… (and today)!
Rosalie
In the WPL Greendale branch parking lot I saw this stunning dog waiting for his human! WORCESTER IS A DOG TOWN! DOG PARK, PLEASE!!!!!
Then, of course, the beauty streak was busted as we drove home and zipped by Worcester City Councilor Konnie Lukes’ Canal District slum housing! Pathetic!
Everything here done on the cheap! Is this side porch even legal??
How will our urban core heal if our city leaders treat it this dismissively, brutally?
– pics+text by Rosalie Tirella
By Gordon Davis
Did you know? … Worcester City Manager Ed Augustus and Worcester Deputy Police Chief Sargent met at least one of the protesters from the MLK Day Black Lives Matter protest at Kelly Square and that the City Manager and the Deputy Chief proffered the deal that if there were no more of the same protests, then the City of Worcester would not seek criminal charges against the 40 to 50 people who participated in that Kelley Square protest?
The Black Lives Matter people turned down the deal.
The protesters told City Officials that the civil rights movement would not be intimidated by threats of arrests. At that point the City Officials said they would seek charges against the protesters. They did not say which charges they would seek.
In the meeting there was no discussion of the reform of the Worcester Police Department. Or any remedy to the claims of Black Lives Matter protesters re: racial profiling and police misconduct by the Worcester police.
Over a 12 month period, October 2013 to October 2014, there were at least 134 complaints made against the Worcester Police by “civilians.”
Most of these complaints were adjudicated as unsubstantiated by the City Police’s Standards Department.
What is interesting is that the number of complaints seems to be increasing.
This might be a sign that the Black Lives Matter protests are mitigating the fear of so called “communities of color” to step up and speak our grievances.
Although not racist on its face, the threats of arrest made by City Manager Augustus and the WPD Deputy Chief will likely have a disparately racist impact on the community.
The outcome of the meeting was predictable.
The public announcements by City Manager Augustus and Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme, which preceded the meeting, were not predictable.
Police Chief Gemme said in a news article he was compelled to seek charges against the BLACK LIVES MATTER protesters because of a video he saw on Youtube.
A day later the City Manager said Police Chief Gemme did not act on his own when he said he was going to charge the protesters. The City Manager said in his interview that he had public safety concerns. The City Manager then said he had not seen the video because it was locked on YouTube.
This raises the question of the accuracy of City Manager Augustus and Police Chief Gemme’s statements. How is it possible for Police Chief Gemme to look for something for which to charge the protesters based on a video when the City Manager said that he ordered Chief Gemme to do so – before the City Manager ever saw the video?
Sometimes it is hard to get their story straight! Especially when the Worcester City Council asks for the “protocols” of protests.
After reviewing the YouTube video, here is my inexpert opinion: There is nothing on which to charge the BLACK LIVES MATTER protesters at Kelley Square.
The Worcester City Council will have to make up a new ordinance on which to charge the protesters! Such as “spending too much time in a public cross walk”!
As with the Worcester panhandling issue, the Worcester City Council will use the pretext of “public safety.”
It’s not just the BLACK LIVES MATTER protesters … Poverty in Worcester, homelessness in Worcester, racism in Worcester – these are all issues that Worcester City Officials would prefer to keep out of sight.
By Gordon T. Davis
The harassment of the Black Lives Matter protesters by the Worcester Police and by some on the Worcester City Council is unethical and possibly illegal.
The City government is wasting Worcester taxpayers’ money and time by looking for new laws to harass the protesters. Instead, it should be having open discussions about real policing policies, including police misconduct.
The following are some issues for which the Worcester City Council should be setting policy, but is not:
prostitution in Main South
increased shootings in Worcester
increased heroin overdoses in Worcester
the need or lack of need for stationary license plate readers
the use of body cameras on Worcester police officers.
What are the Worcester City Council’s respective policies that it wants Worcester City Manager Ed Augustus to instruct the Worcester Police Department to effectuate? Do not expect anything controversial …
At the January 13, 2015, Worcester City Council meeting Worcester City Councillor Konstantina Lukes said the Worcester Police were reduced to the tactics of harassment to drive out the people she did not like near her rental property in the Canal District. The same seems to be taking place again with the Black Lives Matter protesters.
On January 20, 2015, Worcester Police Chief Gemme said he was looking into the actions by the Black Lives Matter protesters who stood out at Kelly Square on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. About 50 protesters, some holding signs on the sidewalk and others standing in the crosswalk, held up traffic that day for four and one half minutes. They did that to bring attention to the four and one-half hours Michael Brown lay dead in the street after being shot by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer.
Like Councillor Lukes admitted at the Council meeting: Worcester police have been again reduced to a tool of retaliation and harassment.
