Tag Archives: Kelley Square

InCity Voices

The priest, the parking lot, the stolen mics and my neighborhood

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Our Lady of Czestochowa church – also known as St. Mary’s – is located on Ward Street, in one of Worcester’s poorest inner-city neighborhoods. Rosalie lives right next door!

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Sometimes people who were homeless or struggling with drug addiction hung out by the church’s shrine, located across from the church, at the other end of the church parking lot.

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St. Mary’s was the church of Rosalie’s Polish immigrant grandparents and mom. Rosalie attended CCD classes at the church’s school and walked to mass at St. Mary’s every Saturday night with her mom and two sisters for 17 years! Here she is with her beloved Polish Grandpa on their Lafayette Street back porch. She looks decked out for mass! pics: R.T.

By Rosalie Tirella

I say: The cold, proud priest had it coming to him! Jesus said: Be a lamb, be a serpent! The robbery – aka the recent break in, the filching of microphones, the stealing of $, the messing around in the sacristy at St. Mary’s church in lower Vernon Hill – was my inner-city neighborhood being a serpent.

I’ve watched the lead up to this break in at St. Mary’s on Ward Street – the Polish church’s proper name is Our Lady of Czestochowa – from my plant-filled kitchen window (I live in the apartment building next door) …

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… my parking lot, my walks with Jett and Lilac … for almost three years. I’ve heard the stories from my neighbors.

I ain’t no Aesop but here’s the moral of the story:

If you have a church in one of Worcester’s poorest, most drug-infested, gun-choked neighborhoods where the people are often sad, physically or emotionally abused, underemployed/poor, addicted to heroin or alcohol, desperate, hopeless, homeless! – if you are smack dab in the middle of the world that Jesus came to save and loved the most (Jesus said: THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST! THE FIRST SHALL BE LAST!), then you deal with it. Sensitively, if you’re me. Beautifully, compassionately if you’re a priest or a minister. Heck! If you’re a priest like St. Mary’s Rev. Ryszard Polek maybe you should even try ministering to the people! After all, Jesus LIVED IN/WAS A PART OF a community just like lower Vernon Hill during his sojourn on earth – we’re talking the underbelly, the social outcasts of Nazareth, Jerusalem. He was in the desert storm, wind-whipped whispers from the Devil swirling all around him. The Devil whispered into Jesus’ ears: Come! Follow me! And all this – here the Devil stretches out his arms over a rich, opulent and decadent city  – is yours!

Jesus said: Fuck off, Devil! I’m sticking with the poor folks … my lepers, my cripples, my robbers, my whores … the psychically tormented, the insane! Be gone! And Jesus shook the Devil off like the desert dust from his feet!

And the Devil went away…

If only the pastor of St. Mary’s – the un-Christ like Rev Polek – had learned his Bible lessons from the good nuns at his church in Poland where he was born and lived up until fairly recently. But now his rectory – his home – is next door to his church –  a two-minute walk from my apartment. Rev. Polek sees and is surrounded by the exact same men, women, youth and children I am, but he DOESN’T SEE. Jesus would cry! And be pissed! Righteous anger!!!!

The Rev. Polek has:

Not allowed the Worcester Public Library bookmobile Libby to park in his precious, recently repaved church parking lot so that the little kids (and adults) of the neighborhood can check out books, DVDs, CDs and more. He does have Libby parked on the church parking lot during the school year for the children who attend his church’s elementary school – St. Mary’s.

Rev. Polek has run out of his rectory and chased folks off the church parking lot (repaved recently!!!) and the church’s little pocket park – most recently a sweet neighborhood guy and his sweet pit bull. The man ALWAYS had a plastic bag and picked up after his dog! His daily walks with his beloved pooch in this concrete tough world where dogs that need much exercise are sometimes crated for hours,  owned by drug dealers or fought were to be admired! We all smiled at this pair! Not the pastor! He ran out yelling at the man and chased them off. For ever.

