"Boston police planning to add to weapons arsenal; More access to powerful rifles" by Maria Cramer | Globe Staff, November 05, 2013
Four years after Mayor Thomas M. Menino expressed concerns about arming more Boston police with military-style rifles, the department is quietly preparing to train 99 patrol officers to use such semiautomatic rifles, a dramatic boost in firepower that some officials say is excessive.
Under the plan, 22 uniformed officers on every shift — two for each of the city’s 11 districts — would have routine access to the weapons in their cruisers after they are trained. It represents a substantial increase from the current complement of four to eight specialized officers who patrol the city in “gun cars” equipped with an M4 semiautomatic rifle and a shotgun.
It is one of the final policy changes instituted by Commissioner Edward F. Davis, who left the department Friday after nearly seven years at the helm.
“It’s standard operating procedure across the nation, and the officers have to be able to protect themselves,” Davis said in an interview last week. “I think it’s a practical and appropriate plan.”
Davis said officials had been planning the change months before the April 15 Boston Marathon terrorist attacks, but the tragedy underscored the need for a greater number of more powerful weapons.
And thus the mind-manipulating psy-op and crisis actor drills gone live accomplished their purpose.
“An incident like that reinforces the need for equipment that’s necessary to defend the community,” he said.
And will give the government more firepower to oppress and repress because this is all based on lies.
The new mayor would have to approve a budget request for the new rifles, which could cost about $2,500 each, plus $500 for ammunition.
But some officials within the Police Department said they have serious misgivings about providing so much firepower to dozens of officers and worry how residents in neighborhoods where police are already viewed suspiciously might react.
I'm sure they will "shelter in place" like before.
“It’s almost like we’re moving away from being community policing officers to being Navy SEALs,” said Jack Kervin, president of the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation. “Is this Davis’s legacy?”
Well, they do hire a lot of ex-military.
In 2009, Boston police were slated to receive 200 M-16s from the US military and had planned to train dozens of patrol officers and members of specialized units such as the bomb squad and the harbor patrol to use the weapons. But the department canceled the shipment after the plan fell through.
At the time, police cited the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999, when first responders had to wait for specialized teams to arrive as two teenage shooters killed schoolmates inside.
If you believe the official cover-up, I mean, version that is.
Police also reasoned that semiautomatic rifles allow officers to halt criminals armed with potent firepower from greater distances and more accurately.
But the plan died after Menino said he was uncomfortable with it….
Menino would not comment directly on the new plan, but his office released a statement saying that he supports the department’s strategies….
Where does Walsh stand?
Nationwide, more police departments in major cities and small towns have been arming patrol officers with such rifles, arguing that they need the weapons to counter illegal, military-style weapons on the street….
Except it is the police that kill more people across this country every night and day. I know the mouthpiece media of authority likes to focus on private gun violence by private citizens, but thems are the facts. Sorry.
In 2009, as word got out about the Police Department’s plans, members of the community resisted….
I remember. I wrote a series pif articles about it that I can now no longer find.
This time, officials have briefed religious and community leaders who work in the city’s more troubled neighborhoods, Superintendent in Chief Daniel Linskey said….
Linskey said he understands there is delicate balance between arming officers with heavier firepower and assuring the public that the department is not becoming militarized.
Did you see the photos of the Watertown lockdown? Case closed. It's already been militarized!
“We have to weigh those two,” Linskey said. “We unfortunately live in a world where this has become a reality.”
That's why it is such a shitty world.
Linskey described the department’s new weapons, which he called “patrol rifles,’’ as “in the style of the AR-15,” which is the most popular type of semiautomatic gun in the United States.
Linksey said SWAT teams need more backup, pointing to the aftermath of the April 15 Marathon bombing, when officers who had tracked down the bombing suspects in Watertown believed they were armed with semiautomatic rifles.
The lie that keeps on giving, the Marathon bombings!
Boston police officers who responded during those first terrifying moments had to remove the bean bags from their shotguns, then wait for shotgun shells to be brought to the scene, Linskey said.
“We had to convert on the fly,” he said. “We didn’t have enough” weapons.
The department wants to add 33 semiautomatic rifles to supplement the more than 60 SWAT team officers who use M4 rifles, Linskey said.
The department eventually wants to bring in more shotguns, but the immediate goal is to arm patrol officers with the rifles.
The goal is to train enough officers so that two officers on every shift are armed with the weapons, which would be kept in a locked box in their cruiser. When not being used on the shift, the guns would be stored in a secure district locker.
