The gun buyback program launched last month in Boston is not a grand solution to the city’s gun violence, the program’s administrators agree.
Guns will not disappear from the streets of Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan. It will certainly not keep them from flowing into the city. But authorities hope the drive will help bring the problem to light and rouse the community against illegal firearms.
“What you see before you today is that our community is united,” Mayor Martin J. Walsh said when he unveiled the plan. “And we are united with them, in the goal of making our neighborhoods, our homes and our children safe.” Read more
On Facebook and fundraising websites, in obituaries and online memorials, families and friends ask for help burying the dead.
“We are raising money for a tombstone for Julien Jerome Printemps. …. Julien was a kind-hearted, generous, funny and loving person. He had a smile that could light up any room.”
“Now his family, particularly his mom, Della, need your financial help in celebrating his life, mourning his death, and putting the soul of this beautiful young man to rest. Andy’s short life life touched so many others in such a positive way. Please, if you can, give something back.” Read more
From the first day of his trial, nobody disputed that Deshawn Chappell beat, stabbed and cut the throat of mental health worker Stephanie Moulton inside a Revere group home in 2011.
But it took a three week trial to convict him last October, as a host of prosecution and defense psychologists offered conflicting opinions about whether the voices in Chappell’s head told him to do it.
Such debates can be quite lucrative for the expert witnesses involved.
The price tag for the defense’s losing argument over Chappell’s sanity and culpability came out to $42,256 for one forensic psychologist and $11,210 for a neuropsychologist who never testified, according to court records. Read more
A woman waiting in the wings of Suffolk Superior Courtroom is called to Room 817, where 16 jurors will be selected for an upcoming trial. She is one of 75 people who will face the same routine questions this Wednesday morning.
She is one of few who has trouble understanding the routine, in its English language.
“I understand very little,” she finally says when Judge Patrick Brady asks her if she has anything to tell the court. He’s looking for reasons people should not serve.
“But you understand me?,” he asks.
She repeats, “I said I understand little.”
The ten-second conversation is a followed by a swift decision to dismiss the Spanish speaker from jury duty. Read more
Behind every victim of homicide is a mother in mourning. More often than not, their child’s killer is never found. These mothers wait for years for any kind of answer to the questions “who” and “why.”
Through their sorrow, these mothers found a commonality to end the violence that runs through their neighborhoods, and joined Mothers for Justice and Equality. With the support from each other, they’re turning grief into action.
Jurors acquitted Lavonrence Perkins on March 18 of the 2010 murder of Cordell McAfee.
Perkins, 23, was accused of shooting 22-year-old McAfee while he was sitting on a relative’s porch on Roseland Street in May 2010. McAfee was struck twice and died of his injuries.
This was Perkins’ second trial for the murder. A previous jury deadlocked on the charges in 2012. Read more
A 22-year-old Dorchester man in late February was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the killing of Aaron Wornum in 2011, according to the Suffolk County district attorney’s office.
Anthony Robertson, 22, was convicted of first-degree murder, armed robbery and unlawful possession of a firearm, the district attorney said Feb. 26 in a statement. Wornum, 25, was shot and killed June 26, 2011 in the area of Sumner and East Cottage streets in Dorchester. Read more
A Boston teen was acquitted in the 2011 murder of an Irishman but convicted of separate double shootings, the Suffolk District Attorney’s office announced.
Jurors in late March found John Graham, 19, innocent of first-degree murder and armed assault in a botched robbery attempt that killed Ciaran Conneely. His death has shaken the Boston Irish community.
Twenty days after Conneely’s murder, Graham shot two young men he was trying to rob, nearly killing one man. The men did not identify Graham as their assailant during the trial. Read more
Police have identified the man stabbed to death on Washington Street on March 1 as 21-year-old Augusta E. Mims, of Brockton.
Around 5:30 a.m., officers responded to Carney Hospital, in Dorchester, where staff were treating Mims, police said. He later succumbed to his wounds.
Hospital staff told officers that the stabbing occurred on Washington Street, police said. No further details were available, and the murder is currently under investigation. Read more
Two men were stabbed, one fatally, after a fight broke out early Saturday morning at the Doubletree Hotel on Mt. Vernon Street in Dorchester, police said.
Authorities have identified the 23-year-old man who died as Christopher Borgella, of Dorchester.
Officers arrived at the hotel around 2:30 a.m. and found two men stabbed. Both were taken to nearby hospitals, where one later died, police said. Read more
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What is Homicide Watch Boston?
Homicide Watch Boston is a community-oriented news site that aims to provide clear information about homicides and the tools necessary to record, report and share our experiences and losses within the City of Boston. Read more…
