Tag Archives: guns

· Remembering the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting

· Collecting real and replica guns, which are also used to commit crimes

For the fifteenth annual Goods For Guns Day, 16 cities and towns in Central Massachusetts have agreed to participate in this year’s program, December 10th from 9 – 3 PM.

Worcester Mayor Joseph M. Petty is once again calling on his fellow mayors to join him to make the anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting the date of a yearly, statewide gun buyback day.

“Today I am again asking my fellow mayors to work within their own cities, and with their District Attorney’s and healthcare providers, to join us and honor the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting by making our cities safer and healthier.” Mayor Petty said, “We remember the victims of the Newtown shooting by dedicating this program every year in their memory.”

“Thirty-three thousand lives were lost to gun violence last year, but the vast majority of those deaths, around twenty-two thousand, are suicides” said Mayor Petty. “This is not just about getting guns off the streets; it’s about making sure that if you have a gun in your home, that it’s secured. It’s about safer streets and healthier homes and making sure the violence we saw in Newtown never happens here.”

Dr. Michael Hirsh is the medical director for Worcester’s Division of Public Health, as well as a pediatric trauma surgeon at the UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center and longtime gun safety advocate.

“This program is an opportunity, for families with guns in their households, to either dispose of them or to get a trigger lock to secure them,” said Dr. Hirsh. “This will ultimately lower the number of suicides, lethal domestic violence events, accidental shootings, and burglarized firearms that end up in criminal hands.”

The yearly Goods for Guns program in Worcester is sponsored by both UMass Memorial Medical Center and Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr.’s office.

“Our goal is, and always has been, getting unwanted and unsecured guns out of the house,” Mr. Early said. “This has benefits on so many levels. Reducing accidents and tragedies in Worcester County benefits us all.”

“As the Level One Trauma center for central Massachusetts, our caregivers are all too familiar with what can happen when there is an unsecured firearm in the home,” said Eric Dickson, MD, president and CEO, UMass Memorial Health Care and an emergency department physician. “This buyback program has undoubtedly saved lives in our region and is a powerful instrument for educating the community on the importance of responsible gun ownership.”

“Unsecured weapons are a risk both to public health and public safety. Most gun crimes are committed using illegally-obtained firearms, which makes it an urgent priority to get any unsecured guns out of our homes before they fall into the wrong hands,” said City Manager Edward M. Augustus, Jr.” Worcester is proud to lead the way in this effort to make our communities safer.”

This year’s buy back added the cities of Fitchburg, Leominster and Dudley. Fitchburg Mayor Stephen L. DiNatale said, “The City of Fitchburg is proud to be participating in a regional effort to help community members place unwanted firearms in the hands of our local law enforcement. Similar to education, Goods for Guns is an excellent way to reduce the likelihood of theft, misuse, or accidents with improperly stored firearms.”

Police departments in Worcester, Millbury, Grafton, Leicester, Southbridge, Oxford, Northbridge, Webster , Dudley, Charlton, Spencer, Leominster, Barre and Fitchburg, will exchange guns for gift cards of varying amounts on December 10:

$25 rifle or replica guns

$50 pistol

$75 semiautomatic weapon of any kind

Residents are instructed to contact their local police departments for local buyback hours.

Residents of ANY city or town may drop off their weapons anonymously at ANY PARTICIPATING police station, in exchange for gift cards. Gun owners are further welcomed to pick up a trigger lock free of charge from the police stations listed above. This year’s buyback will also be accepting realistic toy guns and replicas.

Since the inception of the Goods for Guns program in 2002, almost 3,000 guns have been returned to law enforcement officials in Central Massachusetts. Last year’s program took 340 weapons off the street and out of the home in just one day.

The full list of cities and towns participating is as follows: Worcester, Westboro, Northborough, Southbridge, Leicester, Leominster, Barre, Fitchburg, Oxford, Dudley, Millbury, Grafton, Charlton, Spencer, Northbridge, and Webster.

InCity Voices, Rosalie's Blog

The nitty gritty holidays in my neck of Ward Street…

November 16, 2016 admin

Rosalie’s Ward Street, 11/16/2016. pics:R.T.

By Rosalie Tirella

This year the holidays, here on Ward Street, the street I’ve lived on for almost four years, will be family-focused, spiritual, fun … and laced with used syringes and cum-filled condoms. Don’t forget the broken beer bottles and a brick or two, wrapped in silk scarves!

This Thanksgiving our sidewalks are teeming with the stuff of addiction and lust … and violence. Last year we had the drug house next door – Heroin Depot, manned by tight-lipped 22-year-old guys (all business) with guns and Mercedes and Lexus SUVs. When the stateys and the WPD Vice Squad, wearing their bullet proof vests and their guns, their German Shepherd dogs by their sides, finally made the bust, a machine gun was removed from the premises – along with the usual thousands of dollars in cash and (of course) bags of heroin. One of the guys, once annoyed at my neighbor’s son, cooly flashed his gun to show him who was boss – in front of the man’s three-year-old boy.