Under a draft of the new policy obtained by the Globe, a patrol officer would use a shotgun or a semiautomatic rifle for the following reasons:
A suspect is armed with a deadly weapon and poses an immediate lethal threat; the distance between the suspect and the officer is too great for a service pistol to be effective; the suspect is wearing body armor or protected by material that cannot be penetrated with a service pistol; the suspect is heavily armed or is using sophisticated weapons, like long guns or explosives; and the officer is facing a dangerous animal, such as a rabid coyote, that needs to be killed or stopped from a safe distance.
Nancy Robinson — executive director of Citizens for Safety, a nonprofit group that advocates for more gun control — said that “arming police with high-powered weapons is not the only solution” and that Congress should pass federal safeguards to prevent illegal guns from getting to the street in the first place.
No, no, GUN CONTROL is NOT the answer!
“Until we get serious about curbing gun trafficking in this country, we’re forcing police departments into an arms race with criminals,” she said.
And who benefit$?
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Related:
Budget-assault vehicle
Pittsfield Spitball
Must be why crime is down but shootings are up:
"Boston homicides fall for fourth year" by Maria Cramer | Globe staff, December 31, 2013
For the fourth straight year, the number of homicides in Boston is on track to fall, this time sharply, and violent crime continues to decline, officials said Monday….
Sort of flies in the face of the above pos, but no problem. Must be because the Boston cops are heavily armed, right?
The reasons given varied, from more focused police work and aggressive prosecution of offenders with guns to better medical care for victims.
Despite that encouraging news, the almost-year-end statistics reveal a troubling reality: Although police continue to confiscate guns, the street supply remains steady enough for overall gun violence to continue unabated. The number of 2013 shootings by Dec. 22 is almost exactly what it was last year….
Have you HAD ENOUGH CRAP yet because I'm about to go off!
“There are way too many guns still out there,” said Acting Police Commissioner William Evans.
And you know who as the biggest ones.
More officers faced gunfire than last year, and three officers were shot while exchanging gunfire with suspects. That does not include a shootout in Watertown in April between police and the Boston Marathon bombing suspects and the fatal shooting of an MIT police officer earlier that night.
“It was a dangerous year for our officers,” Evans said in an interview Monday.
And for the public!
Evans said that many of the seized guns were stolen from people who bought them legally, or the guns came from other states that have laxer gun laws than Massachusetts.
This is looking like a GUN-GRABBING AGENDA PUSH to ME, with the byproduct of more money for crime-fighting!!
“You can go into other states and go into Walmart and buy them, and unfortunately sometimes that’s what we end up dealing with here in Massachusetts,” he said….
Boston police identified a suspect in 16 of the 40 killings that fell in their jurisdiction, said Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. They also solved seven homicides that occurred in 2012 and one from 1964, the murder of Mary Sullivan, who is believed to be the last victim of the Boston Strangler.
The majority of homicides in Boston are committed with firearms, and the suspect, usually concealed by darkness or a hooded shirt, fires from a car or walks up to a group of people and then runs, Conley said.
See: Police ask help to ID suspect in fatal robbery
“These are the most difficult to solve,” he said. “You’re not getting anything left behind by the suspect. ”
Boston police typically solve 38 percent of those shooting cases a year, Conley said….
That's all? And sadly, when you think about it, police don't want to solve crimes. Then there would be no call for more money, more tyranny, more anything, and they would be out of work.
Related: Heavy Metal Thieves Draining Boston
Cui bono?
Nationwide, in communities that have populations over 600,000, police have reported a slight uptick in the number of homicides, according to federal data….
They are up, they are down, whatever is needed to push the agenda of tyranny forward at a given time.
Hell, with all the police spying and everything one would think there would be no crimes at all.
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Related: Mass killings proliferate as Congress fails to control guns
We all know that agenda when we see it.
"Police shoot more often in Mass., cite rise in threats; A five-year trend, even as overall crime is down" by Maria Cramer | Globe Staff, January 05, 2014
At least 23 people were shot by police in Massachusetts in 2013 — 11 of them fatally, according to figures provided by Boston and State Police, troubling authorities who say the numbers reflect the growing threats police face, and startling civil libertarians who worry about the prevalence of deadly force.
I think the cops killed more, but I can't remember all the articles or victims I've posted here in the last year.
Yup, it is always the POOR, POOR POLICE and LAW ENFORCEMENT in my ma$$ media -- until it comes time for collective bargaining and work contracts.
From 2008 through 2013, the number of people shot by officers and state troopers has grown every year. Over that time period, there have been 86 shootings, 67 of which were determined to be justified. Two were classified as accidental, and two led to recommendations that the officers be retrained. The rest remain under investigation. Last year, Boston officials investigated six officer-involved shootings, compared with 1 in 2012. State Police investigated 17 in 2013 compared with 14 in 2012. \
In other words, police are never charged with murder in Massachusetts so fire away with those new guns!