There is much illegal trash dumping in my neighborhood. Right inside, in the back of St. Mary’s church parking lot. On the Endicott Street side. It’s a trash hot spot, to tell you the truth! Rev. Polek has refused to work with the City of Worcester and State Rep. Dan Donahue when he was asked if video cameras could be installed and trained on the hot spot so the illegal dumpers could be caught. I’ve posted photos here of the thrown OFFICE FURNITURE, MATRESSES, chairs, contractors bags filled with garbage etc. All on St. Mary’s property. It sits there for days. Sometimes weeks.

The pastor’s kicked me and Jett and Lilac off his precious church parking lot when I used to walk my pups there (plastic poop bag in hand) in the early a.m. No church service. Just me in my Mom’s New York Yankees baseball cap trying to give my two high energy dogs, both on leads, some exercise in the inner city. A city without a dog park.

The pastor confronted me the last time I walked my mutts, and when I scolded him for not understanding the neighborhood he was smack dab in the middle of and told him Father Madden of St. John’s church, up a few streets, is super great with his neighborhood, actually has programs for the people of the ‘hood, welcomes them … feeds them Rev. Polek said to me in broken English wrapped in a heavy Polish accent: THEN GO TO FATHER MADDEN! Go to him!!!

I said FUCK YOU! then whipped around,  leading Jett and Lilac – they wanted to play with the pastor who just frowned at their exuberance – stormed off! Stormed off his fucking precious church parking lot!

A week later Rev. Polek had about 20 NO TRESPASSING. POLICE TAKE NOTICE  signs posted at the entry of his parking lot, the sides of his parking lot, by the shrine on his parking lot, near the church side of his parking lot… . What’s the Polish word for overkill?! (Rev. Polek!)

But then arrogance superseded nastiness:

Three or so weeks ago, I forget which holiday, the Rev. Polek hauled out the church portable microphones, the speakers, the portable PA system, gold leaf encrusted portable awning and lead a mini church procession around his church parking lot, ending up in front of the church’s shrine. It was warm out, but he was wearing heavy, opulent vestments trimmed in bright red. About 150 parishioners followed him, singing, too. He sang a sad Polish hymn that my mother used to sing around the house when I was a little girl growing up on Lafayette Street. Very plaintive, dark… I cried when I heard that song because it reminded me of Ma and my rough childhood in Green Island. I looked out my kitchen window to watch the Rev. Polek and his tiny flock.

The pageantry was intense and beautiful. It was a sea of people and pretty dresses and bowed heads in the middle of the inner city, surrounded by  tired three deckers, Section 8 housing, poor people, many brown- and black-skinned. It was all in Polish – words and music – not Spanish the way most celebrations in my neighborhood sound.

I struggled with its interpretation: I had never seen anything like this. Was Rev. Polek saying,  Hooray! I’ve got a new parking lot! Screw you poor city people! Look how great and holy we are! Look at my flock! Old, young, babies. We rule this brandy new church parking lot! It’s ours! Not yours! Stay off! Look at us! We are better. We are nothing like you!

Then two or three weeks later, his church is busted into and besides taking money, this outdoor portable PA system that he was using in that parking lot procession was stolen! Ripped off! Nothing else taken! No gold chalice, no gold leafed icon. JUST the PA system that he was using  a few weeks ago – not even flaunting it but he may as well have been – a great outdoor PA system before all the eyes and ears of a  poor BUT MUSIC-OBSESSED community. 

His neighbors, his neighborhood, too.

The recent break in at St. Mary’s is no tragedy, no desecration of a holy space! Jesus, the spirit of Jesus, St. Mary and all the saints and angels, was never there to defile.

And somewhere in the ‘hood there’s a great party going on, the lovely mariachi band sending love through music out to the pretty brown ladies in three deckers, the junkies nodding off in the hallway, the dancers at the backyard party, me writing this story, sweet Jesus up in the city sky!!

Hallelujah!!!

InCity Voices

Out delivering InCity Times yesterday …

… (and today)!

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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!!!!!

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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!

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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

Animal Issues

Animals!! More garbage in the Canal District!

Took these pics two hours ago. This is what folks see when they drive off the Route 290 off ramp to head into the Canal District.

Pathetic.

Maybe the City of Worcester needs to consider FREE garbage pickup for all. Residents and biz. Most cities do this! And look much prettier!

