the five councilors who voted against the operational budget for the fiscal year that starts this week over the police issue - joined by councilors Ricardo Arroyo (Hyde Park, Mattapan, Roslindale), Andrea Campbell (Dorchester, Mattapan), Kim Janey (Roxbury), Julia Mejia (at large) and Michelle Wu (at large).

Neither Janey nor Walsh specified which councilors were targeted. But Walsh said trying to get a message across by targeting people's home is unacceptable.

"City councilors have families, some of them have small children, they have neighbors," he said, adding the protesters should have spent more time looking at the budget, which increases funds for such things as housing and counseling.

He added that even in his days as a union leader, he never thought of doing anything like that.

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Comments

Also going to Walsh's home at 6am to protest is really just looking for a fight, not solutions. It's truly mob rule stuff and anyone who's in a leadership position with whatever group did this should be way out in front denouncing it.

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In addition to be unsafe it is also very obnoxious. Taking it to someones home is just acceptable.

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How, exactly, has doing things in a nice white way gotten anybody anywhere?

I mean, other than defunding of schools in favor of storm troopers staring in holes looking for a fight?

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Women didn't get the right to vote by burning buildings although the woman's suffrage movement wasn't always polite conversation either.

Don't discount the quiet (aka "nice") political pressure from whites who use their connections with political leaders to make change happen. It's harder for white politicians to ignore the goals of BLM if the people making the demands are their friends and donors.

If you buy into the notion that whites have privilege to get what they want, it stands to reason they can use their privilege to change budgets in the opposite direction too.

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Since you're a student of the women suffrage movement, perhaps you can comment on how women DID get the right to vote - and comment on its relevance today.

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Frankly, our elected officials who chose to ignore an unprecedented and sustained groundswell are LUCKY compared to their colonial bretheren who ignored the wishes of the British colonists.

British-assigned bureacrats were lucky to escape with only property damage during the predominantly white riots that preceeded the American Revolution. Which let’s all put into perspective was merely about taxes instead of anxiety about the fundamental right to exist.

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When in the last 20 years has the school budget in Boston gone down?

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Yeah who would do something as rude as that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Awakes

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Can we as a society all agree that going to the homes of politicians in residential neighborhoods is wrong. Can we all agree destroying property is wrong? These should be true regardless if you agree with the one being vandalized right now if you agree with the one who is doing it right now.

This is not an argument of property damage vs loss of life. Being against property damage and vandalism does make you pro any loss of life. You can feel both ways.

When you encourage and allow those you agree with to do these things all you are doing is ensuring it will happen to you later.

Marty Walsh is correct and has remained correct. I also believe that Councillor Janey has a pretty good history of not supporting this sort of thing either.

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Can we as a society all agree that going to the homes of politicians in residential neighborhoods is wrong.

Unfortunately, no, we can't. Not speaking to this case, but there are elected officials (not "politicians", there's an important difference) who refuse to meet with their constituents through other channels. It would seem that an elected official who places him/herself off-limits in their public serving capacity -- their job -- has forfeited their claims to privacy outside of work.

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They meet with lots of people. We are in a pandemic and they seem to be meeting people the best way they can. I realize everyone wants to change the world right now in a five minute span but government is not a nimble thing.

I refuse to stand back and say this is ok. You can if you would like. Would you also care to put up your full name, address and schedule too?

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...you have never heard of a man called Richard Neal.

(a careful reader will have noted that I said "not specific to this case")

Would you also care to put up your full name, address and schedule too?

I'm not a public servant who refuses to see my constituents during work hours, or at any other time, nonny.

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Marching to a politicians house in of itself is not a bad thing. That said, there are right and wrong ways to go about it. For example, waking said politicians and their neighbors up at 6 AM is not the right way to go about it. Disturbing their supper at 6 PM, on the other hand, isn't that bad at all.

Same thing with flyers. I mean, I could write a letter to my city councilor and mail it to him. Obviously, putting threats beyond "you will lose your next election" wouldn't be kosher, but politicians get mail all the time.