Police cite two major causes for the uptick in violent confrontations: perpetrators, often mentally ill, who are quick to attack police, and the growing availability of illegal guns.
We $EE the AGENDA right in front of us despite the gun smoke of the propaganda pre$$!
“Guns are everywhere,” said State Police Colonel Timothy Alben. “When I started in this department in 1983, if you stopped a car and you seized a firearm, that was a rare occurrence. Today, this is a routine occurrence.”
Every year, he said, State Police seize hundreds of illegal guns — they confiscated 477 illegal firearms from Jan. 1, 2013, to Oct. 31, 2013, the most recent numbers available. Boston police seized 663 firearms in 2013, 125 more than the year before.
“There is nothing worse for an officer than having to hurt someone or kill someone,” said William Evans, the acting commissioner of the Boston Police Department. “But when we’re threatened, we have no other choice.”
I wish I could believe that.
Still, civil libertarians say an upward trend in shootings by police is alarming at a time when overall crime is down across the state.
Between 1987 and 2011, the rate of violent crime in Massachusetts dropped 19 percent, according to the state Executive Office of Public Safety. In Boston, the total number of major crimes — such as homicides, armed robberies, and assaults — were down 6 percent from Jan. 1 to Dec. 22, compared with the same time last year.
“It’s distressing,” said Carlton Williams, racial justice attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in Massachusetts. “Crime is going down. Violent interactions with police should also be going down.”
All but one of the shootings in 2013 in the state occurred after the Boston Marathon bombings in April, which was followed by a tense five-day manhunt for the two suspects. The manhunt ended in a firefight in Watertown, where one suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed and the other, his brother, Dzhokhar, injured. Transit Police officer Richard Donahue was shot and injured during the chaotic exchange, a shooting believed to be caused by friendly fire.
So the Marathon basically gave the cops carte blanche to open fire.
The Middlesex District Attorney’s office, which is investigating the Watertown shoot-out, said it is still waiting for reports from the myriad police agencies that responded to complete their investigation.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s shooting was the only one of the Watertown shootings included in the State Police tally.
Eugene O’Donnell, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former New York City police officer, said that in Boston during the bombings and later in Watertown, officers and troopers were essentially in a “war zone.”
Stay the f*** out of Boston at all costs!
“In Boston you had scenes of war, and the people on the front line of that war were the cops,” O’Donnell said. “How much that affects their behavior is an open question.”
Alben said he does not believe the increase in police shootings since the bombings reflects a police force on edge.
“How many interactions do we have with the public over the course of [one] year” Alben said. “There are literally hundreds of thousands . . . on an annual basis and hundreds of them that are done every day. How many of those end up being deadly force situations, I would suggest to you that the percentage is minuscule.”
Not if you or a loved one were killed and not able make it out alive. That's the way I view interaction with the police. I survived the experience.
It is unclear from the information provided by police exactly how many of the people shot were wielding weapons. Despite a request made in May for police reports detailing the circumstances of each shooting, State Police did not provide the information for this story. State Police investigate shootings in every community except Boston, Springfield, and Worcester. Of of the 73 shootings investigated by State Police between 2008 and 2013, 33 involved troopers and the other 40 involved officers in other departments. Boston Police also did not provide such reports, and Springfield and Worcester did not respond to requests for information.
Sort of a "f*** you" to the Boston Globe, 'eh?
But some of the departments whose incidents were investigated by the State Police gave more details. The Cambridge and Lowell police departments, for example, provided copies of incident reports detailing each time an officer fired a weapon. The cases ranged from shooting a rabid opossum to life-or-death incidents.
In April 2008, two Lowell police officers were dispatched to a home where they found a man holding a meat cleaver over his mother’s head. When the man refused to put down the weapon and started moving toward the terrified woman, one of the officers shot him in the back. The man survived.
Are you sure the evidence was not planted?
In Boston, where officers killed three of the six people they shot at in 2013, nearly all of the suspects were armed.
That seems awfully low to me. Who were the fatalities?
In June, a private security officer at a Dorchester housing complex shot at an unarmed suspect, grazing him, after police said the man tried to use his car as a weapon.
Well, that is not police. That is private $ecurity(?).
Boston police investigated that case and included it in their total because it occurred in their jurisdiction. Another case investigated by Boston police occurred in July, when a Middlesex deputy sheriff fired at a prisoner after he lunged for another sheriff’s gun during a medical visit at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital. The other sheriff was wounded in the struggle when his gun went off.
See: See No Evil, Hear No Evil in My Boston Globe
In addition, three Boston police officers were shot during some of the encounters. They all survived.