– Rose T.
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Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog

Black lives matter! BLACK LIVES MATTER!

Political Trial 3 (1)
photo: 2015

editor’s note: I’ve made some paragraphs bold. – R.T.

A Bogus Trial of Retaliation

By Gordon Davis
 
The Kelley Square 4 BlackLives Matter protesters charged with disturbing the peace during the 2015 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day protest had their day in court today. It was pretty clear from the start of the trial that something unusually wrong was going on.

The trial judge prevented the defendants from having a jury trial. He said case law allowed him to change the nature of the case from criminal to civil.

In a criminal case the defendants can choose a jury trial. In a civil case the prosecution can choose not to have a jury trial. In either case, it can be inferred that the trial judge did not want to go through the hassle of a jury trial or he did not think that the charges rose to the level of criminality.

In a civil case, the prosecution only has to achieve the standard of “preponderance of evidence” and not the more difficult standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The prosecution witnesses were, in my opinion, not credible and perhaps racists.

The truck driver said he was five hours late for a delivery due to the four and one half minutes blocking of Kelley Square. He said this got him fired from his job. Another witness said that the driver’s firing had nothing to do with the Kelley Square demonstration.

A woman driver who encountered the demonstration testified to yelling out to the protesters you would not block me if my granddaughter was Black. This witness could recognize a photo that showed her car during the protest. 

Worcester Police Department supervisor, Sergeant  Maddox, said he would not have arrested anyone at the Kelley Square demonstration – as he did not see anything criminal taking place.

Police Officer Maddox said he did not start to write his report until two and one half months after the incident, when ordered to do so by his superiors.

Maddox then said his report was partially based on a police report written by Worcester Police Officer Brace who did not testify.

Two of the defendants, Julius Jones and Robert Gibbs, gave as a defense their compelling political need to protest the unjust killings of people, especially unarmed young Black men. Defendant Kevin Ksen also spoke of his political motivations and the fact that he did not block any traffic. Defendant Conner did not testify, but her attorney indicated that Officer Brace misidentified her and there was no evidence that she blocked traffic.

The Worcester city officials who initiated the charges against the defendants did not testify.

There is speculation that they brought charges in order to retaliate against and intimidate BlackLives Matter protesters and the Black community.

The judge said he will mail out his decision to the KS4 defendants. The maximum for a civil case of disturbing the peace is a fine of $150.

There were a good number of people who came out in support of the BlackLives Matter protesters. They expressed a sentiment that no matter what the judge rules, the protests would continue and they would not be intimidated.

A March Against Racism is being planned for this year’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – January 18, 2016 – at 12 Noon. 

The march will go from St. John’s Church on Temple Street to Kelley Square.

InCity Voices

Kelley Square Black Lives Matter protesters in court today …

By Gordon Davis

About 50 people came out to the Worcester County Courthouse today and gave support to the Worcester 4 Kelly Square protesters. Most people stood outside the courthouse holding signs regarding BlackLives Matter.

The trial judge hearing the case of the protectors said several things of interest. He said no one in the court could wear a shirt with a message on it. Apparently, one of the defendants had a sweat shirt with “Black Lives Matter“ written on it.  A bailiff brought this to the judge’s attention. There was an objection raised by several of the defense attorneys. The judge then said to be fair he would allow policemen to wear suits and ties.  It is not clear how this is equivocal, or perhaps, he was joking.

The same Judge seemed to be surprised when the defense attorneys present up to 40 preemptory jury questions in a process called voir doire.  The judge did not like some of the questions, especially questions regarding BlackLives Matter, race, and the Ferguson Effect. Although he seemed biased against allowing the issue of race in the voir doire, the Supreme Court of the United States in this 2015-2016 session will hear arguments about whether race is a legitimate preemptory question.  Prosecutors in several states have opposed Black jurors and impaneled all White juries.

The trial judge said he would review the questions and give a ruling on which questions he would allow on December 15, 2015. On that date the jury will be selected. There was agreement that 50 to 60 potential jurors would be needed to impanel a jury for the case. The actual trial, with opening statements, will begin sometime in January 2016.