This holiday season things feel decidely tamer. These days, my downstairs neighbor, when entering our building at night, has had to walk past – more like navigate through – people sitting on our front steps enjoying the orgasmic heroin high. No big time killers running a lucrative drug biz – just your run of the mill junkies – floating high above Ward Street, as high as the giant moon, to get to a better, oblivious place, having shot up their smack minutes ago. They did this openly and they did not give a damn if they were on private property and my neighbor had to trip over them to get to her apartment. Every time this has happened my neighbor has said nothing. She puts her key into our front door lock, opens the front door to our building and heads upstairs.

The next day she finds the junkies’ used syringes by her car, in her parking space in our teeny parking lot by our building. Along with used condoms. Which makes me think someone prostituted her/himself to get the smack and shot up IMMEDIATELY afterwards. Because that’s addiction for ya. It decimates your self respect. People fucking on our sidewalk for heroin or in (ha!) the St. Mary’s (aka Our Lady of Czetchowa) precious parking lot (see my previous posts) or sadly, for me, in the entrance of the church’s separate, stand-alone shrine to the Virgin Mary – the same shrine that I, as a little girl, and my late mom, would visit what seems like centuries ago, to light a candle, say a Hail Mary, and admire the prettiness of Blessed Mother and all her accoutrements: the flowers around her, the rosaries laid at her feet, the votive candles all aglow, set in big metal, V-shaped candelabras, pointing to heaven. She still looks pretty …

… only now she’s behind bars, protected from the neighborhood, cut off from the people, the people who need her most. This was once a quiet, neat Polish immigrant enclave, now my neighborhood is a hot bed of drugs and guns with police driving through our neighborhood at all hours, sirens blaring or pulsating or silent – depending on the emergency – you get to learn the nature of your emergencies here on Ward Street without even having to read the newspaper or look outside your window!

But most important, my neighborhood is filled with so many beautiful kids and adults who do the right thing EVERY day. Who come out and greet the day and garden in their small front yards, try to play with their brothers and sisters in the church parking lot (fat chance!), walk their dogs (the quiet proud white pit bull and his owner come to mind), drive their grandkids to school, walk to the packie down the street not for booze but for chips and soda. The forgotten Americans that president-elect Trump is supposed to save. The man who’s gonna save America’s inner-city neighborhoods, singlehandedly it seems.

I epecially love the old Polish guy, the last stalwart from the old Ward Street, who lives next door in his neat trim little home with concrete cherubs in his front yard. Almost daily he solemnly sweeps his street corner – no matter how crazy the neighborhood gets. It’s a ritual for him. I love to drive home at the end of my day and see him outside, head down, work clothes on, sweeping up the flotsam and jetsam near his sidewalk curb with his antiquated, broom/dustpan combo. It’s metal and must be about 50 years old! What stories his dustpan could tell! It’s seen it all: from gum wrappers to bullet casings, from cigarette packs to syringes, from a beer can or two to unsheathed, translucent condoms, in all colors and textues!

The morning after the junkies use our front door steps as a shooting gallery my downstairs neighbor, using her shod foot carefully pushes the junkies’ syringes into plastic bags and disposes of them (I hope in the City’s yellow boxes ); we (cuz it’s my ‘hood, too) pick up paper scraps and beer bottles (I recycle them). One feisty gal pal even lectures the slobs who have the temerity to throw their garbage out their car windows onto Ward Street RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER. Out of her front yard she runs! DO YOU WANT ME TO THROW THAT FUCKIN’ BOTTLE OF WATER BACK IN YOUR FUCKIN’ FACE?! she yells, in her raspy, cigarette-scraped voice that barely conceals her heart of gold. When my gal pal told me the story she said the offending slobs looked dumbfounded when she pounced on them, a little afraid at this late middle aged woman on a mission … they quietly picked up their crap. Really, my friend, retired from a factory job, scolds folks who litter and dump – like an exasperated mom. Everyone in our neighborhood knows she keeps us all – our entire neck of Ward Street – looking good, sometimes even pristine!

But the next day – or hour! – comes, and someone decides to dump a mattress box spring in the back of the church parking lot – their old jersey barriers be damned. Or some sweet beautiful 17 year old kid doesn’t like Doherty High School and quits school and finds friends who get high and that seems to be the solution, for the moment. And we add him to our list of neighborhood problems even though he is young and beautiful…

No one here hates the offenders. They make us feel sad…about us, the neighborhood, about being poor and still trying to live in dignity … about the human condition. But the beat goes on. We know that we have to stay on top of things here – always – to keep the ‘hood fairly safe and clean, but that as soon as one problem is solved, one box spring mattress removed from our street, another problem/mattress will be thrust upon us. So we live our days, cherishing the little things …

… and hoping for a Christmas miracle.

Animal Issues

What do children learn when they’re taught to kill?

October 3, 2016 admin

By Craig Shapiro

How do you teach a child to kill?

That’s what hunters do, right? They teach their sons and daughters to kill.

