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Police: Armed thug taken off MBTA bus in Dorchester
By adamg on Thu, 06/11/2009 - 8:27pm
Boston Police report arresting a Mattapan man who allegedly boarded a bus armed with a semi-automatic weapon at Ashmont station this afternoon.
Dereck Gray, 28, was arrested on a bus on Talbot Avenue after they received a tip a guy in a blue hoodie and a Red Sox cap had gotten onboard with the weapon, police say. He was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition and carrying a loaded firearm.
While on Talbot Avenue, officers observed the described bus heading in their direction and directed the driver to stop the bus. Officers boarded the bus and therein saw an individual in the back of the bus matching the suspect description.
Officers approached the suspect and as they did so, the suspect stood up, reached in his waistband and discarded a black object on the floor. Officers quickly detained the suspect and recovered a semi-automatic loaded firearm right where the suspect had been dropping the item he discarded from his waistband.
Gray will be arraigned in Dorchester District Court on Friday, police say.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
Just to clarify
Recent comments here remind me that lots of people have a mistaken idea of what "semi-automatic" means. If they read "semiautomatic weapon" and visualized an assault rifle or other machine gun, they're probably mistaken.
A semi-automatic fires only one shot per pull of the trigger.
If you think of the last handgun you saw in a TV show, it's probably a semi-automatic.
I suspect that the guy in this story just had an ordinary handgun.
(I know very little about firearms, and am averse to them, but I think I do know this one thing.)
An "ordinary handgun"
Yes, your description of a semi-auto is correct, one pull, one round. The benefit of the SA is that it can hold more rounds-hence, kill more people. Neilv, I'm not picking on you here so please bear with me. By calling it an "ordinary handgun" you are saying that this is what we see all the time now...a gun with many rounds. Then why not give the cops the proper firepower to compete with this? Cops need to overwhelm the criminals, not just be equal to them. Give them the assault rifles and then we'll all be safer.
It's all so clear now
My God, you're right! If only the officers had been armed with assault rifles. Then, instead of simply apprehending the suspect, they could have opened up on the guy from across the bus and gotten at least 20 rounds or so out. Like you said, they have to compete with the criminals because... um, I guess every confrontation with firearms results in a shoot-out... proven by this no-shots-fired confrontation between two parties with firearms? Hmm.
This instance of a successful apprehension by the police shows, if anything (and really it just shows that they did a good job and maybe we should focus on that for a change), that the officers are properly armed and trained to deal with these situations. I don't see anything here that says "if only the officers had assault rifles we'd all be so much safer!"
**Obligatory don't mind the anon guy.
Plan for the worst and hope for the best.
This case is just another example of the fact that these semi-auto weapons are being used regularly by criminals. Yes, in this case there was a safe resolution but what I meant before is that the POTENTIAL is there for mass carnage. So, give the cops (regular patrol, not just SWAT) superior firepower (and the training needed) so that these first-responding cops can stop the carnage when/if someone decides to go on a shooting spree. Don't you want the cops to plan for the worst? Isn't that a wise thing to do? Please write back with your foolish argument the day after a Columbine-type shooting happens in Boston.
assault rifles
Hey, I thought those assault rifles were for anti-terrorism
Assault rifles are for babies
Real cops have grenade launchers.
I'm not sure why.
I guess it's because "anything could happen".
Says so right here:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/art...
Why aren't these items in the "anything could happen" rationale:
- Burying city administrative buildings underground in case of nuclear attack
- Distributing anthrax antidotes "in case" because an bio attack could happen at any minute
- Really good gas masks for everyone, just in case
- (write in your irrational worry here, the feds will fund it)
A good report leads to one less potentially violent situation
"This instance of a successful apprehension by the police shows, if anything (and really it just shows that they did a good job and maybe we should focus on that for a change), that the officers are properly armed and trained to deal with these situations."
This is an instance of the public taking control of their city and reporting crime to the proper authorities, who in turn respond with appropriate force. If there was better communication between the general public and the police, potentially violent individuals could be confronted before a crime is committed.
I Don't Know About You
I hope you're joking. I don't know about you, but I've never once felt safer knowing somebody in my vicinity has an assault rifle. Or any kind of gun, really.
Two issues. Escalation: Cops
Two issues.
Escalation: Cops get better guns, criminals will escalate accordingly, and civilians will be the ones to suffer.
Range: Rifles shoot much father, and have much more powerful piercing damage then handguns. The right tools for normal use are handguns and should remain so, due to need to sue them in heavily populated areas.
Anon; I'm not talking about "normal use."
Don't you see the point here? I'm not talking about using them in "normal" situations. I'm talking about planning for the worst case scenario...like a person with high capacity weapon (maybe even with body armor like in North Hollywood) shooting lots of people. If the cops have assault weapons they stand a better chance of stopping the suspect before he/she kills any more people. Like I said before, prepare for the worst and hope for the best. And, in case you haven't noticed, the criminals already have high-powered weapons so it has already "escalated."
Dumbass was lucky he didn't
Dumbass was lucky he didn't get shot!
Licensed or unlicensed, never make a move toward a gun, or what could be a concealed weapon, in front of officers. Let them come to you, ask questions, ect.
definitely lucky he didn't get cut down.
Those cops showed great restraint seeing as he probably grabbed the gun from the grip and lifted somewhat in somebody's direction which could have implied some sort of hostage taking (they were on a bus) or violent action.
Quick question for anyone who's willing to answer. Does Massachusetts have a 10-20-LIFE law in reference to weapons.
If you have one on you 10. If you use one in a crime 20. if you pull the trigger LIFE. I had thought it was a nationwide law but i'm not so sure.
We do not have that here.
Sounds good though.