But in some fatal police shootings — those in which the person killed was not wielding a firearm or knife — the circumstances were murkier.
Murky = cover-up in my pos paper.
In June, Wilfredo Justiniano, a 41-year-old New Bedford man who lived with his mother, was driving through Quincy to visit his father in Boston.
For years, Justiniano had struggled with schizophrenia, but, according to his family, he had never been violent.
What pre$cription pharmaceuticals was he on?
That morning, a driver saw him weaving, clutching his chest, and looking panicked. Worried he might be having a heart attack, she called 911.
Trooper Stephen Walker, a 25-year veteran, responded and approached Justiniano, who immediately charged him, according to Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey’s final report on the encounter. Walker said he saw Justiniano wielding a pen and ordered him to put it down. First they said he had a pellet gun
“You want it, you're going to have to kill me,” Justiniano replied, according to Walker. He lunged at the officer repeatedly, forcing Walker to use chemical spray. Walker said Justiniano kept charging, yelling he would kill him. Walker said he had no choice — he fired two rounds. Justiniano, who was still struggling with police as they tried to handcuff him, was pronounced dead later that morning.
Well THAT SURE STINKS!
A detective showed up at his home in New Bedford.
“‘Wilfredo passed away,’” the detective said, as Justiniano’s 61-year-old mother, Nora Justiniano, recalled it.
The family hired a lawyer, Ilyas J. Rona, who said he has found inconsistencies in witness statements. He declined to be specific. The family is also raising questions about the State Police’s policy for dealing with mentally ill people .
“There could have been an alternative way, a better way to resolve it,” said Justiniano’s younger sister, Damaris Justiniano.
Alben said eyewitnesses said Walker, who is back on duty, had no other choice but to fire.
“We have to put ourselves in the boots of the trooper who responded that day,” Alben said.
No, I usually put myself in the victims shoes, sorry.
Damaris Justiniano said she wants an outside analysis of the case by her lawyers, who have requested all the documents associated with the investigation.
“I don’t want another family to go through what we’re going through,” she said.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Sister Says State Police Needed to Kill New Bedford Man
The same is true of everyone they need to kill.
Justiniano said she hopes such an analysis will force State Police to adopt the use of less lethal weapons, like Tasers, and provide training for dealing with mentally ill people.
Those are not the answer because they can still kill you.
Alben said that, in general, he dislikes Tasers because he worries officers are too quick to use them.
So put more firepower in their hands, right?
But he said he would like the private sector to develop technology that could disarm a suspect more safely.
To who$e benefit?
“In terms of negotiating with someone with mental health [issues], there is not a great deal of training in law enforcement,” Alben said. “If there is a shortcoming in any system it’s the fact that there aren’t those kinds of resources devoted to training.”
Since 2008, none of the cases cited by state and Boston police resulted in charges of criminal wrongdoing.
Alben said he does not believe that any of the shootings by troopers violated the department’s policies on excessive force.
In Boston, only two of the 13 cases in which a person was shot between 2008 and 2013 resulted in a recommendation of more training for the officer. Details of those cases were not provided. Five of the six shootings that occurred in 2013 remain under investigation, but Evans said he is confident officers responded appropriately.
“We’re not a department that’s trigger-happy,” he said.
Williams, the ACLU attorney, said that deeming virtually all the shootings justified creates the perception that prosecutors and police resist scrutinizing their partners in law enforcement.
It is a perception that is the reality!
“There are ways that police could go about building trust. One of those would be the very strong appearance of responsible, transparent investigations into the shootings and killings by police,” he said. “I definitely don’t think that appearance is there.”
I'm sorry, but trust is gone when it comes to AmeriKa's thin blue thugs that exist to protect wealth, power, and privilege.
Police say they have specially trained investigators, crime scene specialists, ballisticians, and forensic experts who carefully examine every police-involved shooting.
“Part of the social compact under which police are given power is a faith that we will properly police ourselves when necessary,” State Police spokesman David Procopio said. “State Police stand behind our record of doing that fairly and openly.”
Morrissey, who investigated the Justiniano case, said the question prosecutors must answer is if a crime has been committed.
“There is no easy determination, especially when you’re talking about someone losing their life,” he said. “This is painful for everyone involved.”
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Why do I feel like the Globe is minimizing and lying to me?
Related:
Many shots fired in police chase, prosecutor says
Suffolk district attorney rules Boston police justified in using deadly force
Officer cleared in fatal shooting
Darryl Dookhran Deserved to Die
So does anyone shot and killed by AmeriKa's loving security services.
