Related: Common Crime
"A homeless man with a “violent criminal past” allegedly stabbed two Boston park rangers who approached him on Boston Common Tuesday, lunging at them in an unprovoked and wild attack that left one ranger in critical condition at Massachusetts General Hospital, police officials said. Boston police chased Bodio Hutchinson, 34, into the Public Garden, where they arrested him and fished a knife out of a nearby pond, officials said. Before officers tackled him to the pavement, witnesses said, Hutchinson told the officers to shoot him."
"Lack of action cited on Common stabbing suspect" by Maria Sacchetti and Maria Cramer | Globe Staff October 18, 2014
Nothing stopped Bodio Hutchinson the night he ransacked his mother’s apartment and nearly set it on fire. Not two blasts from a bean-bag gun as he threatened police officers. Not hours of tense negotiations. Not even canisters of tear gas.
Daniel Linskey, the police negotiator that night in March 2006, said that Hutchinson should have been committed to a mental facility years ago. Instead, he went on to brutally attack relatives, law-enforcement officers, and strangers, allegedly including two park rangers Tuesday in Boston Common.
Days before the attack, a court issued a warrant for Hutchinson’s arrest because he missed a court hearing.
“I think he shouldn’t be on the street,” Linskey, a retired superintendent in chief of the Boston Police Department, said in an interview Thursday. “Any encounter you have with this kid when he’s off his medicine, it’s going to be a fight, and it’s going to be a fight for your life. He doesn’t belong in society.”
The knife attack on the park rangers raised new questions about whether the state could have done more to protect the public from a man with a long and violent criminal record and a history of mental illness, a man who had also threatened in the past to harm himself. Hutchinson had at least 17 convictions and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia as early as 1999.
We have seen so many of these cases, from Alemany on down, and you reach the point where you start believing these guys are being intentionally neglected so the fear threat of mayhem and need for police is necessary.
Along the way, any number of people could have petitioned a district court judge to commit him to a hospital, including psychiatrists, judges, probation officers, prosecutors, lawyers, prison officials, as well as relatives or close friends, according to state law.
It is unclear if any relatives or state officials have tried to have Hutchinson committed to a secure mental health facility, such as Bridgewater State Hospital, because such court cases are private.
Related: Bridgewater As Bad As Ever
Also see: Bridgewater State to create sex assault task force
But it appears that nobody involved in his most recent criminal case, a savage attack on strangers at a McDonald’s restaurant in Boston last year, tried to have him committed, according to the Suffolk district attorney’s office.
Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, said that prosecutors did not seek a civil commitment because judges have found Hutchinson competent to stand trial — and responsible for his crimes.
But after Hutchinson pleaded guilty in January to two counts of assault and battery in the McDonald’s attack, a Boston Municipal Court judge rejected the prosecutors’ request to send Hutchinson to jail for 30 months, where he would still be today. The judge instead sentenced him to 18 months in jail. Hutchinson was released in July on probation and skipped an Oct. 8 hearing in mental health court.
Had to make room for pot smokers.
Six days later, Hutchinson attacked the park rangers who arrived at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument to investigate a report about a man with a knife. Hutchinson allegedly stabbed each man five times, severing an artery in one man’s abdomen. At his arraignment, Hutchinson’s lawyer said he was mentally ill and alone. His family did not return calls from the Globe.
Victim advocate Laurie Myers said someone should have made sure that Hutchinson was committed to a secure facility, because he repeatedly committed violent acts, was mentally ill, and apparently failed to comply with court orders.
“It’s a matter of someone stepping up to do it,” said Myers, president of Community Voices, a statewide victim advocacy organization, on Friday.
He fell through the cracks.
She added, “He should have been in some type of supervised program. He should not have been just walking around like a ticking time bomb.”
In Essex County, for instance, judges have detained Ernesto Gonzalez for more than six years after his 2008 arrest in connection with the disappearance of his son. He is currently under a civil commitment to Bridgewater State Hospital and has been declared unfit to stand trial.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness of Massachusetts, a grass-roots advocacy organization, said people with mental illness often lack support and services, turning prisons into the new mental hospitals.
