Fisher ambles through the Capitol on Jan. 6, moments before attacking a Capitol cop.
A federal judge on Friday sentenced former BPD K9 officer Joseph Robert Fisher to 20 months in prison and two years of probation both for embedding himself in the screaming mob that failed to stop American democracy at the Capitol on Jan. 6 in general and ramming a chair into a Capitol police officer then pushing him to the ground in particular. Read more.
CommonWealth Beacon takes a look at the controversy over ShotSpotter, the expensive system police in Boston and other cities use to locate the source of potential gunfire: BPD Commissioner Michael Cox stood by the system at a Monday hearing, but critics say it has a large number of false positives, which means people in the minority neighborhoods where the sensors are located are more likely to be grilled by police investigating false leads. Chicago announced earlier this year it's abandoning the system.
Around 12:50 a.m. on Thursday, a resident of Bayswater Street in East Boston called 911 to ask if there was anybody who could say "happy birthday" to him. Read more.
Streetsblog Massachusetts reports on the cruiser crash Saturday afternoon on the sidewalk in front of the Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street, taking out a traffic light and damaging a hydrant, but not hitting anybody. The officer was on his way down Tremont to the Burger King, where other officers managed to arrest a man while he was still trying to hold the place up at gunpoint.
A federal appeals court yesterday dismissed a lawsuit by the sister of Juston Root, shot 31 times in 3 seconds by Boston and State Police officers along Rte. 9 in Brookline in 2020, ruling that the officers had more than enough reason to fear for their lives and the lives of nearby people, both because he had pulled what appeared to be a gun on officers outside Brigham and Women's Hospital and because when the officers approached they thought he was about to pull a gun on them. Read more.
Lawyers for Civil Rights and the law firm of Fick & Marx today announced a $4.7 million settlement of the civil-rights lawsuit they had filed on behalf of Hope Coleman, who called 911 to request an ambulance to transport her son to a hospital to get treatment for his mental illness, but who was instead fatally show by Boston Police officers outside his home on Oct. 30, 2016. Read more.
Update: Man charged.
A Boston Police officer wearing a ballistic vest was shot outside 80 Esmond St. around 9:40 p.m., a couple minutes after he arrived with other officers to investigate a report of a man skulking around with a gun. Read more.
A federal jury yesterday convicted the one-time head of the Boston Police evidence warehouse in Hyde Park of helping to run a long running overtime scam in which officers would routinely put in for overtime they never worked. Read more.
Wu and Bennett's nephew, Joey, hug as other Bennett familiy members and Alan Swanson look on.
Mayor Wu and Police Commissioner Michael Cox today apologized to Willie Bennett and Alan Swanson, who were investigated and even arrested for supposedly killing Carol Stuart when, in fact, it was her husband Charles who shot her after they left a childbirth class at Brigham and Women's Hospital on Oct. 23, 1989. Read more.
Police Commissioner Michael Cox has declined to issue the oral reprimand recommended by the Civilian Review Board for a disparaging comment one of his officers left on a Facebook post by the Grafton Police Department honoring one of its own officers during Women's History Month this past March. Read more.
Louijeune explains her votes.
The City Council today rejected an anti-terrorism grant from the federal Department of Homeland Security when it deadlocked, 6-6, on accepting the grant. Read more.
Three faces of Fisher in DC, one with cap with Pats, Bruins and Celtics logos, via FBI.
A federal judge in Washington has set a Feb. 1 hearing at which Joseph Fisher, a retired Boston Police canine officer, is expected to plead guilty to both felony and misdemeanor charges for bursting into the Capitol on Jan. 6 and using a chair to attack a Capitol Police officer who was pursuing one of Fisher's fellow attempted coup-makers. Read more.
Animated Michael Flaherty moves for grants.
The Boston City Council today approved acceptance of a total of $3.4 million in federal grants for the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, (BRIC) a BPD unit that collects data and video used to fight crime and terrorism - and which maintains a database of Boston residents accused of being members of local gangs. Read more.
Flaherty calls for acceptance of grant.
Article corrected. The council did not actually reject the grant, but instead rejected voting on it immediately.
By a 7-5 vote, the Boston City Council rejected an attempt by Councilor Michael Flaherty (at large) to immediately approve $2.55 million in federal grants to bolster the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, overseen by BPD - the same grant the council voted to reject in 2021 after police refused to reconsider its gang database and how it shares data with outside law-enforcement agencies. Read more.
Four Bostonians, joined by three gun groups, last week sued Police Commissioner Michael Cox over what they say are excessive delays in processing their license-to-carry applications. Read more.
Screen capture via Wayback Machine.
BPD News, up since at least 2006 with a URL that was splashed on every Boston police cruiser, is no more. The city today switched on police.boston.gov, which is all mobile-friendly and stuff and which de-emphasizes arrest reports, BOLOs and crime stats in favor of a more 21st-century feeling series of pages about the department itself. Don't worry, the old BPDnews news is still there, but you'll have to click to get to it.
Stanley Staco and Live Boston report a BPD officer was shot in the back and the foot Cedric Street near Langdon Street around 9:15 p.m. One suspect was taken into custody on the roof of the three-story industrial building there. Read more.
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