"Suspect killed in standoff with police; Man had assault rifle, officers say" by Colin A. Young | Globe Correspondent, July 03, 2013
For the second time in as many days, Massachusetts law enforcement officers shot and killed a person during a confrontation, as state troopers fired on a 23-year-old man in Orange on Wednesday when he refused to put down an assault rifle, officials said.
That's in my county.
Members of the State Police STOP team fatally shot the man around 5 a.m. as troopers tried to search his apartment on Mechanic Street in the Central Massachusetts town, State Police said. Authorities did not name the victim on Wednesday.
Soon after troopers entered the second-floor apartment, the man “pointed an assault rifle at them and refused commands to submit,” said State Police spokesman David Procopio. “A trooper or troopers discharged service weapons in response and struck the suspect.”
The man was given first aid at the scene, but was later pronounced dead at an area hospital. The suspect was under investigation for allegedly selling oxycodone and Percocet, State Police said.
Related(?):
Ex-officer admits he aided drug ring
7 charged with conspiring to sell oxycodone
Fifteen charged with selling oxycodone in Natick ring
And yet government is all bunged-up about medical marijuana!
STOP, or the Special Tactical Operations Team, was used for Wednesday’s early morning search because detectives had “direct and credible intelligence that the suspect had indicated that he had firearms and would use them,” Procopio said.
Initiating the STOP team is “pretty standard in situations where we anticipate firearms being present or suspects having a propensity for violence,” State Police Colonel Timothy P. Alben said. “In this case, those criteria were met.”
Troopers found a second firearm — a handgun — in the man’s bed, Procopio said.
During the incident inside 18 Mechanic St., a 25-year-old woman who lives in the unit, suffered an eye injury. She was taken for medical treatment and released, State Police said.
The use of deadly force by state troopers is under investigation by Northwestern District Attorney David E. Sullivan.
Pfft!
The incident was the second time in two days that law enforcement used deadly force against a suspect.
On Tuesday, Ashland police fatally shot Andrew Stigliano, 27, after he allegedly confronted them with a shotgun when officers tried to arrest him. Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan’s office is investigating.
See:
Police in Ashland fatally shoot man
Officer cleared in fatal shooting of Ashland man
They killed him because they were serving an arrest warrant as he was holed up in the attic? That was the "threat?"
In additional shootings by State Police, troopers and Boston police shot a 53-year-old man allegedly wielding a pellet gun during a confrontation June 12 near East Eighth and Old Harbor streets in South Boston, police said. The man was treated for injuries that were not life-threatening.
He was with Justiniano.
Two days later, on June 14, a 25-year veteran of the State Police shot and killed a 41-year-old man on Route 28 in Quincy after a violent struggle, according to the Norfolk district attorney’s office.
That was Justiniano.
The three incidents — in Orange, South Boston, and Quincy — are the only shootings involving State Police this year, according to Procopio.
Gary Campbell, who owns the two-unit building at 18 Mechanic St. in Orange, said a young couple were living in the second-floor apartment. Campbell said he did not know the man very well.
Campbell said there had been problems with the property recently, including a May drug raid in which Kenneth Dennis, who managed the property for Campbell, was arrested.
A search warrant executed at 18 Mechanic St. on May 3 yielded heroin, a scale, packaging materials used in drug distribution, and five shotguns, according to the Northwestern district attorney’s office.
Yeah, somehow we are still awash in heroin, cocaine, and meth despite the "drug war."
In November 2011, a man was shot at the address with a .22 caliber handgun that a resident had hidden in the apartment, according to the district attorney’s office. The resident, Robert Donovan, pleaded guilty in June 2012 to aggravated assault and battery by means of dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury.
Some neighbors said the building at 18 Mechanic St. has been the focus of police attention for years.
“It’s horrible to live on the same street as that house,” said a lifelong Mechanic Street resident, who requested anonymity. “It isn’t comfortable to walk by there on your way home from work at night.”
Must be the heroin.
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And I can't say it enough: If the cops kill you, you deserved to die.
"Military veteran killed in Lynn after police shoot him in altercation" by Travis Andersen | Globe Staff, September 05, 2013
LYNN — Police fatally shot a military veteran at an apartment complex Thursday after the man reached for an officer’s gun during a struggle, according to officials and neighbors.
The Essex district attorney’s office identified the man as Denis Reynoso, 30, of Lynn. Family members of the man could not be reached for comment following the shooting.
Lynn Police Lieutenant Richard Donnelly said officers were called to 115 O’Callaghan Way in the King’s Lynne apartment complex, about 11:10 a.m. for a disturbance and were told that a man was screaming outside. They were then directed to Newcastle Street, which is also in the development.
Officers tried to speak to Reynoso there, but he grabbed for one of their guns and “shots were fired,” Donnelly said….