And Bridgewater is at the bottom of the heap!
The alliance also says studies show most people with mental illness are not violent. And commitment is not necessarily a solution. Bridgewater State Hospital, a secure facility for mentally ill inmates, has been under fire for the 2009 death of a patient.
I wouldn't want my family member committed to that chamber of horrors.
June Binney, a former general counsel at Bridgewater State Hospital, said a civil commitment is “a reasonable option” if someone presents a danger to themselves or others. She declined to comment on Hutchinson’s case, but said it warranted review.
“Should somebody take a look at what happened along the way with him? Absolutely,” said Binney, who now runs the criminal justice project at NAMI Massachusetts.
Another option to hold people longer is to have them declared a habitual offender, which can add additional jail time to a conviction. But Wark said Hutchinson is not a habitual offender under state law, a designation that requires a defendant to have served at least two sentences of three years or more in a state or federal prison.
Hutchinson, a 34-year-old homeless man who is 6 feet 1 inch and 290 pounds, has a long record of harming others and threatening to harm himself — and his criminal records show that he has been sent to Bridgewater and other mental health facilities in the past.
When Hutchinson allegedly stabbed park rangers Albert Hurd, 46, and James Lunnin, 25, on Tuesday he allegedly told police, “Shoot me, shoot me.”
It was just as he had behaved in his mother’s apartment in 2006, when Linskey and other officers tried to persuade Hutchinson to surrender, talking to him about sports, his sister, anything to get him to leave peacefully.
“Come on in and kill me, I don’t want to live anymore,” Hutchinson told police that night, according to court records.
Years later, Linskey was listening to the police radio on New Year’s Eve when a call came in from a woman complaining about her brother, who was off his medication and threatening her.
The suspect’s name was Bodio Hutchinson.
As Linskey reached for the radio to warn others that Hutchinson was violent and mentally ill, he wondered why the man was still free.
“He can’t be walking around,” said Linskey, who has retired from the Boston Police Department. “He’s proven over and over that he doesn’t stay on his medications and if he doesn’t stay on his medications, he is dangerous.”
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"Boston Common stabbing suspect has grim history; Mental illness, violence detailed" by Evan Allen and Maria Sacchetti | Globe Staff October 15, 2014
The homeless man accused of stabbing two Boston park rangers on Boston Common on Tuesday, critically injuring one, suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and has no memory of the attack, his defense lawyer said Wednesday.
“He struggles every day to know what’s his reality,” said Shannon Lopez, who said her client suffers from hallucinations and fears the world around him.
Bodio S. Hutchinson, 34, was ordered held on $1 million bail after pleading not guilty to charges including armed assault with intent to murder.
The wounded rangers were identified as 46-year-old Albert Hurd, a 22-year veteran, and James Lunnin, 25, who joined the rangers this year. Authorities said the older ranger is in the intensive care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, where his condition has been upgraded to serious. Lunnin was treated and released.
Hutchinson, who stands 6-foot-1 and weighs 290 pounds, has a history of bizarre and violent behavior, including unprovoked attacks on strangers and law enforcement, and episodes of savage biting, court records show. As of 2013, the records show, Hutchinson had 17 convictions — and even more arrests.
Why wasn't he in jail then?
After one attack in a Newmarket Square McDonald’s in February of 2013, one of Hutchinson’s alleged victims asked him why he had suddenly begun punching a woman drinking a cup of coffee.
“Instead of answering me in words, he growled like a lion. Like a bear. No words at all. Just RAGGGHHHH!’’ Joseph Umbro, who jumped in to help the woman, recalled Wednesday. Umbro said he was pummeled and bitten by Hutchinson. “He had this crazed, animalistic look on his face. I will never forget it.’’
In another violent outburst at Nashua Street Jail in 2010, it took nine officers to restrain Hutchinson, court records show. “Throughout the altercation and its aftermath, the defendant demonstrated almost super-human strength and an indifference to pain,” the documents said.
