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Person shot in the stomach in argument over Dorchester parking space

Around 2:40 p.m. outside 69 Nightingale St., near Wales. Police are looking for a black man with short hair and a puffy coat, who drove away.

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While reading this morning's dispatches from the parking wars, I found myself thinking "it's only a matter of time before something really bad happens."

Thought it'd be more than a couple hours though.

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Everyone saw this as the inevitable consequence of your miserable policies.

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There was no snow emergency so this has nothing to do with the mayor's space saver policy. If you lived in Boston you would know these things.

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It has everything to do with the fact that the space saver policy, only allowing them after a snow emergency, is not enforced by the mayor/police, and since its not enforced, people use space savers all the time. If there was an outright ban on marking public property as your own, for parking or otherwise, we wouldn't have self entitled people like the space savers and the terrorists in Oregon deciding that they can use threats of violence to steal public space for their own uses.

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And let's not forget that every single space saver is an implicit threat of violence and vandalism, else we wouldn't be so afraid to move the stupid things.

I rent a space and never park on the street. I got no dog in this fight, I just hate seeing what monsters the "tradition" turns my neighbors into.

At this point Marty is endorsing murder. He needs to step up beyond stupid facebook memes, pick up the garbage left in our streets, and jail the thugs who retaliate. Anything less at this point is just throwing up his hands and saying "eh, what's a little killing between neighbors?"

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At this point Marty is endorsing murder

Wtf anon?

By the way Mr Mayor, thanks for not rigidly enforcing the 48 hour snow emergency rule.

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Word is it could have involved space savers, we don't know yet. It if did, the Mayor's policy is certainly implicated, at least tacitly.

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Can anyone explain to me why your typical Uhub shooting post gets 1-5 comments but when you include the parking spot issue it gets 34 comments and counting. What is the difference between getting shot over a pair of sneakers and a parking spot.

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People like screaming about the issue of space saving here.

Look at most of the shooting posts here and the comments are basically trolling about the victim and/or shooter along with debates about which neighborhood the shooting occurred.

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this ludicrous policy has been in place long before Mayor Marty Walsh got elected to office. He's inherited this mess, but he's doing a lousy job of handling the situation.

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Let him know you do not think space saving is OK.

http://www.cityofboston.gov/contact/?id=55

Dear Mayor Walsh,
Please put an end to the "space saving" rule in Boston. It does not make people good neighbors - it makes them competitive and now even violent.
http://www.universalhub.com/crime/20160125/person-shot-stomach-dorcheste...
If saving spaces were against the law in ALL (yes, even snow emergency) situations, this kind of thing might be less likely to happen. People feel outrageously entitled to the spaces they cleared. It won't kill them to shovel out a new spot. If it would, they should get rid of their car.

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I just sent a message. This is out of hand.

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Thanks,

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So if you spend hours shoveling your car out you should by law be forced to relinquish that spot? I don't drive but even I think that's only right.

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if you do this and someone parks in "your" spot, if you can then just park in "their" spot? If everyone just dug out their cars and didn't save the spots, there would be the same number of spots available. Yes, yes, but what if you add an "outside" car to the equation, you ask? Well, if all of these upstanding citizens are working so hard at shoveling out spots, that would mean we have the same number of spots as usual, and this is no different than the rest of the year. Except this time of year, everyone is grumpy from the cold and wants any excuse they can find to be "entitled" to a spot in front of their house.

Also, I cannot stand the idea that by shoveling YOUR (figurative, I know you said you personally don't own one) car out, that YOU choose to own despite not having private parking, somehow you're doing the city a solid by clearing that space and should be entitled to it. You own a car. You need to go somewhere. It's covered in snow. You remove the snow and go to your destination. Where is ownership of a strip of the street implied?

For the record, I own a car, park on the street, and drive to work 5 days a week, just so I don't get grouped in with the anti-car crowd.

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Let's go to the tape and break it down:

1. During most of the year, you are "forced" to "relinquish" the spot that your car once occupied if you leave that spot. In other words, you can use the spot if and only if your car is in it.
1A. A car is considered abandoned by the City of Boston if left in a space for more than 72 hours. In my experience, this isn't strictly enforced. However, you might say you are "forced" to "relinquish" your spot every 5 days throughout the year (whether or not you want to use it).

2. Should this change if you spend "hours" (or days?!!?) shoveling your car out?
One the one hand, you are trying to use your car, so you have to do some shoveling to even achieve your personal mission. I think you are suggesting that if you do an extra good job so anyone could easily park in the spot, you gain some exclusive use rights.
Consider two cases: you don't shovel it out well. No one can park there until they shovel it out well. Anyone could do that and we would expect someone to do that if they need a parking spot. Bottom line is that the space is shoveled by someone and open to use by everyone.
Other scenario: you shovel it out well and put a space saver. Now only you can park there.
Why is that a superior outcome? I think you have the burden of providing an explanation because you are proposing that we alter the traditional rules.
(Let us not even mention the impossible-to-consider scenario in which a citizen shovels his or her car our well and does not leave a space saver).

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So WTF, a street parker can't take a week's vacation?

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I don't make the rules.
But perhaps that's why it doesn't seem to be enforced.