So say the police.
The two-story, brick apartment where the shooting occurred remained sealed off with police tape Thursday afternoon, along with the adjoining units on either side. State and Lynn police were posted outside the property.
Neighbors said that Reynoso served in both the Army and the National Guard and had at least one tour in the Middle East.
The veterans’ agent in Lynn and military officials did not return messages seeking comment.
Reynoso lived in the apartment with a woman named Jessica and their two sons, and he was often seen tossing a baseball with them outside, neighbors said. Neighbors were not certain if they were married.
Wayne Spates, 60, said the couple were “always nice, always out there talking to anybody.” He said he saw Reynoso being placed in an ambulance after the shooting, which drew more than a dozen police vehicles to the scene.
“He didn’t look good when they were taking him out of here,” Spates said.
He said he sometimes saw Reynoso coming home from National Guard duty in “full gear, full pack.”
“It’s a shame,” Spates said. “Really nice people, nice guy.”
Another neighbor, Margaret Laube, 48, said nothing seemed amiss when she saw Jessica a couple of days ago.
She said she saw her exiting her car with one of the boys “like everything was normal.” Neighbors said the couple had lived in King’s Lynne for several years.
The shooting on Thursday came about 13 months after police in Lynn fatally shot a 23-year-old man who they said rammed a cruiser with his car. Blodgett’s office found that officers’ actions were justified in that case.
The police action on Thursday also occurred two weeks after a 37-year-old Danvers man was fatally shot by officers after he allegedly lunged toward State and Danvers police with a knife.
See: Danvers man shot to death by police
They killed Kehoe.
Five cops taking on a guy with a knife and they can't subdue him without killing him?
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Of course, police shootings are not to be questioned:
"Friends of man shot by Lynn police ask why" by Brian MacQuarrie | Globe Staff, September 07, 2013
LYNN — Denis Reynoso logged eight years of military service and a tour in Iraq, worked as a window clerk at the Salem Post Office, and recently became engaged to the woman who shared a modest townhouse with him.
To his neighbors, the 30-year-old was a quiet, doting father who hardly caused a ripple in the day-to-day life of the neatly manicured King’s Lynne apartment complex.
That tableau was shaken at midday Wednesday when Reynoso was fatally shot by Lynn police, who entered his apartment after being called to the development following reports of a man screaming and acting strangely.
Oh, so it was not even outside that this happened to the unarmed fellow?
Lynn Police Chief Kevin Coppinger told reporters later Wednesday that Reynoso, who lived with his fiancée, Jessica Spinney, and two children, apparently had grabbed the gun of one of his officers. But neighbors are questioning how a man they described as respectful and friendly could have provoked a deadly response.
“I just don’t believe that he would treat someone in uniform that way,” said Mariessa Lopez, 28, who lives across the street from Reynoso’s apartment.
I don't believe anything the police say, sorry.
Lopez said those questions are shared by Reynoso’s fiancée, who visited her Friday morning. “She has a lot of questions that need answers. What happened wasn’t right,” said Lopez, who recalled that she heard three shots fired.
At the hospital Wednesday, Lopez said, Spinney gazed longingly at her new engagement ring. “She kept looking at it. She couldn’t believe this was happening,” Lopez recalled.
On Friday, a small collection of candles, some lit, were clustered outside the door of Reynoso’s two-story apartment.
Was it soon removed like with Dookhran?
State Police assigned to the Essex district attorney’s office took control of the investigation after Reynoso, who authorities said was shot once in the midsection, was pronounced dead at 4:14 p.m. Wednesday at North Shore Medical Center-Union Hospital in Lynn.
Carrie Kimball Monahan, spokeswoman for District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett, said she could not predict how long the investigation would take.
What should take so long, really? Reminds me of the whole Todashev thing.
Three Lynn police officers have been placed on three days of paid leave, in accordance with department protocol. Two of the officers were inside the apartment at the time of the shooting, Coppinger told reporters. The third was walking toward the residence. All three were treated for minor injuries at Union Hospital and released.
Lopez said she and Reynoso had attended the Career Development Center in Lynn, an alternative school.
“He was just a good guy,” Lopez said. Holding a mobile device outside the shooting scene, she showed a tribute to Reynoso posted on the Internet by a mutual friend.
“Denis was a great person,” the posting read. “He fought for the rights we take advantage of.”
In 2004, Reynoso enlisted in the Massachusetts Army National Guard and served in Iraq from August 2007 to May 2008 as a combat engineer, according to the Defense Department.
During that tour, Reynoso appeared in a video created by the military to let service members send holiday greetings to their families.