During Hutchinson’s arraignment in Boston Municipal Court Wednesday, Assistant District Attorney Lynn Feigenbaum described the events leading up to the stabbing of the park rangers.
**************
Hutchinson’s criminal history paints a picture of a violent man grappling with mental illness as far back as 1999.
On a May morning that year, two Boston police officers said they found Hutchinson sitting in the middle of his street in Dorchester rolling a marijuana cigarette.
I think we found the source of the problem.
Hutchinson told them he was “chilling” before allegedly punching them both in the face and injuring an EMT.
Police charged Hutchinson with assault, possessing marijuana, resisting arrest and disturbing the peace, but the case did not go to trial. A notation in the court record indicated that Hutchinson “may be depressed,” and possibly suicidal and the case was ultimately dismissed on the condition that Hutchinson cooperate with his probation officer, take his medication, and attend therapy.
It was the first of at least three alleged attacks on Boston police officers, according to court records. In April 2004, Hutchinson was charged with assault and battery on police officers, which was later reduced to resisting arrest, putting it on track for dismissal. But he violated probation and was sent to jail for nine months, the court said.
According to court records, in March of 2006, Hutchinson stormed into his mother’s apartment in Dorchester, trashed it, and microwaved metal canisters, causing sparks to fly. Aware of his mental problems, police urged him to surrender. He refused.
“Come on in and kill me, I don’t want to live anymore. I’ll only be leaving in a body bag. I’m not going back to any hospitals,” police said he told them.
An ensuing standoff lasted more than four hours. Police shot Hutchinson twice with a bean-bag gun but it didn’t subdue him.
Police called in more than a dozen new officers, including the special operations team and the K-9 unit. They turned off power to the apartment and threw in canisters of gas designed to subdue him, according to records.
Fearing he would attempt suicide, police finally entered the apartment and found him locked in the bathroom. Police said he attacked four officers, biting, kicking, and swinging a metal pipe.
After short stay in Bridgewater State Hospital, Hutchinson was found guilty of multiple assaults, and sentenced to two years in the Suffolk County House of Correction.
Hutchinson was sentenced to up to another year and a half after attacking his uncle in 2008.
By early 2010, Hutchinson was back in court for allegedly interrupting his roommate while the man was having sex, punching him repeatedly and then biting off a portion of the man’s ear. Hutchinson was acquitted by a jury.
The victim declined to testify against him, according to the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office.
After that arrest, Hutchinson exploded at correction officers at the Nashua Street Jail. Hutchinson punched, bit, and kicked six officers who were trying to get him under control after he refused to be stripsearched, records show.
During his trial, a defense mental health specialist argued that Hutchinson was a paranoid schizophrenic and chronic PCP and marijuana user. Hutchinson was convicted, but is appealing.
The unprovoked attack on the woman in McDonalds was in February 2013, and Hutchinson was ordered to serve 18 months behind bars. He served most of the time while awaiting trial, according to records. It is not clear when he was released.
When he was arrested this week, Hutchinson gave his most recent address as the Pine Street Inn, but a spokeswoman said he had not stayed there in months. Hutchinson had previously stayed intermittently at the Long Island shelter, according to a Boston Public Health Commission spokeswoman, but on Sept. 8 he was barred for 60 days for bringing contraband into the facility.
Can't go there anymore.
Boston Police spokesman Sergeant Michael McCarthy said Wednesday that the department is currently working to improve the quality of life on the Common. Arrests are up in the area since February, and a focus on drug enforcement appears to be driving down other crimes, he said.
McCarthy said that the stabbing would be reviewed to determine whether there are ways to make the rangers, who are not police officers and do not carry guns, safer.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Common was full of people enjoying the unusually warm weather.
Some said that the quiet during the day often gives way to violence at night.
Dana Montiero, 21, recounted a late-night encounter with a drunk man who hurled homophobic slurs at his group of friends, then punched him in the face.
Must have been Jewish.
No police or rangers were there to break up the fight, Montiero, said, adding that more rangers should patrol at night.
“I was not expecting that type of violence in a public park,” he said.