The evidence that Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme is retaliating and harassing is the fact that he could not articulate any charges that could be brought against the protesters. His comments that he was looking into a “variety” of charges is evidence of the pretext. City Manager Augustus has said it was he who directed Police Chief Gemme to charge the Kelley Square protesters. He claimed they were disrupting people’s day to day lives and putting folks in danger.
The protesters who blocked I 93 near Boston two weeks ago were charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and willfully blocking an ambulance.
None of these charges apply to any of the protesters in Worcester. Worcester sidewalks and crosswalks, like any municipal walkway, are public spaces and there was not a trespassing violation. The Worcester police did not witness any disorderly conduct. There were no arrests and therefore there could not have been any resistance of arrest. The protesters allowed an ambulance to pass without the ambulance even having to stop.
The Worcester City Council will have to create another oppressive ordinance to charge the Black Lives Matter protesters like it did when it banned panhandling or shooed the We Are The 99% protesters off the Worcester City Common. Then Worcester Mayor Joe O’Brien wanted to meet with the protesters, but they were anathema to then Worcester City Manager Mike O’Brien, who kept them off public space, often used through history for the community to gather together – our Worcester Common. Once again, city officials will hide behind the straw man of “public safety.”
At the City Council meeting of January 20, 2015, Councillor Lukes and others compelled the Worcester City Manager to explain the “protocols” for demonstrations. Although the Black Lives Matter demonstrations have gone on for months, City Manager Augustus has not said much about them. Now Augustus is tamping them down.
The Worcester City Manager is supposed to be the “civilian” review board for Worcester. It is clear that Augustus is not capable of making any necessary reforms to the Worcester Police Department.
I can’t remember any time that the Worcester City Council deliberated any policy for the Worcester Police Department. As a rule it allows the Police Chief to do as he sees fit, and our city managers have just rubber-stamped police activities. It is ironic that police policy was deliberated at the January 20, 2015, City Council meeting – when the issue was the Black Lives Matter protesters.
I was told that the City Council has requested about 40 reports from the City Manager about the activities of the Worcester Police and none have been given to the Worcester City Council. Police Chief Gemme uses as an excuse for his non-compliance the lack of police personnel to do the research.
No one really knows what is going on in the Worcester Police Department.
The MLK, Jr. Day dinner/discussion held by Communities United on Piedmont Street January 19.
By Gordon T. Davis
On MLK, Jr. Day, January 19, 2015, about 50 demonstrators blocked Kelly Square, a busy intersection in the Canal District/Green Island neighborhoods.
They blocked the intersection for four and one half minutes as a gesture to the four and one-half hours that Michael Brown’s body lay in the street after being shot dead by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.
The protesters blocked the streets by the Vernon Hotel and Kelly Square Pizza.
This is one of the busiest intersections in Worcester, an intersection where motorists have the mind set of not stopping for anything. There were a few tense moments during the blockade. At one point a woman motorist drove within a few inches of the protesters. The protesters were somewhat surprised by her reactions, as some of the protesters had handed out flyers to all of the stopped motorists, explaining their actions. The woman had a child in the car.
At another point a driver of an 18-wheeler got out of line and drove up to the protesters with his horn sounding. It apparently was so loud that it hurt the ears of some of the children on the sidewalk: The children held their hands over their ears.
Another protester was assaulted by a man who got out of his truck and ran down the down the hill and pushed one of the demonstrators.
All of the incidents were defused by people. When an ambulance approached the blockade without its lights flashing, it saw the blockade and put on its flashers. The demonstrators allowed the ambulance to move through without it stopping. Some of the protesters doubted that there was any emergency.
Near the end of the demonstration three Worcester police cruisers and one Massachusetts State police cruiser came to Kelly Square.
One of the protesters told two officers that the demonstration was breaking up and the police officers took no action.
The third police officer talked about the discrimination lawsuits against the Worcester Police based on the failure to promote so called minority police officers.
The State Police officer refused to engage in conversation with the protesters.
The presence of the police officers turned out to be something of an irony, as after the protesters left Kelly Square, the police officer held up traffic for another 10 minutes.
The Kelley Square gathering had two goals:
The first was to continue the national and local dialogue on police misconduct.
The second goal was to send a message to Worcester City Councillor Konstantina Lukes and columnist Diane Williamson that the minor inconveniences of traffic delays is a legitimate form of protest, not unlike a permitted parade down Main Street.
There is some talk that the Worcester City Council is taking action to limit the ability of Black Lives Matter supporters from speaking at Worcester City Council meetings.
Some of the Kelly Square protesters attended the MLK, Jr. Day dinner held by Communities United on Piedmont Street. They gave a description and explanation of their actions. They were warmly received by the audience and support was expressed. The audience expressed this support in the form of talk about reclaiming the activism of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
It did not seem that people were going to accept the Worcester City Council’s actions, without more speech and resistance.