I don’t mean hiding in a tree stand or waiting idly in a blind until a deer, bear or duck comes into killing range. All that takes is a cold disregard for the life of another being.

What I mean is, how do you teach a child that it’s OK to terrorize animals and destroy their families? Is bloodlust ingrained, or do Dad and Mom have to nurture it?

I’ve been wondering about that ever since reading about the Youth Bear Hunting Day in Maine. Last month, children 16 and under armed themselves with rifles, bows and arrows, and crossbows and spent the day slaughtering the state’s iconic black bears.

If only this odious killing spree were an exception.

But Wisconsin is also putting on a two-day deer hunt next month, for children ages 10 to 15. The kids don’t need a certificate to point their weapons and fire as long as they’re “mentored” by an adult.

One writer in South Bend, Indiana, even lamented that some parents have shirked their responsibilities because they’ve stopped teaching their children to kill. But not to worry, he wrote: The sponsors of a recent pheasant kill “are stepping up to fill the void.”

He would have been heartened by a Chicago writer’s account of dove-hunting season’s opening day: The “coolest” thing he saw was a father leading his two young daughters onto the killing field.

What are we teaching our children? That massacring wildlife is some kind of noble tradition?

Hundreds of years ago, our ancestors may have had to hunt for food, but today, hunting is a senseless blood sport. Less than 5 percent of Americans hunt, and most of them aren’t killing to survive. They’re killing because they want another head or pair of antlers to hang on the wall.

Are we teaching our children that hunting is a “sport”? Last time I checked, a sport pitted evenly matched, willing opponents against each other on a level playing field.

Are we teaching them that many animals suffer prolonged and painful deaths when they’re blasted with a bullet or pierced with an arrow? One study found that some wounded deer suffered for more than 15 minutes and that 11 percent had to be shot two or more times before they died. A biologist estimated that more than 3 million wounded ducks go “unretrieved” every year.

A couple of the news stories that I read said that children will get to “harvest” a deer or bird. This language is as predictable as it is disingenuous. Hunters like to use the word “harvest” (“cull” is another favorite) to lull the public into forgetting that hunting is the same as slaughtering. Are our children learning to think of hunting as mere harvesting?

Hunters also use “harvest” to pretend that they’re keepers of the environment. But they aren’t targeting sick and injured animals and putting them out of their misery — they’re looking to “bag the biggest buck” and win bragging rights. What do children learn from that?

All that hunters do by killing is to create a spike in the animals’ food supply, which increases breeding among survivors and attracts newcomers. And they’re abetted by fish and game agencies, which design “wildlife management” programs to ensure that there will always be more animals to kill, not fewer.

You can’t tell me that putting a crossbow in the hands of a 10-year-old doesn’t desensitize that child.

A crossbow. In the hands of a 10-year-old.

What are we teaching our children?

InCity Voices

The pukes and the beautiful boy

March 13, 2016 admin

By Rosalie Tirella

Yesterday I extolled the prowess, smarts and high-spiritedness of the WPD Vice Squad re: the Worcester Police Department’s two-state, seven house, multi drug dealer bust. Today I write about the “post-pubescent pukes” – the guys the vice squad arrested, here on Ward Street, a few days ago. The mid-20 somethings who dealt the drugs, drove the luxury vehicles and had “associates” who packed a MACHINE GUN. The guys who lived right next door to me!

Funny thing is, when the guys were my next door neighbors, they didn’t act like pukes. They were always sober, polite, quiet. Unobtrusive. They vacumed their cars in our parking lot, kept the parking lot clean, talked with me when I nagged them about my missing recycling bin (“Did you find my bin? See my bin? I need my bin!!!”) They never played loud music at 3 a.m. and kept me or their other neighbors up at night (like some folks here do), they never yelled or fought with each other outdoors like some of our neighborhood lovelies; they never cussed; they never even nursed a beer on their back porch. They dressed well, too. They could have passed as Worcester State University students – if they hadn’t been part of a drug ring that spanned two states, several drug selling houses, netted a bunch of guns, one machine gun and $777,000 in cash…They could have passed as young entrepreneurs running a garage, a restaurant in the neighborhood, if they weren’t the other kind of entrepreneur up to their earlobes in heroin and cocaine. With their brains and biz know how why didn’t they sell cupcakes instead of coke? Hondas instead of heroin? Yeah, the money wouldn’t have come as easily, but they would have been legit members of the Worcester community, with real friends, a real future. What might have they become if they weren’t selling smack to men, women …

… and teens. “My” teen. I remember last summer, the summer of the beautiful junky, this ethereal young white boy, around 17 years old with a face like a cherub and hair that framed his lovely face like a bonnet, like a sonnet! He was a neighborhood kid, living a few houses down it seemed. And he was deathly pale and sooo skinny. One day he was sitting on the curb waiting for his man. I was walking Lilac and Jett who, as always, were completely nuts and out of control. Naturally, when my dogs saw the boy, sitting on the curb, on their level, they made a mad dash for him, yanking my arm out of my rotar cuff as I held tightly to their leashes.