Curiously, the Judge mentioned the so called Worcester Panhandling case that is now in Appeals Court.  It is being reevaluated in light of the Supreme Court Ruling allowing panhandling in Lowell. The Judge said panhandling is free speech, but the people could not step off the sidewalk to do it. He also said political sign holders might be a danger to the public or a safety issue, if they stayed on the sidewalk and just waved at people in cars.  Is this judge giving the green light for the arrest of political sign holders?  

The implications of this trial are grave and could, like the panhandling case, make its way to the United States Supreme Court.

Sometimes it seemed that the Assistant DA acted as if the Judge would favor him no matter what. In regards to a Motion from the defense  about misidentification of one of the defendants, the Assistant DA was unprepared and did not have his opposition argument with him. He said it was downstairs.  The Judge gave him time to get it. The Assistant DA came back empty handed. One could speculate that he did not write or have the Opposition Memo.  The Judge could have allowed the Motion, as the DA had no opposition to it in court. Instead, the Judge told the Assistant DA to get it to him as soon as he could.

A mistake was made by the Judge in his thinking that the Kelley Square protesters had blocked an ambulance.

This mistake showed prejudice on his part. He had come to a conclusion without evidence. He seemed to additionally err in his thinking on whether the disturbing peace statute contains a “legitimate purpose” clause.

This trial will have an impact in Worcester and Massachusetts. It too may find its way to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts to get resolved. 

Animal Issues, Green Island Grrrl, InCity Feature, InCity Letters, InCity Voices, Rosalie's Blog, Uncategorized

Tweet! Tweet! A little birdie told us Allen Fletcher recently bought this chunk of land in Kelley Square …

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.. for around a million bucks. You know the piece of land (pictured above) – it sorta juts out into Kelley Square. It’s the piece of no-man’s land on the corner of Water and Green streets. Mostly used for parking these days …

Should be interesting to see how Allen reinvents the property!

Allen works fast!

He’ll probably have workmen (and workwomen, we hope!) at the site by next year, digging and bulldozing away!

I say HOORAY!

Here’s Allen’s chance to shine! Come through for people who aren’t the latte-drinking, beer-guzzling or narcissistic poseurs who seem to have taken over my old (and present) hood! So fake! So phony! Most have a talent for nothing  … except blatant self-promotion! It’s manipulative … not real. Just public relations. No one is anyone’s friend in the true, warts-and-all sense. Such garbage!

GET REAL, ALLEN!!!!!!

Get back to our roots!

Build up the neighborhood by creating a building/complex/NEW world to draw in:

Children/youth. They could use a branch library or an after-school center in your new space!

The families in the area, many without cars or a lot of dough. They could use a community health center in your new building. A YMCA branch, perhaps?

A CVS would be terrific! We need a pharmacy in the hood!

We need a bank branch, too!

A supermarket or TRADER JOE’S open SEVEN DAYS A WEEK, with normal working person’s hours and AFFORDABLE stuff and amenable to WIC, SNAP cards and the folks who have them (cuz they are poor) IS DESPERATELY NEEDED here!  Has been for YEARS!

If you put in housing, besides the retail, PLEASE make 30% of it affordable! 

MAKE THE NEIGHBORHOOD TRULY DIVERSE AND LIVELY, Allen! Make it more than a haven for preppy young or want-to-be-young bar flies.

Create a vibrant day scene, by putting in families and kids and the more mundane stuff that keeps them doing stuff … create a neighborhood that HUMS during the day!!

You’re a good guy who doesn’t want to exclude folks, a guy who doesn’t want to see the neighborhood become a one-trick pony (barsville). That’s BORING! And you pride yourself on reinvention and risk! PERSONAL GROWTH.

Good luck in your new endeavor! and … DO THE RIGHT THINGS!

– Rosalie!

InCity Voices

BLACK LIVES MATTER protesters get the run-around from CM Augustus and the WPD

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.

InCity Voices

The WPD: City Manager Ed Augustus and the Worcester City Council’s tool of retaliation and harassment

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.

InCity Voices

The BLACK LIVES MATTER protesters at Kelley Square

DSCF7086The 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.

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog, Uncategorized

A stabbing in the Canal District …

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.