“I want to give a special shout-out to all my friends and family back home in Lynn, Massachusetts, and a special shout-out to my girl, Jessica. I’ll see you soon,” Reynoso said in the video.
In November 2010, Reynoso transferred to the Army Reserve and left the military in November 2012. One month later, Reynoso resigned from his job as a window clerk at the Salem Post Office, where he had worked since August 2011.
Reynoso did not speak much of his military past, Lopez said. However, his service was known in the community.
“It was just something you would say to him at Veterans Day. You would kind of salute him,” Lopez said.
“This hurts,” she added, “because when I sit out on my porch, his is the door I look at.”
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Also see:
City activists create Peace Collaborative to reduce violence
A campaign to counter the allure of violence
They don't mean state violence so I have stopped reading those controlled-opposition agenda-pushing articles.
And why doesn't crime go down?
"Boston officials fear end to crime-fighting effort; Say city police pay award would imperil program" by Maria Cramer | Globe Staff, October 21, 2013
Safe Street teams, the community policing program that has been credited with reducing crime in Boston over the last several years, could cease to exist if the City Council accepts an arbitrator’s award that would give police a sizable pay hike and make other changes to department policy, city officials say.
Related: Boston City Council approves hefty police pay raise
Proposed alterations to the way members of those teams are selected could limit their opportunities for overtime pay and prompt them to quit the 14 units, officials say.
Fine. See ya!
Officers assigned to the teams walk and bike through the city’s roughest neighborhoods to form relationships with business owners, community leaders, and residents.
Then why is the first reaction to seeing police an "uh-oh" from most Americans despite the endless years of media propaganda promoting police as our friends!
“This effectively will end the Safe Street teams,” Paul Curran, the municipal director of labor relations, told the City Council during a hearing on the patrolmen’s award. “The way this arbitration award was written, [officers] will not stay.”
Union officials scoffed at the assertion, saying they support the Safe Street teams and it was the city that had requested the change on how these officers are assigned….
Who cares?
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As long as the police stay off of them they should be pretty safe.
"Local police expand roles in drug war; Can access data on prescriptions" by Chelsea Conaboy | Globe Staff, January 14, 2013
Local police who are investigating the illegal distribution of powerful painkillers will have access to a state database tracking prescriptions for the drugs under rules approved by health officials last week. The expansion of the Prescription Monitoring Program comes just as local departments are being asked to take on more responsibility for the drug cases.
Forget about MEDICAL PRIVACY, huh?
The State Police last month closed an eight-member drug diversion unit created in 1974 to investigate illegal distribution of prescription drugs, to narrow a $3 million budget gap.
Prescription drug abuse has been an intractable problem in Massachusetts for years, and State Police spokesman David Procopio said the agency was reluctant to eliminate the unit. But the expansion of the monitoring program to local law enforcement officials and other agencies “mitigated a little bit of the concern we had,” he said.
That's because drug money bolsters bank bottom lines and funds black budgets for government drug-runners.
In addition to local police, a State Police narcotics unit and investigators attached to each of the district attorney’s offices will investigate diversion of prescription drugs, Procopio said. Federal offices, including the US Drug Enforcement Administration, also play a role in the state. Under the new rules, those groups will also gain access to the online database, in which pharmacists are required to record each prescription they fill.
“We’ll try to fill the gaps,” said Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey.
Dr. Alan Woodward, a member of the state Public Health Council, which approved the rules expanding the database program Wednesday, said he was concerned about the drug unit’s closure. “Doctor shopping” by someone seeking the drugs often occurs in multiple communities, he said, so a State Police unit was more suited to investigate than local officials….
Yup, legal pre$cription pharmaceuticals -- the worst drugs of all save for money!
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Related:
Former state trooper sentenced to 41 months in prison
Did informants plant evidence? Police, DAs should say more
Sorry I was so late getting to that.
Boston police to be armed with iPads
iPads donated to Boston police to fight crime on streets
The NSA trapdoor doesn't bother them?
"Boston police officers wary of GPS for cruisers; Fear too much scrutiny of police under city’s plan" by Maria Cramer | Globe Staff, November 18, 2013
The pending use of GPS tracking devices, slated to be installed in Boston police cruisers, has many officers worried that commanders will monitor their every move while supervisors insist the system will improve their response to emergencies.
They certainly can NOT be SERIOUS given that the GOVERNMENT has been SPYING on ALL of US for DECADES!
The change, a result of contract negotiations between the city and the patrol officers union, puts Boston in league with small-town departments across the state and big-city agencies across the country that have installed global positioning systems in cruisers.
Boston police administrators say the system gives dispatchers the ability to see where officers are, rather than wait for a radio response. Using GPS, they say, accelerates their response to a call for a shooting or an armed robbery.