“LILAC! JETT!!!” I yelled. To no effect. They were next to the boy in 2 seconds, and sweet, silly Lilac was in his lap giving him kisses, head butting him for pats, wagging her tail wildly.

“I’m sorry!” I said to the boy, as I tried to pull Lilac off him.

“No!” said the beautiful boy. “She’s precious!” And he brought Lilac close to him and hugged her deeply. He looked at Lilac the way a young kid would – eye to eye, face to face, with dewy wonder. He was so well spoken! He was such a sweet person! I wanted to say: No! You’re precious! You’re so bright and beautuful and so young and full of love! Why aren’t you in school? Why aren’t you with friends your own age? Don’t your parents see how beautiful and special you are?!

But I kept mum. Lilac kept licking his face, giving him the love his family, society denied him.

Then his man came – tough and street hardened. But he was pleasant to me, didn’t seem too annoyed when Lilac jumped all over him wanting to give HIM kisses! He just looked past her, looked at the boy, who got up, and together they walked up the hill.

These are the people – people like the beautiful young boy sitting on the curb – my next door neighbors destroyed.

Yes, they were, in many ways, the ideal neighbors. If they hadn’t been such killers.

InCity Voices

Super cool!!!!!!!

March 12, 2016 admin

Rosalie wants to join the WPD Vice Squad – for reasons other than crime-busting!

By Rosalie Tirella

I tell ya, this past week’s drug bust in the house next door to mine, in Worcester’s lower Vernon Hill neighborhood, was a blast! Not a bust! But a blast! All we gawkers/rubberneckers who watched the 15, maybe more, super cops converge on 48 1/2 Ward St. early one pretty spring morning quickly got sucked into the cool cool show and realized the Worcester Police Department Vice Squad and the Mass State Police vice crew are da bomb. Creme de la creme. A #1. Top of the pops. The BEST – ever. Super-Fly-Shaft-Popeye-Doyle deelish! The stuff of early Sly Stallone movies!

Cocky, happy warriors cuz they know they’re the good guys who are out to defeat the bad guys – the whore masters, drug pushers, machine-gun-packing post-pubescent pukes who destroy lives, families and (mostly) our Worcester inner-city neighborhooods.

The kind of men and women (EMTs and fire fighters included!) who pulled America through 9/11.

Trust me: They are worth every cent we taxpayers – mostly cowardly, out-of-shape losers who love to grouse about squandered dough tumbling down the fed/municipal government rabbit hole – pay them.

They’re our inner-city heroes! Never forget that!

You always read about the bad seed – the trigger-happy cop suffering from PTSD. You seldom read about the rest of the troops, the mostly good guys, who are in peak physical and mental shape. Agile of mind and body. The guys who enjoy the freedom and excitement of their jobs, the camaraderie of the investigation – and the raid.

The adreneline junkies!

Out to apprehend the junky junkies!

Like the Worcester vice squad cops who were outside my house a few days ago… They looked so freakin’ AMAZING in their basic tee shirts and jeans, their uniform of the streets. Their clothes fell so beautifully on their bodies because their bodies were beautiful – not an ounce of fat anywhere I could see – hard, sculpted muscles that were worked at and on in THE GYM. EVERY DAY.

Six pack abs, bulging pecs and biceps. Spring in their steps. Shaven heads, too. The guns they wore on the waistbands of their jeans were compact, hard-edged, stream-lined – just like they were. Everything about these guys was urban tough. Cuz they know what they’re up against.

Swoon …

I’ve seen these vice squad guys (and gals) and their German Shepherd and Belgian Shepherd drug-sniffing dogs do their work before, usually in our inner city, where poverty, despair, anger, depression, ignorance, emotional, sexual and physical abuse and exploitation of every stripe come together in relentless waves of bad luck and bad happenings.

Most people here never catch a break. They hurt and hurt … and kill each other mindlessly, pointlessly …

You drive through places like my Worcester neigborhood and witness the drug houses, dumped garbage, unemployed young men, obscenity-laced shouting matches playing out in the streets, the condemned buildings, abandoned property, undernourished little kids and feel … oppressed.

There’s beautiful stuff here, too – don’t get me wrong. I live on Ward Street for the beautiful stuff … like the poor parents who dress their little kids up so cute and adorable – transcending the badness … the kids who walk the family chihuahua after coming home from elementary school, in the ugly concrete parking lot, yet they look so happy as they trot alongside their feisty wee pet … The retired lady who picks up the trash strewn on the sidewalk, outside her front door. … My awesome 90-year-old apartment with its high ceilings, solid, heavy dining room doors that come together to slide shut, the original 90-year-old woodwork that is stained dark brown and looks so lovely against my creamy walls. I look out my top floor window at night and see the city lights twinkling like millions of little white flowers cast out onto a deep purple sea. I remember my late mom who grew up near by and her goodness enfolds me like the purple night enfolds the white city flowers …

Back to singing the praises of the Woo PD vice squad!