Heck, I remember back in the 1970s a bunch of Bostonians went all the way out to Wellesley to protest something at a judge's house. As long as they weren't threatening anyone, I don't see the problem.

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This is not an argument of property damage vs loss of life. Being against property damage and vandalism does make you pro any loss of life. You can feel both ways.

The key difference is that property isn't alive and can be replaced.

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I'll agree with you when we can agree as a society that it is wrong for the police to ENTER peoples homes in the middle of the night unannounced. Right now, the only people who can codify that agreement are the politicians. I see no reason they shouldn't feel the same discomfort over the threat to their homes that entire neighborhoods have been living with since forever.

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I say this as someone who... does not equates human life with property

I'm puzzled over what Councilor Janey is trying to say... is she saying it in an 1860s Emancipation Proclamation sort of way (i.e. slaves are not property), or about police salaries/overtime, or is she saying that in the context of vandalism and crimes?

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I believe it is a reference to how human lives are sometimes held as less valuable than property by the cops, who have been known to shoot and kill people suspected of theft. She is probably saying something like "I understand that you want to stop the murders, and while damage to my property is *preferable* to murder, it's not actually the right choice here and doesn't actually help your cause".

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When the toothless no eviction debate was going on back in March. One councilor, Frank Baker, voted against it for a very logical reason, the resolution had no regulatory power. It was feel good and nothing else, yet vitriol was rained down on him by people on twitter, including one person under the handle @salemshitty, who said "When This is over people should pay them (meaning his properties) a visit..."

A Boston police office was doxed last week by an advocate for prison reform (and JP resident who grew up wealthy and is now playing slumming - shocker) who published the cop's home address and a picture of their house advocating for people to protest there.

The FTP people who visited Mayor Walsh's house last weekend have gone to ground for the most part and hid their bios.

I'd hate to say it, but if the Self Important Bernie Bros and Gals think they are going to go up against the BPD and some Boston City Councilors by going after their houses and families, in the words of Judas Priest, you got another thing coming.

Be careful out there. Revolutions go in two directions. You may be thinking 1917 Russia, but I think what is happening here might be a wee more 1848 Prussia. I am not advocating anything but many decades of life has taught me a few things, one of them is never, ever, piss off a cop's spouse or being any kind of threat to their children.

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I am not advocating anything but many decades of life has taught me a few things, one of them is never, ever, piss off a cop's spouse or being any kind of threat to their children.

whatever you do, make sure to swallow the boot whole.

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The FTP people who visited Mayor Walsh's house last weekend have gone to ground for the most part and hid their bios.

File Transfer Protocol?

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Free The Penis

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Oboe Boy.

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Sure sounds like it. That was amazingly weak.

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Since they have been working at JP Licks since graduation back in 2008 you don't know if they have washed their hands before making your milk shake. So you try to be nice.

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i own my home where every morning i wake up to do what i love, while you sit on 93N hoping you can get through the tunnel in less than 15 minutes.

i’m doing just fine.

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double post

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and hid their bios.

Basic input output system?

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On their FB page FTP comes off as some kind of hard arse commie group calling each other Comrade and posting pictures of Chichi Guava.
Their actions tho show them to be frauds. Oh and cowards. But aren't all wannabe commies??

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From the For The People - Boston FB page:

To our comrades-

As many of you are no doubt aware, there have been several actions centered around defunding police organized under the name "For the People - Boston." The purpose of this statement is to clear up any confusion. There are two organizations in this city by that name; us, an intermediate organization of the Maoist Communist Party - Organizing Committee, which has existed since 2017 and has branches across the so-called u.s.a, and another unaffiliated organization which has emerged out of the George Floyd rebellion.

To be clear, while we are two separate organizations, we unite with this new For the People - Boston in their goal to defund BPD and remove them from schools. We hope that they succeed in their goals, and encourage people to support and attend their actions!

Only through mass struggle and people's war can we defund, disarm, and abolish police and the settler-colonial capitalist state they uphold.

Solidarity with the prostesers and fighters against police and the capitalist state!

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Mass struggle? People's War? Settler-Colonial Capitalist State?

Yet, members of FTP seek donations through the IRS tax code for their front organizations. That's pretty funny. Fight The Power, here is your receipt for your 1040.

