Hey, there! Log in / Register
Don't you hate it when you're having an argument and half the police force shows up, including K-9s and guys in SWAT uniforms?
By adamg on Tue, 06/12/2012 - 3:08pm
An argument between two women leaving a Financial District bar at closing time one April night ended with a street-clogging "near riot" that took 67 police officers - including K-9 and SWAT units - and at least two uses of pepper spray to quell, police told the Boston Licensing Board this morning.
Showing they'd lost none of the prowess for pointless violence pioneered in Boston in the Broad Street riot 175 years ago, people originally just ambling from nearby bars to the 75 State Street garage early on April 7 decided, what the hell, and began pummeling each other.
Even with officers from every district in the city responding, it still took an hour to finally clear the area around State and Broad, Lt. Michael Talbot told the board. At least one woman reported being raped, Talbot said. And in a separate incident around the same time at the Place on India Street, Talbot said, a man tried beating up his ex-girlfriend - after following her there from Kowloon in Saugus.
Talbot said the main action began around 1:50 a.m. with two arguing women exiting the Bar Room. One of them punched a man in the face. Because the Bar Room is near the entrance to the garage, the fight attracted attention of people heading for their cars from other nearby bars, he said. The crowd grew ugly. More punches flew. A police unit assigned to closing time in the area started feeling overwhelmed and radioed for help. More people swarmed into the area. A manager at the Bar Room said at one point he looked out and that the area was so packed with combatants he couldn't see individual punches being thrown.
Lt. John Hughes told the board that at that point, he activated the city's emergency-deployment system, in which officers from every other district in the city dropped what they were doing and sped downtown, "due to the large crowd and numerous fights taking place."
When it was all over the two women who sparked it all were under arrest.
The licensing board decides Thursday whether to take any action against the Bar Room and the Place.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
The insanity of it all
Wonder what would happen if they posted a sobriety checkpoint at one of those garages?
Does it ever occur to these morons who plan things in this city that forcing people from bars into cars is stupid and counterproductive?
No doubt this event will spur more calls for earlier closing times and fewer liquor licenses, which will lead to more extreme events occurring earlier in the evening instead of 2am.
Sobriety checkpoint
That would be amazing. A lot of these losers who hang out in Faneuil Hall/Financial District bars drive in from the suburbs (where they still live with mommy and daddy) and I question how many of them have designated drivers. I'm sure the bars love taking their money, but it's too bad that city dwellers who actually know how to handle ourselves have to deal with early closing times and other fallout from fights like these.
Your damn right they do
Same goes with sporting events, go down the list of arrests and 8/10 it's an out of towner who got drunk and needed to show people it was his city.
Put sobriety checkpoints up and allow the damn bars to stay open for gods sakes. Dumping hordes of drunks into small bar districts all at once is asking for trouble.
You don;t have these problems in DTX, the financial district, southie or a lot of the ex-urb neighborhoods because there simply isn't the bar density there.
From the article...
An argument between two women leaving a Financial District bar
Financial district?
State street and Broad street is the financial district? Maybe technically, but let's not split hairs here.
It's part of the bar and pub district, a street from faneuil hall.
When I think financial district I think of the large wasteland between this area and Chinatown where everything closes at 4-6pm, except a few random bars and pubs that aren't located close to each other.
Get over yourself....
5 years from now, you too will be living in the suburbs managing to make it through the night without a Jaegerbomb. The insufficiently-hip suburbanites are the problem? Try immature people still learning how to drink and discovering that the world does not revolve around them. I lived in Allston for 10 years. Other than the size of the lawns and off street parking, the people are identical to the suburbs,right down to the pseudo-sophisticates.
Only two arrests?
Yikes, what an ugly story.
Yeah, seems low, but ...
The two detectives and lieutenant who testified didn't explain that (and nobody asked), but I suspect that if they had, their answer would be that they were too busy just trying to break things up to try to hold and arrest people - based on past police explanations for other, similar "near riots."
As it was, the woman who'd been attacked by her boyfriend inside the Place had to wait 20 minutes for the detective to get to her, not because he'd forgotten about her, but because of the all-hands-on-deck fighting going on outside the bar.
I just love it
When the Suburbs throw up.
I have a two-point plan for improving nightlife downtown.
1) The T stays open 'til 3 on Friday and Saturday nights.
2) People from the suburbs are banned after dark.
3) Bars are allowed to close
3) Bars are allowed to close when they decide to
4) Bars are to all hire an on duty weekend detail for late night rights
5) Something needs to be done about the cab situation. Currently you're lucky to clear out downtown within a few hours due to the fact that it's impossible to get a cab after 9-10pm.
Ahhhh but....
If you get rid of the suburbanites, you don't need the T. Cabs would be dirt cheap and you could probably drive and park wherever you wanted to as well.
But why worry about the suburbanites anyway when there are 1,452 other places you can go to avoid them?
edit (plenty of bars close when they want to)
please
enlighten me on these establishments.
Tell me what you like.
And I'll fill you in.
Just remember that places don't change because you change. Jose Mcintyres is still Jose Mcintyres.
Huh? Only suburbanites take the T?
Suburbanites take the commuter rail. For the most part, the subway system is utilized by city dwellers.
Huh? Only suburbanites take the T?
Suburbanites take the commuter rail. For the most part, the subway system is utilized by city dwellers.
Insane
If we only had 24 hour gyms, this would have never happened.