I’ve seen their Belgian shepherd dog go through a car on Canterbury Street sniffing for drugs. Nothing languid about that dog! A model of tough, lean, intrepid, single-minded thoroughness. With just the slightest prompt from his lean, cool cop handler the dog jumps into the car’s trunk to run his nose over every square millimeter of trunk space. Then jumping out of the trunk, always on lead, he leaps into the back seat sniffing wildly, then lithe paws straddle the front seat sniffing madly – then onto the dashboard. Finally, the car hood is popped open and the dog – smaller and more agile than a German Shepherd dog with an edgier temperment – crawls on top of (the now cold) engine! And he is losing himself in the car’s innards. To get at the drugs. This all happened in around five minutes.

Back to the raid next door to my place! Like I said, watching the Worcester PD Vice Squad or any of the cops and state police who pursue drug dealers and other vice is like watching a big budget cop movie in the cineplex. Only it’s happening in real life, real time, yards away from you!

I watched the show on Ward Street a few days ago: the cops opening up a drug dealer’s car and pulling stuff out of it. Paper work. Floor mats. Clip boards. Some of the guys were taking gulps from their bottled water. All were talking loudly, boisterously. The hood was theirs! The arrests had been made earlier, at a different drug house. There were several houses involved located in two states – there were a bunch of young men involved – all, sadly, in their mid-20s. Thousands of dollars in cash were recovered – and a machine gun, too! (thank you, NRA!) But no one had been hurt. The guns, heroin, cocaine, drug dealers are now gone! Poof! Out of my Ward Street neighborhood! Just like in the movies! (Or, some of them are gone, at the very least)

Our urban cavalry road in and saved the Woo day! Women and children are now a little – maybe a lot – safer when we walk down Ward Street.

And I’ll always remember the playfulness in the voice of one vice squad cop who said good bye to the young lady who had been watching him do his job from HER apartment window: “See ya later, Sweetie!”

Swoon …

InCity Voices

WARD STREET’S little kids, moms, families, law abiding citizens thank you, Worcester Police Dept. Vice Squad, Mass State Police, Conn State Police and your heroic German Shepherd dogs!

March 11, 2016 admin

DRUG RAID AT 48 1/2 WARD ST.

From the Worcester Police Department FB page:

Year-Long Drug Investigation Yields Numerous Guns and Drugs – 11 Arrests Made

Worcester Police Chief Gary J. Gemme announced today that as a result of an extensive narcotics investigation initiated by members of the Worcester Police Vice Squad, eight search warrants were executed and eleven arrests were made. This was a joint investigation by the Worcester police department, Massachusetts State Police, and supported by the Worcester Country District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. The execution of these search warrants and the securing of the premises of the targeted sites involved the assistance of the Oxford Police Department and Auburn Police Department.

“Today was a bad day for those who would prey on our residents and neighborhoods. With one fell swoop, the Worcester Police Department and their law enforcement partners put a serious dent in drug trafficking in our city,” said City Manager Edward M. Augustus, Jr. “This kind of case only comes together through cooperation across agency lines. Thank you to the Worcester Police Department, District Attorney Joseph Early’s Office, the Massachusetts State Police, and Connecticut State Police for their tireless work to make Worcester a safer place.”

Describing the operation, Chief Gary J. Gemme said “In the early morning hours, officers involved in the operation prepared to enter pre-determined locations simultaneously to execute eight search warrants including sites in Oxford, Auburn and Connecticut.”

Members of the Worcester police vice squad, and Massachusetts State Police made entry into the following locations and secured the premises:

11 Russell Street, 1st Floor Worcester
11 Russell Street, 2nd Floor Worcester
48 ½ Ward Street, Worcester
75 Ward Street, Worcester
21 Merrick Street, 3rd Floor, Worcester
143 Orchard Hill Drive, Oxford
Starters Distributors, 848 Southbridge Street, Auburn

Connecticut State Police, Massachusetts State Police and Worcester Police executed a search warrant at 442 Eastford Road, Woodstock, CT.

The search warrants yielded more than 200 grams of cocaine, more than 200 grams of heroin, 11 firearms, 10 vehicles and approximately $75,000 cash.

Commenting on the investigation, Chief Gary J. Gemme said, “Anytime you can focus on areas of the City impacted by drugs and violence, it goes a long was to enhance the safety and vitality of our neighborhoods. … This is just one of a number of investigations and wiretaps that we are working on which focuses on guns and drugs.”

The investigation began approximately a year ago and included a wiretap and surveillance. It is expected that the arrests made during this investigation will disrupt the illegal activities of the drug organization.

“This was a great effort and a lot of good police work went into this over the past year,” said Worcester County District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. “This action truly exemplified how well the state police assigned to the Worcester County District Attorney’s Office and Worcester Police work together.”“You cannot overstate how important it is to get heroin and cocaine in this quantity off the streets and take back these neighborhoods,” he said. “It is also a very good day for law-enforcement and for public safety when we can get this many weapons out of the hands of drug dealers.”

