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Man stabbed at Washington and Essex
By adamg on Sun, 01/26/2014 - 12:00am
Around 11:45 p.m. in front of the outbound entrance to the Orange Line Chinatown station and the CVS. The suspect was described as a black man, about 5'7" and wearing a dark jacket with a red design on it, a black hoodie and a white knit cap.
He was last seen walking towards Downtown Crossing.
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Comments
CHINATOWN STATION is not safe
At the entrance and stairs you have to run the gauntlet of panhandlers and druggies and that elevator reeks of booze and urine
We shouldn't have to...
The gods forbid that the police be empowered to clear out the riff raff. That would just break too many bleeding hearts. Yet where are the bleeding hearts when one of these dirt bags harms am innocent person? I'm sick of having to deal with low life scum on the streets.
There's a good reason they hang out in that area:
http://www.stfrancishouse.org/site/PageServer?pagename=WhoWeAre_Directions
Where do they go? Lexington? Your house?
The service structures to support these "riff raff" (St. Francis House, Pine Street Inn) where in place a long time before the Ritz moved east or art galleries and Laconia Lofts made their way down to SOWA (Worst Neighborhood Name Ever, Beating Allston Square by 10 lengths). Take it down a notch Mr. Majestyk. We will always have a segment of society that needs to congregate in certain areas owing to their inability to fully function in society, whether through drugs, mental illness, or alcohol, or a combination of all. If you have any constructive ideas on your utopia and where these people should go, please let us know.
A part of a century back ...
Some people felt they shouldn't have to sit next to "certain kinds of people" they felt were beneath them, too: not on buses, not in school, not in eateries, not in the same transit entrances, etc.
They even tried to make it a cleanliness issue, a fear of crime issue, and an issue of proper appearances.
You don't get to decide which people use public facilities based on your personal sense of revulsion.
Good lord, not a civil rights argument
Sorry, doesn't fly on this thread.
Nobody on this thread is talking about denying the T or other services to the homeless.
The point I got for the other post was that the police should act on aggressive panhandling and criminals in the area.
I'm an anon but I'm firmly on the UH wnd of the political spectrum, not the Herald's.
I'm born and raised in the city and if that area doesn't get your antennae up you're missing something.
I have no issue with non-aggressive panhandling. I give to them when they're polite and seem sincere.
There is another element in that area that you seem to be unaware of.
Nice Try, Everyone...
I doubt you'll be so open minded when it's you on the receiving end of a knife...or worse. People who didn't make poor life choices should be kept safe.
And to the person who tried to make this a race issue, work another angle because your silly analogy fell flat on its face.
If you are one of "those people"
Those homeless people with substance abuse and/or mental illness issues that you so fear? Those people are far more likely to be on the receiving end of a knife than you or I are. Sorry, but a few panhandlers don't scare me - in fact, they are the ones who should be scared. Scared of each other, scared of the police, and scared of you!
If you think about the largest risks of urban life, rather than let your life and your demands be so very controlled by your of fear of "other", then you might find that you are able to travel the world with less anxiety.
You should be concerned about
You should be concerned about your safety with regards to panhandlers. Addicts don't like taking "no" for an answer or being ignored and they have a well reported habit of getting all stabby about it.
Furthermore many homeless people are registered sex offenders and present a major risk to women. It is a major issue that level 3 sex offenders are often dumped by the state out of prison and into homeless shelters which do not have the appropriate staff to supervise them. Concentrating that demographic at overcrowded urban shelters is extremely dangerous to the public and heaven help any women staying or working at the shelter.
Excuse me?
How old are you, exactly? How much time have you spent in the city?
I've lived and/or worked in Boston for nearly 30 years now. I've never had any such problem, issue, or threat as you describe, even in the 1980s when I worked nights downtown, even in the 1990s when the MGH area was seedy, even traveling alone at night using the MBTA. Nothing ever happened when I worked late on Huntington at the foot of Mission Hill. Never did I have an issue while living in Kenmore Square during the most serious crime wave the country has known - or in the Central Square areas near MIT, which weren't exactly cool bars then.
Sorry, but I really don't need your instructions on "how to be afraid". I certainly don't need your lecturing on "how dangerous these people are" or how I should be afraid, being female and all that. That's the stuff of social control.
I have my own experience of many years around here plus the fact that the "events" that you describe "will happen" generally do not happen.
Go have a look at the crime stats for that area. Do it. See who is attacking whom and why.
Playing the townie card?
I guess the hundreds of woman that have been assaulted in Boston/Cambridge in those areas over the past 30 years must be liars because nothing bad ever happened to you.
You call yourself "citations please"
Why don't you provide one. One that says "very high risk for women everywhere"?
Because you can't, that's why. Because crime is very much down in those thirty years, that's why.
Sorry, but I don't buy the fearmongering - not when it comes to walking alone while female, not when it comes to being made paranoid enough to think I need a gun so big that I don't need to learn to use it.
Sure thing, let's look
Let's take a quick look at Spotcrime for Chinatown area, shall we? A bunch of armed robberies, for the most part. Suspects? Black male, black male, black male, hispanic male, black male, etc - any further questions? Must be a sad thing to hear for a self-loathing white liberal.
