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Two shot on Mission Hill
By adamg on Fri, 07/17/2015 - 9:05am
Updated with number of victims.
Boston EMS Incidents and Stanley Staco report people were found shot around 11:30 p.m. on Thursday on Horadan Way and Smith Street. Although initial reports seem to indicate multiple victims, the Globe reports two people were shot.
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Comments
Question.
These shootings are always reported when they happen. How often do we get to see the final investigative report? Understanding why this is happening may go a long way in preventing this type of violence.
That would be a great job for
That would be a great job for the Boston Globe, who has the resources to follow up on these crimes. They haven't, however, even reported this one yet.
No tweets or press releases
for the outcomes. You have to wait months or years, then submit a public records request and pay for redacted reports. Less so when DAs are up for reelection and want positive press.
BTW, rather have more incidents of naked people than shot and dead people.
Not quite - at least not in Boston
Although what I'm about to write may be a bit out of date (more on that in a sec).
You can go down to BPD headquarters on Tremont Street and, for $5, get a copy of the incident report, written by whichever officer was assigned to write it up. It will be redacted, but will give you the basic info. I've done this, never had any problems (except for one time when the incident involved an allegation against a cop, imagine that), never identified myself as a reporter.
Why this may be out of date, at least temporarily:
The problem is finding the incident report number. Until recently, the city actually ran a decentish database where you could look up crime reports (except for domestic-abuse and sexual-assault cases, which are exempt from the public-records law), including the incident numbers. BPD switched over to a new back-end system last month and the city's yet to begin feeding that into their open-data portal. In the past, the clerk has been willing to try to find the specific report for me based on address and date/time. But I've heard the new system is taking some getting used to, so I don't know if they're still willing to do that.
As for ultimate outcomes, i.e., trials, yeah, this is where Massachusetts really sucks. Court dockets are, for the most part, public records (there are exceptions - juvenile cases, some rare cases where they've been expunged and the like). But unlike at the federal level, or in other states, you have to actually go down to the courthouse where the trial was held, look it up on their internal computer system, then request the case file. And no taking photos of the documents! You either take notes on paper, or you make copies on the official court-clerk's copy machine (which in some courts will run you $1 a page!).
Understanding why this is
Not much to understand.
Gangs, drug trade, and an under-culture which values being a hoodlum instead of seeking honest work.
If they didn't have guns they'd be targeting each other with stabbings, arson, and hit & runs with stolen cars. Killing the competition/opposition is part of their lifestyle which goes a long way back in the history of man.
It's a primal and tribal power thing ingrained in the dark side of humanity which civilization has never been able stamp out completely. Morality and the law are constructs meant to contain it, but that only works for those that believe in morality and the rule of law.
Dang!
We biked up Huntington Ave in that area around 1115pm on the way home from Billy Joel. Glad we didn't turn up St. Alphonsus Street for a short cut.
Hillside and pontiac
Something crazy must have happened at the intersection of Pontiac Strret and Hillside Streeet many detectives dogs cruisers and an ambulance.