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In practice, I find that it seems to only be enforced in two situations

  1. A car has been parked somewhere long enough for someone to call and complain about it
  2. It snows heavily and no effort has been made to dig out or even remove snow from off of the car

In my neighborhood, the second one happens pretty much like clockwork on the fourth day after appreciable snow. There's a car in front of my neighbor's house that hasn't moved in almost two weeks and if there's no ticket on it tomorrow I'll be pretty surprised.

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Roommate and I went to CA for a week a few years back. My GF had my keys just in case, and my neighbor was keeping an eye out for tickets. Never had an issue, never had to move it. Parking was pretty abundant on Eagle Hill (at least around my street) at that point, but I could imagine it being a bigger issue in areas where parking is scarce.

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The reward for shoveling is that you get to drive your car away. You do not get to double the number of spaces your car takes up (1 spot for car, 1 spot for busted chair) and you do not get to shoot someone who moves your litter out of the street.

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Are you digging out with a spoon? Your bare hands? Melting the snow with a hair dryer? Hours. smdh.

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It was only a matter of time before something like this one happened: http://www.universalhub.com/crime/20160125/person-shot-stomach-dorchester

The entire concept of space savers lies in the implied threat that "something bad will happen to you if you park in my space." By condoning this practice, you are saying that a major American city think's it acceptable to damage property or injure (or even attempt to kill) over the use of public space.

You issued a particularly tone-deaf tweet this morning regarding Boston Latin School where you said "Leadership isn't about using Twitter. It's about taking action." Here is an issue on which you need to lead and take action, Mr. Mayor, before this brand of vigilante justice spreads any further.

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to cut and paste and send it off to Mayor Walsh. Tryit and let's see if it makes a difference, thanks Cranky coffee!

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Dear Mr. Mayor

Thanks for ignoring all these people who don't own cars , or don't have to park on the street. You, and mayors before you, realize what it's like for those of us who have a car and have to park on the street and sometimes use a space saver.
You're lucky enough to have a driveway now, but you certainly remember the days on Taft and Tuttle when you had to find a spot for your car. Even though you used to live a 1 minute walk from the T, we know you never used the T and preferred to drive.
Thank you for the relaxed enforcement when it's the right thing to do. Occasionally you instruct Public Works to pick up space savers when the time is right. That's ok too.

Yours truly
Sammy Space Saver

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The mind, today especially, jumps to point blame at space savers, but I don't see any info here that says that's what happened. In fact, the title merely says this was over a parking space, and the accused drove off. Sounds like it was more just your everyday road/parking rage incident without the inclusion of abandoned furniture or trash receptacles. But who knows. The ambiguity is certainly good for an explosion in comments.

[This is not posted to deflect from the ridiculous practice of space saving.]

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Just as soon as they're caught. Not only theirs, but all the permits of their cohabitants as well.

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Okay, I'll see myself out of this thread now.

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Somehow I doubt the perpetrator is a licensed law abiding citizen.

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I think that was the joke.

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I think maybe criminal prosecution is a better plan for someone who shoots another person than taking away their free parking permit?

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Aldos already beat you to the punchline.

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a) while I was typing - they beat me by one whole minute. hard to see an update while you're on the comment page.
b) not exactly the same punchline, is it?

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Possibly doesn't mean certainly. Also, parking space does not necessarily mean space saver.
I was getting out of a friend's car a few years ago in Dorchester, there was no where to pull over. The car stopped for about 20 seconds max, the lady in the car behind me was laying on the horn, screaming at me and threatened to get "the gun out of the trunk". Some people are "off", snow does not have to be involved.

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If people have the right to reserve public parking spaces when it snows then I have the right to jump to conclusions on the internet, dammit.

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IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/hDaYG2h.jpg)

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"The gun out of the trunk?" You were probably as close to her at that point as she was to the trunk, especially if she's still seated in her vehicle. What did she think was going to be the outcome of saying that?

In the words of Jack Bauer: "The next time you point a gun at me, you better be prepared to use it."

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My reply was; "You'd risk ruining your life and going to jail for shooting a stranger over waiting a few seconds?" ( I only said that because I knew she'd have to go all the way to the trunk to get the gun, and I could book it) she yelled a few more things after that, I stopped listening at that point.

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Based on where you were, it's entirely possible that her life was garbage and that she didn't view jail as a reduction in quality of life.

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Not so much where I was, but by her actions. She didn't give a good GD.

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I won't say it wasn't the cause, but until I see credible, attributed reporting on the incident, I dunno.

People do crazy shit, and they sometimes need an excuse more than a reason.

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Ridiculous than people shooting each other over "respect." At least a parking space is tangible!

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Do many people argue shooting people over respect is ok? Is there a tradition in Boston akin to the space saver tradition, where the mayor says that since Southie has been enforcing "respect" for decades, it is now OK citywide to do what it takes to get respect. Do the police look the other way when people destroy property or make violent threats over respect?

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The incident occurred in Eastie, not Southie. You might want to reread Adam's post.

The shooter was driving a BMW which he later ditched... sounds like something more than just an aggressive driver upset over a parking space. I wouldn't be surprised if the shooter is a
drug dealer. Eastie isn't eactly known for trigger happy, BMW-driving yuppies. The South End on the other hand... well, minus the trigger happy.

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