Next thing you know is they will armed.
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Looks like a mean mother-f***er, too.
Related: One Boston park ranger released from hospital, other improving
Maybe you could move to a better neighborhood:
"Boston-area communities vie to be the next Somerville" by Beth Teitell | Globe Staff October 17, 2014
As Somerville housing prices rise and the city “turns into Cambridge,” in the words of real estate broker Stephen Bremis, contenders are vying for the on-deck slot Somerville is shedding: the hip, genuine, and affordable alternative to a more prestigious town. The loveable sidekick to the star.
But it’s not easy to become the next Somerville.
Urban studies specialists say several factors must combine to spark an invasion, for better or worse....
It's worse because of the endless internalization of war terminology by by goddamn paper.
Artists and gay men without children have tended to arrive first — groups identified as “risk-oblivious,” said Richard Florida, an urban studies theorist and author. Restaurants, coffee shops,and independent stores come next, followed quickly by the academics, software engineers, and lawyers....
These newly hot neighborhoods attract what are called knowledge workers and the “creative class,’’ who in turn often displace working-class residents who can’t afford the skyrocketing housing prices, much less put up with the beekeepers and chicken farmers who have suddenly arrived in their community....
Henry Alford, a humorist who spent a long weekend mocking Brooklyn’s hipster scene for the New York Times, also analyzed the alchemy of what makes a neighborhood flourish....
A just-released study by Boston University’s Initiative on Cities found that Somerville is a city other mayors look to for policy ideas. A map posted online by the city shows that municipal leaders from as far away as Pakistan and China have visited City Hall to learn how the city uses real-time data to solve problems and create policy....
With Somerville housing prices rising, finding the next Somerville is all the more urgent....
Could be Fitchburg, Watertown, Chelsea, Medford, Malden.
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I blame it all on racist cops.
Related: Boston Police must adjust to avoid discriminatory patterns
Also see:
Mayor Walsh launches new office to address poverty and income inequality
Boston’s Rockefeller Center? Ice rink may come to City Hall Plaza
Influx of business gives regatta a golden glow
Lawmakers warm to Boston Olympics bid
Urban acupuncture and Boston’s public realm
Almost makes you wish for the good old days:
"Struggle and sparkle on the Menino book tour" by Andrew Ryan | Globe Staff October 16, 2014
NEW YORK — The transition from mayor to author has been complicated. Menino has been weakened by cancer. And this week, just as he embarked on a book tour, laryngitis stole his voice.
But Tuesday night at Roosevelt House at Hunter College, the five-term mayor has embarked on a whirlwind media tour, coaxing his voice to cooperate as he stops at MSNBC, Fox, and CNN.
At the radio studios of WNYC, Menino laid the blame for Boston’s divisive school integration on politicians who kept “all the blacks in one area” and “forced” the judge to implement a faulty busing plan. Then a coughing fit interrupted Menino mid-sentence.
Menino plans to attend private book parties at Boston University and his publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and is scheduled next week for a book signing and media appearances in Washington, if his health allows.
At the end of the month, there’s a signing scheduled at Barnes & Noble at the Prudential Center.
**********
Having the kickoff at Roosevelt House somehow seemed appropriate, underscoring Menino’s connection to the long arc of progressive politics in America. The Neo-Georgian townhouse, sitting blocks away from Central Park, was one of the places where Roosevelt found a renewed sense of purpose after being paralyzed by polio.
The house later served as the launching pad for the political career of America’s longest-serving president. In the same upper room where Roosevelt laid the foundation of the New Deal, Menino sat near a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking East 65th Street....
Former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg greeted Menino with the warmth of an old friend. In introductory remarks at the book party, Bloomberg described Menino as “one of the most successful mayors to ever run a city in the United States.” History, he said, will include Menino in the same breath as transcendent big city mayors the likes of New York’s Fiorello LaGuardia and Chicago’s Richard Daley.
After the mess he left Walsh?
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And the myths of Menino live on in the Boston Globe.
Also see: Menino among friends in New York
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
They all have something in (Boston) Common