During the raids, the following individuals were placed under arrest:

Juan DeJesus, 24 of 48 ½ Ward Street, Worcester was charged with Possession of Class A Substance with Intent to Distribute, Possession of Class B Substance with Intent to Distribute, Trafficking in Class B Substance more than 200 Grams, and Conspiracy to Violate Controlled Substance Laws.

Jose Tapia, 26, of 48 ½ Ward Street, Worcester was charged with Possession of Class A Substance with Intent to Distribute, Possession of Class B Substance with Intent to Distribute, Trafficking in Class B Substance more than 200 Grams, Conspiracy to Violate Controlled Substance Laws, Possession of Class B Substance, and Possession of Class C Substance

Jose Correa, 38, of 143 Orchard Hill, Oxford was charged with Trafficking in Class B more than 200 Grams and Conspiracy to Violate Controlled Substance Laws.

Joshua Amart, 24, of 11 Russell Street, Apartment 2, Worcester was charged with Distribution of Class B Substance (Subsequent Offense).

Pito Bauza, 45, of 42 Grand Street, Apartment 2, Worcester was charged with Possession of Class A Substance and Conspiracy to Violate Controlled Substance Laws.

Eduardo Diaz, 33, of 159 Water Street, Worcester was charged with Use of Firearm in a Felony, Resisting Arrest, Possession of Firearm/Ammunition without an FID Card, Possession of Class A Substance with Intent to Distribute, Interfering with a Police Officer and Conspiracy to Violate Controlled Substance Laws.

Wilfredo Valle, 32, of 300 Gregory Avenue, Passaic, NJ, was charged with Use of Firearm in a Felony, Resisting Arrest, Possession of Firearm/Ammunition without an FID Card, Possession of Class A Substance with Intent to Distribute, Possession of Class B Substance with Intent to Distribute and Conspiracy to Violate Controlled Substance Laws.

Israel Diaz, 36, of 41 Merrick Street, Worcester was charged with Possession of a Machine Gun, Trafficking in Class B Substance more than 200 Grams, Trafficking in Heroin more than 200 Grams, Conspiracy to Violate Controlled Substance Laws, Use of a Firearm in a Felony, Possession of a Firearm without an FID Card, and Possession of Ammunition without an FID Card.

Additional charges are pending and all eight individuals will be arraigned tomorrow at the Worcester County District Courthouse.

Three additional individuals were arrested in Connecticut and are facing numerous firearms and drug charges.
“These arrests and seizures of narcotics, firearms and suspected drug profits will deliver a significant blow to the cocaine and heroin trade in Worcester and the surrounding region,” said Colonel Richard D. McKeon, Superintendent, Massachusetts State Police. “Today’s operation and the investigation that preceded it is a model for interagency cooperation.”
“I commend the work of the State Police Detective Unit attached to District Attorney Early’s office and of our partners at the Worcester Police Department, ” he said.

Chief Gemme commended Captain of the Bureau of Investigative Services, Paul Saucier, Vice Squad Lt. Joseph Scampini, and Police Officer Larry Williams for their tireless work on the investigation. “The results of this investigation are a tribute to the dedication that we continually see from our officers working to keep our community safe,” said Chief Gemme

WOW

InCity Voices

My Thoughts on the Worcester Police Clergy Academy

December 5, 2015 admin

Pastor Esau Vance

By Elder Esau Vance, Senior Pastor of Mt. Olive Church & WBCA President

As I reflected back over the last seven weeks of this [Worcester police] clergy academy class I am convinced more than ever that it is going to take a total commitment on the part of the city’s officials, the police and the community to create a safe and thriving city that we can all be proud to live in.

But in order to achieve this safe and welcoming environment, everyone must step up to the plate and stand for righteousness, justice and equality for every citizen living in our city of Worcester. And we must become one city that sits on a hill and not two fragmented cities which are limping toward destruction. You see, a house that is divided against itself will surely fall.

And we must not continue to blame the police for an increase in drug use and distribution and related crimes; and when there is a drug related death or crime. We keep our lips closed and refuse to share the needed information with the police for them to bring the criminals to justice.

Likewise, we cannot expect the police to do their job of maintaining peace and order if the only thing we can say about them is that they are all ROGUE COPS. And we cannot ask them to protect our families and homes if we refuse to do our part in policing and protecting our own neighborhoods.

And we must do everything we can to help see to it that every officer gets a chance to go home to his or her families at the end of the day.

I paid close attention to the instructions that the officers shared with us during the seven weeks of classes. And I discovered that what we see in a 30 second news flash by the media is not always reality.

I also learned that although an alleged criminal may not have a weapon on his person, that when he comes within a certain distance of a police officer who does have weapons, that he is also no longer consider to be unarmed, according to police procedures.

Therefore, if we allow citizen apathy to cause us to stand idle and leave the safety and security of 180,000 people in our city to 400 police officers alone, I believe that we will live to regret such a decision.