Yeah, it's ALL GOOD! That is what we have been told by the agenda-pu$hing propaganda pre$$!
The addition of GPS, which still needs City Council approval of the arbitration award package that resulted from the negotiations, is the most dramatic change from the new contract facing officers as the department begins a new level of scrutiny. Another change: Cameras equipped in district booking stations would record officers and preserve film of their bookings of suspects.
The GPS devices have stirred the most anxiety.
“We’ll be moving forward as quickly as possible,” Edward F. Davis said in an interview shortly before he resigned as police commissioner Nov. 1. “There are an enormous amount of benefits. . . . This is clearly an important enhancement and should lead to further reductions in crime.”
An officer in trouble is also likely to get help faster if commanders know exactly where he or she is.
“If an officer calls for help, we’ll know the cars that are closest to them,” Davis said.
But some officers said they worry that under such a system they will have to explain their every move and possibly compromise their ability to court street sources.
“No one likes it. Who wants to be followed all over the place?” said one officer who spoke anonymously because department rules forbid police from speaking to the media without authorization. “If I take my cruiser and I meet [reluctant witnesses] to talk, eventually they can follow me and say why were you in a back dark street for 45 minutes? It’s going to open up a can of worms that can’t be closed.”
Please tell me he did NOT SAY THAT!
Related: Cellphone firms regularly give data to law enforcement
]
Well, after having defending you cops against the money junkies trying to take your pensions, healthcare, and other benefits I can officially say "F*** YOU!" What UNBELIEVABLY ARROGANT ASSHOLES are cops!!
Yeah, the spying is okay as long as it AIN'T YOU, huh? Pfft!
Davis said that officers will not be disciplined if they can reasonably explain their whereabouts.
So how does the lash of total surveillance tyranny feel, copper? Eat your own, you f***s!!!!!!!!!!!!
The department cannot discipline officers based on any information collected by the GPS devices in the first six months following their installation.
And the department must alert an officer if anyone from the public requests his or her GPS records.
But the public is not alerted when they grab ours. In fact, the telecom can't even talk about it!
“Our interest was the scrutiny,” said Joseph Sandulli, a lawyer for the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association. “This thing keeps a permanent record of where an officer is all day. If he stops to go to the bathroom, that stop appears on the screen. If he goes a mile over the speed limit, someone can question that. It’s quite an intrusion on people’s lives.”
The bitching is unreal to a public that has been surveilled for decades!!
Davis acknowledged that one of the advantages to installing the system will be the ability to keep track of officers and make sure they are not leaving their district or patrol area without permission or driving recklessly.
And so they aren't going to get pay-offs from drug dealers or facilitating the flow of drugs as they have been caught doing in the past, huh?
Officers “have had a lot of latitude in where they go. It’s a huge change,” Davis said. “Not a lot of people have this sort of control over them, but I think in our business, because of the safety factor, the benefit that you derive from knowing where your assets are in an emergency far outweighs any inconvenience.”
'kay?
Another officer said he is less worried about scrutiny than he is about how vulnerable it could make the department to tech-savvy criminals.
“How long is it going to be before some criminal mastermind . . . gets some kids at MIT to figure out how to break into the GPS system?” he asked. “Then they know where the cops are and can go rob banks.”
That is their primary concern, banks?
Sigh!
Related: Sunday Globe Special: Hacking is Good Bu$ine$$
Must be why the Globe has been off Target recently.
So who benefits?
Cheryl Fiandaca, spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department, said officials expect the system to be secure from hackers. Sometimes expectations are not met.
Happens to me every morning when I open a Globe (glad I'm not today) and am once again disappointed.
“The GPS is highly integrated into the 911 call management system,” she said. “It is a private network and is not on the public Internet.”
********************
The City Council must decide whether to fund the package….
They did.
Police and union officials negotiated changes to the department’s camera surveillance policy. District stations are already equipped with cameras that are monitored in real time by a supervisor. The change would allow the department to record and preserve those images….
Sandulli said the cameras could help the department fight allegations that suspects were abused while they were booked or in police custody, he said.
“It’s a tremendous advantage of the city because it means the end of frivolous lawsuits,” Sandulli said. “It’s a mixed matter for the union. On the one hand it helps an officer better defend himself if he is wrongfully accused, but on the other hand you’re under scrutiny all the time.”
Police said they can preserve the images indefinitely.
“These are internal cameras and do not have restrictions on preserving tape,” Fiandaca said. “We intend to record and maintain as storage allows.”
Which means everything. That is why there are huge data collection centers are being built and operated by government.
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Also see: GPS tools in cruisers are part of 21st-century policing
Get used to the tyranny like us, copper.