Who are they robbing?
Please show for the class.
That also doesn't sound like the people who are hanging around the T station at Chinatown panhandling, either. Nor do I buy for a moment that any of it is "panhandlers getting violent when told no".
I live half a block away, I
I live half a block away, I pass the intersection daily. The suggestion that panhandlers react violently to people refusing them is preposterous. Ignorant fear-mongering is a *much* bigger threat to all of us.
Fear vs. good sense, Swirly?
I see you citing stats a lot and how people should make decisions based on them. And I understand you work with them.
However, I think using stats to guide your behavior can lull you into a false sense of the consequences of being a statistic, as the term goes.
Great, Boston is pretty safe and you're quite likely to not be a victim of violent crime. and if you're not it's the end of the story.
However, if you are it's just the beginning.
I'm male and can defend myself pretty well. My house was broken into and it took me quite some time to feel comfortable in my own home again.
A female relative was raped in her home when she was a young adult. In a very statistically safe area. It simply changed her and her entire families lives for the worse and is a never-ending issue for her.
She certainly could have taken more precautions like keeping doors and windows locked.
So, our entire extended family, understanding the true consequences of being a victim, take additional steps to avoid being a statistic, regardless of what the stats say about an area or activity.
This is sensible behavior, not a reaction to fear-mongering or social control.
As for this specific area, I'm familiar with it and I'm also slightly familiar with the homeless element around the Common.
What needs to be understood is that a large subset of the homeless are in fact violent and often addicted criminals. Recently released felons also frequent the services used by the more down on their luck homeless. And yes prey on them.
I don't fear panhandlers in that area and don't want to round up all the homeless but I also realize that it would be quite easy to assume someone only looking for change would never follow you into the desolate station and then take what they want. and stab you if they didn't get it quickly.
There are certainly predators in that population who would seize an opportunity when available.
You'd be a fool to think otherwise and not act accordingly.
All I can really add
All I can really add to this argument is that I am a male, a lifelong Boston resident (the city, not the burbs), and I still feel a little ill at ease passing that very sketchy crowd in the St. Francis House area.
It's OK to feel things. It's
It's OK to feel things. It's not OK to suggest that people who are perhaps dysfunctional are more of a threat than they actually are. We know nothing about the victim of this stabbing yet above we are assuming he/she is an "innocent victim".
I guess people gotta fear something. How about unprecedented wealth disparity? Too abstract?
What?
Unprecedented wealth disparity excuses violent antisocial behavior? Great, let's start beating up all the wealthy financial district folks and ripping those $50k gold watches off their wrists, they're much wealthier than us so it's OK! Also, let's break in and ransack swirly's expensive suburban house - it's worth much more than ours, so it's OK!
Expensive Suburban House
LOL
Medford is neither expensive or suburban.
But do persist in your amusing beliefs.
Not suburban?
Sure feels that way to me, at least compared to anywhere in Somerville.
(especially if you get up into West Medford north of Route 60)
It's all relative
Compared to some places in Boston, Medford is both extremely expensive and suburban, and you're the hated 1%. According to Carty, who pretty much parroted what you normally say, it's OK to rob the rich as long as you're poor. Now put your money where your mouth is - make a bunch of copies of your house keys, go over to St Francis, Blue Hill Ave, Pine Street Inn, Bowdoin/Geneva, etc and start handing them out. You're rich, let the poor rob you.
Statistics
Are a funny thing. Even in an extremely violent area where you're running a 1 in 50 chance of being a victim of a violent crime, chances are it won't happen to you right away unless you're really unlucky and you happen to be the first of the 50. Clearly, it will happen to you eventually, but in your case you either left the area or the area improved and crime rate went down drastically before your luck ran out and it was your turn to become another statistic. Implying that Blue Hill Ave/Bowdoin Geneva/etc is perfectly safe simply because you never got robbed or shot while you were in the area is beyond laughable. You're either a really crappy statistician, or you like to spin the stats to fit your agenda.
St Francis House
I don't generally believe homeless people are dangerous, but speaking as a woman that has been harassed every time I've walked by St. Francis House, I concur that the people who congregate outside are degenerate, junkie, assholes!!
Believe it!!!
Believe it!!!
Prove your point
Prove the attacker is a homeless person.
Bottom line.....
If you have an area downtown where druggies & scumbags congregate....you should have more of a police presence down there 24 hours a day.
Unless you've driven by or walked the streets of this neighborhood and see for yourself the people in that area all day and night you have no business commenting on the issue. Unless you want to sound ignorant of course...
I get really scared when
I get really scared when walking down certain streets in Chinatown. One time I saw a girl buying crack on Tremont St!!!! I pay a lot of money to live here in Boston and this is unacceptable! They need to ramp up police activity in the area with foot patrols, undercovers and roving cruisers. I don't feel safe and I think the police need to make me feel safe. I mean what else are they doing, sitting in their cars playing solitaire? I might learn to take care of myself one day but until then I'm gonna assume every homeless person will stab me and just sit in my apartment until this whole thing gets sorted out
Good idea
You should also turn off your computer ASAP. Lots of threats on the internet. Can't be too careful. Buh bye.