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Man charged as racist testicle-grabbing, book-throwing puncher at Braintree Red Line station

Transit Police report arresting a Boston man they say went ballistic when told to get off the train at the end of the line in Braintree late last night.

According to police, Joseph Edge, 48, did not go gently into the good night but instead began yelling racial epithets at the T worker trying to get him off the train. When a Transit Police officer arrive and made the same demand, police say, Edge hurled the epithets at the officer and then told him to perform a sexual act on himself.

The officer employed numerous de-escalation techniques to no avail. The officer not deterred continued to try and coax Edge from the train. At this point Edge threw a book striking the officer in the face and then grabbed the officer's testicles while punching the officer. The officer was able to overcome Edge's assault and with the assistance of responding officers placed him into custody.

Police say that as the officers led him away for booking on A&B charges up at Transit Police headquarters, he re-screamed the racial epithets at the T worker who had first tried to get him out of the train.

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

Books should not be used as a weapon. Throw the book at him. Metaphorically, of course.

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Mr Edge should be charged with civil rights and banned from riding the MBTA.

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The MBTA's brilliant plan to deter the homeless from sleeping on benches through hostile architecture has led to the homeless sleeping on trains and being transported miles away. When they get to the last stop they are kicked off. They have no idea where they are and will often resort to fighting the employees and police who are forced to remove them from the trains at the end of the line.

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Clearly, if we would have just left them sleeping on the benches, (which, btw, were never placed there to allow the elderly, physically disabled, infirm, or just plain tired rest while they wait for a train or bus, then this poor fellow would have never gotten into trouble.

Let's outlaw all other people from using the benches - homeless only! And stop calling them benches - they are beds!

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There is no question that the metropolitan area has a serious issue with homelessness. We can agree on that. However blaming this act on taking the bench handles off the benches at stations has no relation.

This was an aggressive person, possibly mentally unstable, for what ever reason. It is highly likely that this aggressive response would have happened anyplace. What would be the response here if they had this interaction with a passenger in a station?

Clearly the metro areas... all of the cities... need to come up with a plan for homeless people but the transit system is not their fallback housing. Even New York is taking actions against this and the situation is far worse there than in Boston. This encounter was at the end of the rail line and they needed him off so the train could be sent to the stub-end tracks for out-of-service storage likely. Otherwise he might have been left there to ride back in the opposite direction. That's usually the only reason they clear in-service cars of people at terminus stations.

Would your response have been the same had this person attacked a woman or child on the train or at a station?

Stop connecting all of the MBTAs faults to broader societal problems. If this was a moderated message board the mod might have removed your post as off topic.

The guy didn't attack someone because the world is not flat. He also did not attack someone because there was no bench to sleep on at South Station. He was challenged by an authority figure and efforts to get him to comply with a simple instruction to leave the train was met with violence.

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So we should let them sleep in the station so they don't sleep on the train and get lost, as if they were simply confused tourists? That does not seem like a solution to me. Or even a good suggestion. If you have been in Bowdoin, North Station or DTX station anytime lately, which you haven't, you would know what I mean. We have to end this notion once and for all that the unhoused and drug addicted somehow have a right to occupy T stations. Or even if they don't have a right per se, that we should be "humane" and let them set up housekeeping there just because we're nice. Not only do they sleep there, they smoke, urinate, defecate, shoot up and sometimes aggressively approach people. And they don't wear masks. Ever. As someone who uses one or more of these stations daily, I feel I am in a hazardous, toxic, unsafe environment, and I have never felt that way in the previous 45 years I have used any T station in the city.

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No person should be seeking shelter in a mass transit depot.
As the incident shows, if indeed this man was homeless, it's just not safe. The T Staff is horrified, the officer struck, the man arrested, which is traumatic for him as well. People don't take jobs in Transportation to provide social services for vulnerable. They drive trains and buses,T cops are to keep order, not provide therapy, the T station is not a shelter or a hostel, it is a depot for heavy machinery. Demanding that vulnerable individuals be given support to live in the street is not supporting their overall well being. Its insane to demand that the t provide benches. You want to sleep on a bench in a train garage? Refocus your lens, supporting risky situations for individuals experiencing homelessness, and or mental illness is not a humane.

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Just another example where the State Legislature is failing us in not enacting any new laws to help these mentally ill people. They need to be placed in mental health centers and given 24 hour help. Change the laws and stop sending the police in to mop up the State Legislature's failure. DO YOUR JOB!!

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Most people with mental illness do not commit crimes, and are more likely to be the victims of crime.

I think what you mean to say is that there should be laws that people who commit assault should face some consequences. These laws exist, and this story is about them being upheld. Not sure what additional laws you would want.

If you're advocating for preventative measures, like people having housing, education, healthcare, employment, etc., that have been shown to cut down on pretty much all of society's ills, then yes, we absolutely should have those things.

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We don't need new laws, we need more funding to increase services. The people you see out on the T feel safer than they do in the shelters. Increase the safety of existing facilities, increase the support programs, shift to long-term supportive housing models instead of emergency facilities, step up the mental health game when people are still in the school system to get them what they need before they end up on the street or in jail.

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There is information of vital importance missing from this report. What was the book? The public needs to know.

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Library loan or from his personal collection?

Much had been withheld from us here.

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