It is always those who perceive themselves as the vanguard elite are themselves from upper middle class upbringings who want to "free the masses" for their own self interest. I've been a member of "the masses" I'm all set. Thanks.

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Since you clearly love to make up stories about what's going on inside other people's heads, why don't you just start writing novels? Let the market decide and all that.

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There will be lots of pictures and small words for ease of comprehension for you.

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mixed with a bunch of /r/iamverybadass

"many decades of life has taught me a few things, one of them is never, ever, piss off a cop's spouse"

yeaaah okay buddy

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You are a total racist if you assume that the people wanting change did this, and not your bootlicker friends and their swastika spray painting offspring.

Notice that she didn't say who got hit - but you went there with the racist assumptions.

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You're still on this?

Despite your repeated claims, no one physically threatened Frank Baker or anyone else on twitter. You leapt off a cliff to reach that conclusion. And last time I checked, protesting in a public space (say for example the street outside a mayor or city councilor's house) is constitutionally protected speech.

And then I seem to remember you casually mentioning "passing on" some info to your "BPD friends", which given the current social climate sounds a hell of a lot like a threat.

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That this could bounce back on you. It is fun to watch you squirm.

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That does sound like a threat.

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I suspect they are racist as well.

You are assuming (without evidence) that it was the pro-cop contingent that was vandalized, and not the contingent that wants to rethink "security" that makes people less secure? That those nasty progressives must be doing nasty things instead of our blue street gangs who have recently tear gassed peaceful demonstrators doubling down on the unlawful disorder?

Very interesting. Then your bit about "making cop's wives/families feel unsafe" is not only extremely sexist, it also implies that you know something about who is doing this vandalizing and why? That maybe the Double Dipping Overtime Kings are concerned about the gravy train derailing and thus "feel unsafe"?

Then again, you have been known to call for jailing urban kids for graffiti while your Marshfield friends with the kids who spray paint swastikas are misguided angels from good families. So this isn't anything new for you. That and your insistence on piling on environmental exposure insults onto environmental justice communities make me want to puke.

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There are no more straws to go up their noses since you have grasped them all in some very pathetic attempt to try to one up me.

You want to vomit, go ahead. There is so much garbage in you that a cleanse might actually allow some rational thinking to creep into that mangled, hysteria spouting body of yours.

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This individual is 100% toxic. Give us the block function, please.

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I’m such a kind soul, I shall immediately send over 2 therapy dogs, a coloring book, and some play dough to help you get through this. Free of charge.

No need to thank me.

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When you find sewage rising about you, don't you want to do something about it? Maybe you prefer to wallow in filth. Do you view this as improving your character?

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John’s remarks make him a “toxic” individual according to you, but has anything Swirl ever said made you call her “toxic” and ask for the block function, or not really because you like her point of view/politics better?

I have no issues with either one, or anyone else for that matter...just seems like selective outrage.

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Offering ideas that differs from his.

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Selective outrage cracks me up...

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-Does it exist?

-Yes?

-It’s racist

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did you come up with this all by yourself?

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Someone sent me a meme and I chuckled.

But, when out there navigating the real world, it will come in handy.

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The City of Boston's second highest paid employee has been caught on video vandalizing private property, amongst a slew of other violations, yet remains employed.

Video proof of Officer John Danilecki vandalizing private property:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-2198252/Video-Boston-police...

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...needs to be in prison.

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And this is why good people don't want to run for office. Good job, bozos.

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Oh, that's the reason?

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Yes. One of the reasons.

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When stores were getting looted and vandals were destroying monuments and spray painting private property.

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Oh I see why the councilors are upset, these grades are embarrassing!

https://twitter.com/FTPboston/status/1275824868467060743?s=19

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I don't mind if you call me stupid on this but I don't really understand who did what to who(m).

The alleged group put the flyers up at homes of councilors who voted yes on the budget because it didn't defund the police or councilors who voted it down but weren't able to get it from passing?

But this wasn't people who were putting flyers up at councilors' homes who voted for the budget, or is that the same thing.

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