And so every individual must work with city officials and the police in order to create a city where we can all live in peace and harmony.
The task of protecting our city must be a shared responsibility for every concerned citizen.

However, continuous finger pointing and divisiveness will not solve our problems; it going to take prayer, trust, and mutual respect for one another.

And we will never be able to move forward as a city as long as we are bent on living in the past and dwelling on past mistrusts. And Dr. King was right when he said that we must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. And as concerned citizens let us encourage our young men and women to comply with the order of the police officer when requested to do so.

And trust me, I am not under any illusion about race relations, gender bias and religious discrimination, but I have hope and faith that in spite of ourselves, that God will help us to find a way to save our city, our union and our country.

And we all have our work cut out for us: the police, city officials, as well as every citizen in the city of Worcester. You see, I heard the call of several officers asking the clergy and the community to join forces with them to make our city a safer and better place for everyone. And I heard them when they said that they cannot do this job alone. I also heard the officers when they said that they too have some house cleaning to do in weeding out a small number of bad apples among their ranks.
Finally, I heard them when they said that, “all lives matter” – black, white, red, brown, yellow!

Yes, all lives do matter, and that includes the policeman who walks or rides his beat, the young black and white men and women who drive and walk the streets of our city. It also includes every other individual who lives within the boundaries of our great city. You see, all lives are precious in God’s sight because we were all made in His image and likeness.

In closing, I want to challenge everyone here tonight and those who took the class to get the word out to the community from the pulpits, the dinner table conversations, and from our social gatherings that we will work together and rise together, as this city’s greatest moments of achievements are yet to come.

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog

Go, Ronny, go!!!!!

October 8, 2015 admin

MAIN SOUTH: The PIP is gone, but the crime remains the same

By Ron O’Clair

Hit and run …

Early Wednesday morning the 7th of October as I was still at my post watching the nefarious goings on in my area of concern here on Main Street in the 700 block, I heard a terrific crash right outside my window.

I was able to look out in time to see the same Dodge Ram pick up that had been terrorizing the neighborhood all night long previously running up and down Main Street at a high rate of speed making U-turns and coming back to interact with the street denizens who habituate my area.

I had almost called in a complaint on the truck for that behavior earlier, but the response times from the Worcester Police Department often are such that I figured they would be gone by the time the police arrived.

The guy in the black truck had been burning rubber during those U-turns which tended to be at Main & Hermon, and Main & Sycamore.

Several times during the course of the night, the offending vehicle would park outside of my building on the Charlton Street side and make transactions with the street dealers that perpetuate this particular spot in our beautiful City of Worcester.

I have tried to get the WPD to investigate the street level dealings that take place all night long outside my windows that are readily apparent to anyone that cares to look, but so far have not had much success.

Apparently, hanging around all night long outside of residential and commercial property that is clearly posted with No Trespass with no legitimate purpose is allowed in this section of the City of Worcester. At times there are as many as 20 people congregating outside of this building. You can travel the length of Main Street and not find that anywhere but here at ground zero at 2, 3, 4, or 5 in the morning.

It is the same people, doing the same things, day after day, night after night, and nothing is being done in the way of rectifying an intolerable situation, outside of my own objections, actions, and vigilance. I am ready to throw in the towel and give it up as a lost cause.

I thank the 580 Worcester voters outside of myself who cast a ballot in my favor in the preliminary election for City Councilor At-Large, I am grateful that there are still some people who can see the truth of the situation that exists here in the 700 block of Main Street.

Once in a while, someone is caught in the act of criminal behavior and actually has to face the consequences.

It just so happens that the driver of the black Dodge Ram truck was caught this morning. The woman whose car was destroyed may be able to get compensated for the damages, none of which would have happened had I not been witness and willing to do what is required of a citizen when he or she witnesses a crime.

It is your civic duty to assist the police in maintaining order in your community. Many people fail to do that duty for various reasons, and the result is that the police are hamstrung by lenient laws designed to protect the innocent from false charges which many times allow the criminals to continue their crimes without consequence.

So, after striking the vehicle, the guy revved the engine and pushed the car ahead a full car length, before finally backing up and fleeing the scene, only going as far as Wellington Street where he quickly parked the vehicle. This gave me ample opportunity to witness the incident, and telephone the police.

While waiting for the police to arrive, the woman who owned the damaged vehicle came out of 718 Main Street with a friend, saw me in the window and asked if I had seen who did it.

I pointed out the black truck now parked on Wellington Street, at which point the passenger that was riding in the vehicle at the time of the crash saw me doing my duty as a citizen.

There was some panic at that point among the perpetrators, and I believe an attempt was made by them to forestall summoning the police because the passenger whistled after the two women who were now heading back to the building I assume to summon the police.

The driver, with his shaven head plainly visible had exited the vehicle and was staggering all over the place on Wellington Street in what I surmise was a drug/alcohol induced state of intoxication.
It bordered on the bizarre, this whole scene, but really it was just another day in the hood. When the police finally got here, the operator was inside the drivers seat clapping his hands. The two women were taking cell phone pictures of the license plate of the truck which I had already reported to the call taker for the Worcester Police Department having read it with my telephoto lens as it sat parked on Wellington Street.