It’s happening in the Canal District. From a farmers market that refuses to accept SNAP, WIC cards, a farmers market that refuses to let low-income seniors buy bread with their senior citizen farmers markets coupons … to the people who work the market, attend the market. The same person of color in every publicity picture doesn’t hide the facts: gentrification purposely, purposefully excludes poor people and people of color. ….
From THE BOSTON GLOBE. – R.T.
When we think of gentrification, we imagine swarms of young upper middle class white people moving into previously minority neighborhoods, bringing pour-over coffee and higher property tax bills in their wakes. It’s a controversial migration, not least because of the existing residents who are displaced, but it’s also seen as a welcome step away from the segregation that set in after the “white flight” of the 60s and 70s.
Now an inventive new study using Google Street View and an archive of 1990s videotapes has found that gentrification may involve less racial mixing than we assume—and in fact, may reinforce residential segregation. …
CLICK HERE to read entire piece.
From the Worcester Police Department – public information
Worcester Police Investigate Stabbing Outside of Bar – one arrest made
On Thursday, January 8, 2015 at approximately 11:43 PM officers were dispatched to 3 G’s Sports Bar located at 152 Millbury Street.
Upon arrival, police found a 32-year-old male victim in the back
parking lot suffering from stab wounds. The victim was transported to a local hospital. His injuries are not considered life-threatening.
During the investigation, police learned that the incident occurred when the victim engaged in a verbal argument with three suspects inside the bar. When the men left the bar, a physical altercation broke out in the parking lot. As a result, the victim was punched, kicked and stabbed several times. Officers reviewed surveillance video the incident.
One of the suspects was identified as 26-year-old William Humphrey of Worcester. Police were able to locate William Humphrey and placed him under arrest.
The two other suspects are both described as Black males, possibly in their 20’s and wearing dark clothing.
William Humphrey, 26, of 13 Shepard Street, Worcester was charged with Assault and Battery with a Dangerous Weapon. He also had an outstanding warrant for his arrest.
Police continue to investigate.
If anyone has information about this incident they can send an anonymous text to 274637 TIPWPD + your message or send an anonymous web based message at worcesterma.gov/police. Calls can also be made to the Worcester Police Detective Bureau at (508) 799-8651.
By Rosalie Tirella
… up by Union Station a day or so ago. A young guy was asked for dough, then stabbed when he refused to give up the money. (Take it from this city gal: ALWAYS GIVE THEM THE MONEY! And run away!) … More garbage dumped, too! This on top of a couple of shootings and stabbings in the past few weeks – Union Station, lower Shrewsbury Street. And a stabbing – someone got it in the face – at Kelley Square last month. This is what happens when a bunch of misguided folks decide to exclude entire classes of folks in the redevelopment of an inner-city neighborhood. When the housing stock is out of reach for that neighborhood’s residents. When there are no jobs for them in their neighborhood. And when the basic jobs pay shit$$$. People get desperate, they get disengaged, they stab, shoot, dump …
We hope Charlie Baker can solve these real inner-city problems!!
… Dems are much better than Republicans at the nonsexy, bread and butter, social issues. LIKE IMPROVING A TON OF PEOPLE’S LIVES. THE AMERICAN DREAM. The American Dream and our social safety net, brought to you by FDR, Lyndon Johnson … Take FDR! Now FDR could TRULY REVIVE our inner-city NEIGHBORHOODS. Charlie Baker will stupidly harp on welfare reform, an easy way to demonize the poor. Problem NOT solved.
Expect more stabbings and shootings in and near the Canal District as the have-nots learn where a lot of the haves hang out!
Good luck, Charlie, solving our massive poverty problem!
On the other hand, all the ballot questions, EXCEPT THE EXPANDED-BOTTLE BILL,turned out the way we wanted: YES to earned sick time, casinos; NO to indexing the gas tax to inflation. The expanded bottle bill? Well, if our grandkids don’t know what a polar bear is and New Orleans falls into the ocean we only have our selfish selves to blame. Blame it on our stubborn refusal to fix our factory farms (HUGE PRODUCERS OF GREENHOUSE GASES which wreak havoc on global temperatures/climate), our refusal to get behind renewable energy wholeheartedly … and our ability to just keep making more and more garbage and dumping it on places like the Canal District’s sidewalks!
Yep. The rejection of a new and improved Bottle Bill – Massachusetts in all its cheapskate glory. Why give up 20 cents or a buck or two when buying bottles of water or juice or sports drinks only to GET IT BACK IN A FEW HOURS OR DAYS after we’ve drunk the water or juice? Why let go of a few nickles and dimes … for a week or so?! Why suffer a minor inconvenience when we can trash our planet? Pathetic.