The black Dodge Ram got towed away by the police, which probably means that it was unregistered and that the plate did not belong to it which will no doubt cause problems for the woman who had her vehicle damaged. The operator was taken away in the Paddy Wagon, and the damaged car remained parked outside my building for several hours.
I am quite certain that had I not done my duty, the occupants of the black Dodge Ram had no intention of owning up to the fact that they had caused the damage to the woman’s vehicle.

Certainly I am not winning any friends among the criminal element by my taking the moral high road and doing the right thing in these situations, but my faith in the system demands that I do it. If we fail to do our part, it is only a matter of time until there would be total chaos and anarchy on the streets.

People need to do their part, the police alone can’t control the situation. If we all do what is required of us as citizens as laid out by our forefathers, we could restore out inner cities to order in no time. It is a sad state of affairs that I have to call the police to report people sitting right on my front steps smoking crack cocaine out in the open on Main Street, only to have them come too late to catch the offender in action. Same goes for my witnessing trespassers doing drugs on the private property or when vehicles come to make drug buys, by the time the police arrive to investigate the suspicious vehicle report, the transaction has taken place and the next one occurs. It is a never ending cycle of lawlessness that is not being halted.

Perhaps getting this out there in print will help change that.
I urge other concerned citizens who reside in my location to start phoning the police with complaints about the activities that go on outside their windows on a 24/7 basis. When enough complaints are made, things will start to happen.

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog

Worcester, can our urban core turn the corner?

September 13, 2015 admin

Text and photos by Rosalie Tirella

Yesterday, while running errands, I saw this heap of garbage on the corner of Endicott and Millbury streets, behind a restaurant no less:

Disgusting. Demoralizing.

Across the street in front of Our Lady of Czetchowa/St. Mary’s Church parking lot – not the Ward/Richland streets side but the Endicott Street side – I saw more shit: a mattress box spring leaning against a fence, a tall garbage can overflowing with garbage and much more trash strewn on the surrounding sidewalk. A mini landfill! I did not take a photo cuz there was a tough guy putting more crap there, and you know how that goes here in the hood …

The pastor of St. Mary’s, a Polish priest, who has ZERO interest in the neighborhood his church is smack dab in the middle of so he is ALSO PART OF THE PROBLEM, has refused to cooperate with the City of Worcester in any way – will not allow city workers to install a video camera on church property to catch the illegal dumpers, so they can be fined or at least shamed at their pig-pile ways.

This “pastor” will not even allow the Worcester Public Library book mobile LIBBY to park in his precious church parking lot. But he does allow LIBBY to idle there for his St. Mary’s School students – his church’s mediocre, dying parish school.

Public library for private school kids. No public library for Worcester inner-city kids! One of the school’s marketing points, for parents: IT’S A SAFE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT.

Nope! With all the garbage, junkie used syringes and guns found on Ward Street NEXT DOOR TO ST. MARY’S, St. Mary’s School is located in one of Worcester’s least SAFE neighborhoods.

The Polish pastor does NOTHING to safeguard his students because he does NOTHING to improve the neighborhood.

Here’s his PRECIOUS parking lot in the middle of being repaved:

Then a quick drive by the old PIP in Main South where, a few weeks ago, I saw this homeless recovering addict lying in a nearby doorway in hospital scrubs and yellow socks:

This time, yesterday, at the corner of Main and Charlton streets, the hood HOT SPOT while the old PIP wet homeless shelter existed for so many years I saw: 15 or so people in a roiling urban dystopia – hookers, guys and gals watching drug deals going down, a guy pretending to butt fuck a lady against the wall, people sitting on the curb, people sitting on overturned milk crates, many on the phone, many dazed and confused, most all looking to score junk, crack, pussy … a carnival of urban despair/violence … a 10 minute walk from Worcester City Hall, the downtown city leaders are working so feverishly to resuscitate.

I drive by the area every day. THIS IS THE WAY IT ALWAYS LOOKS. … THIS IS EXACTLY THE WAY THIS INFAMOUS CORNER LOOKED WHEN THE PIP WAS OPEN. THE PIP WAS BLAMED FOR THE URBAN DYSFUNCTION. But the PIP has been gone for a few years now AND YET THE SCENE LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME!

How can we save the inner-city when the inner-city refuses to save itself? On any level. Even if that means throwing your trash into a trash barrel or NOT kicking in your back or front door just cuz you want to?

Uncivilized behavior has created an uncivilized urban environment.

How are we going to take back our urban core, Worcester?

Neighborhood Roundup

Youth and Gang Violence: Current efforts by the Worcester Police Department

September 1, 2015 admin

Worcester Community Connections Coalition’s Family Needs Committee
and the Spanish Parent Education Workshop
of YOU Inc.
Invite you to attend a discussion on …

Youth and Gang Violence