Text and photos by Rosalie Tirella
Sure the Canal District and surrounding area seems to have become a dumping ground for garbage galore and shooting gallery/stabbing/gun hot-spot! I am on the horn almost every day with city officials and state reps asking for the garbage to be removed, the extra Worcester Police Department foot patrols to be deployed …
But then there’s this HEAVEN-SENT stuff happening …
… A wonderful garden in my back yard (right where I found the used junky syringe!). Here’s Jett getting nosy with a lovely squash!! We’ve got tomatoes, too! And (had) sunflowers!
… My downstairs neighbor is the sweetest! She gives me her cool clothes and pocketbooks! She’s quite the fashion plate and gets bored with her stuff real quick! So … Here I am several days ago, heading out the door to run InCity Times, wearing one of her pretty blouses! Now mine! Thanks, in-city gal pal!
My other downstairs neighbor came upstairs and gave me some Halloween cupcakes and cookies, along with this BEAUTIFUL card! I love the message PEACE FOREVER EVERYWHERE… This was after I went down to her place and gave her and her roommate a thank-you gift for a gift they had given me! How awesome are these people? Right in the middle of all the shootings and stabbings … all this love!
And today I am making a Halloween fun gift for the kids across the street because they helped my roundup a homeless street kitten that needed a good home! These boys were the best! Here is Jett back at my shack being nosy (again) with their pumpkin I am about to fill with candy!
The time to make up your mind about the hood is – NEVER!!
By Rosalie Tirella
The old Wyman Gordon factory site. Once a testament to Worcester’s industrial muscle. Now a shadow of it and its city’s former, greater!, working-class self! Now it is ugly, dirty, closed off from the neighborhood – no longer economic life blood for the residents of the hood. It sits at the edge of the Canal District under-used, under-loved. You drive past it down Lamartine Street and your heart grows heavy …
Through the years, there have been plans and dreams for this Woo inner-city eyesore – some more mundane than others. Like the Wal-Mart that was maybe gonna go in (nope, said the company, not enough potential customers), a Price Chopper (ditto for the supermarket chain), etc.
The summer before last it really looked like a slots casino, hotel, spa, pub-style restaurant were all heading for the Wyman Gordon site. But then-City Manager Mike O’Brien and pals pushed for the hotel to be built downtown, restaurant types felt uneasy about the casino’s pub taking business away, other folks wanted MILLIONS AND MILILIONS of dollars in mitigation funds – bribes, don’t you know. So Worcester, as usual, shot itself in the groin.
I myself was against the whole thing! But I reconsidered once neighborhood folks told me LOUD AND CLEAR that THEY REALLY WANTED – NEEDED! – ALL THE JOBS that the casino was going to create.
In hindsight, the classy, fun playground, with a concert venue!, that the casino guys proposed might have been a good thing. I know this for sure: All the jobs for the semi-skilled in the neighborhood and city would have been a GREAT THING!
Just getting some trees planted along Lamartine Street – this gal’s modest proposal for the WG site two summers ago! – proved to be too controversial!
So now we’ve got shit! The Wyman Gordon site is one big shit sandwich on Kelley Square, leading to the Historic Canal District.
Maybe it’s all the Halloween candy I wolfed down doing the talkin’ … but the Wyman Gordon site looks especially foreboding this time of year!
But today I have a new, INEXPENSIVE, INCLUSIVE, DOABLE, TEMPORARY SOLUTION to the problem: an inner-city mini-park, with or without a dog park.
Let’s all work together to get some soil trucked into this now fairly cleaned up and detoxified brownfield! Let’s put in trees, bushes, flower gardens, benches, picnic tables, some art …
If the liability issue can get worked out, let’s fence in some greenery, bolt in some fuckin’ benches, install doggy poop bags dispensing machines and get a little urban dog park going! It may work! It would be away from tons of homes with homeowners who don’t want to live by a dog park. Away from all the anal naysayers who will NEVER allow a dog park to be constructed in Green Hill Park. (Let’s not kid ourselves!)
If Allen Fletcher can have his fake canal, the Canal District should – through volunteerism? and donations? – create a fake city park that can be disassembled once the Wyman Gordon folks sell the property, which will never happen because the owners are demanding WAY TOO MUCH $$$$.
We’ve got stabbings, prostitution, murders, garbage dumping in/near the historic Canal District. Maybe if the hood’s RESIDENTS get something they can truly feel part of, make their own, there would be more pride in the neighborhood coming from people who live here 24/7.
The real neighborhood.
The real neighborhood people who need a CVS, bank, supermarket, maybe even a health center or public library branch, in their neighborhood. The very stuff the neighborhood’ s movers and shakers all have and take for granted.
Now that would be historic!
