Tag Archives: violence

· 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

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 …

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?

Green Island Grrrl, Rosalie's Blog

Everything’s changed, Worcester!

August 6, 2015 admin

ICT editor Rosalie walked up to this local statue a few days ago to find comfort. ( pic – R.T.)

By Rosalie Tirella

In the 1990s I lived in Springfield (MA) and Hartford. Young but not too young I lived in those cities to 1. be away from Worcester, my hometown and 2. to work on my writing. I had Grace, my greyhound mix back then, my first dog, and, as always, a few cats, when I pulled Worcester stakes and headed down the pike/ route 84. I piled most of my clothing in my cream-colored Cavalier station wagon, got a few friends to rent me a small UHaul van, load it up with my then bedroom and kitchen sets and together, one guy driving the UHaul, the other guy riding with me to keep me company, headed down the road.

The great – and disappointing – thing about “heading down the road” is that once you get to your destination and the brief honeymoon period of adjusting to life in a new locale is over (1 – 3 years) you find you’re the exact same person you were in your old/town or city, be it suburban dump or glitzy metropolis. Sure, you picked up new clothes, new interests, new pals, eaten at new restaurants but it’s basically YOU, your personality, hanging on a new street.

Comforting. We are people with individual personalities – not chameleons that shed our skins to match some rock.

Discomforting. We think we are founts of infinite potential and that we can reinvent NEW AMAZING LIVES FOR OURSELVES at every turn – the American ethos. But we can’t. Not really. We are human beings whose parents and early childhood pretty much set our IQs and personalities in stone. You can tweak and play around the edges (that’s what psychotherapy is for) but YOU ARE YOU!

I had the above epiphany in Hartford in the 1990s and headed back to Worcester, where I’ve been running my little life ever since.

In Hartford I realized a few other things, too: 1. THAT WORCESTER WAS SO MUCH SAFER THAN SPRINGFIELD AND HARTFORD and other New England cities its size 2. It was Worcester’s safeness, its BIG SMALL TOWN FEEL that I LOVED and missed most of all! The Sunday drivers, the acres and acres of green space, the lack of skyline, the LACK OF GUN VIOLENCE. The relative PEACE. All this mundane crap was what made Worcester STELLAR!

Even back in the 1990s Springfield and Hartford were filled with gangbangers, murderers, gun toters and knife-brandishers … pitbulls who’d lost dog fights hanging from trees (in city parks!), young fathers bed hopping while their kids and women waited in pisshole apartments for their “king” to return home, the women enablers who’d brazenly fight it out with each other over the “love” of some loser. Ugly scenes. Self-destruction. Drugs. Guys walking around with paper bags with bottles in them and leaning against bus stop signs (on Main Street!) to take a few swigs from their bottles. Women were killed and stuffed into trash cans, like yesterday’s garbage.

My neighbor in my Hartford apartment building, a sweet piano teacher who gave piano lessons in his apartment, had his living room window sprayed with bullets, the living room in which stood his beloved piano, next to a white wicker chair. The living room where he gave piano lessons to neighborhood kids wasn’t elegantly appointed (he didn’t have a lot of dough), the tentative tinkling I loved to listen to from my apartment, up above, wasn’t always very … musical! Still, it felt like home! After the guns moved in the piano teacher moved out. Within weeks. And I was left without his music, with sadness. This music teacher, a symbol, to me, of hope amid all the despair around us, of art in spite of the killing, of teaching trumping shooting up – heroin – and guns – was gone. Poof! Vanished into the suburban thin air! Kids learning their scales and how to read sheet music were no longer part of my city world. Now it was kids with guns hunting each other down with such intensity that sometimes entire families had to abandon their apartments and relocate for safety purposes. I knew of one such family. The kid was 16, gorgeous and charming but TROUBLE. He crossed some folks. They were after him. His mother moved the family out of their neighborhood under the cover of night. She adored her son, would do anything to keep her baby safe. Some baby.

THE KIND OF FEAR THAT EMPTIES YOU OUT. The kind of fear that stops you from enjoying your life in your city because you are too busy watching your back. This is what’s happening in Worcester today: fear and violence birthing more fear and more violence. It’s the domino effect. And just you try to stop it! You get the bad guys, put them away, but their “friends,” through a perverted sense of loyalty, “get” the other guy, step up to keep up the mayhem. One guy loses his drug business, there’ll be his mentee – or competition – to pick up the slack.

Worcester, my hometown, used to feel … old fashioned. Frumpy. A city where you’d never expect a two-year-old child and mom to be gunned down while sitting in their car. You think: that’s the kind of violence you see in much bigger cities where economic and social disparities are wider. Right? Wrong! It happened here, in Worcester, a few days ago. Worcester – a city no longer peopled with Sunday drivers and easy going ( if slightly boring) neighbors, and second-rate everything. Nope. It happened in the shining new Worcester where the upper middle class still enjoy a pretty nice existence but where our working class and uneducated (more than half of Worcester) find little opportunity, what with our factories, the juice that gave Green Island, Vernon Hill, Grafton Hill, Main South, Quinsigamond Village, Piedmont, Union Hill, Greendale their juice, gone. Now jobs are scarce and what’s available pay $9 an hour. Nine bucks. Trying paying your rent and bills and buying groceries on nine bucks. It’s a wonder Worcester – America! – doesn’t have MORE murders and brazen gun-play!

Worcester, we’ve turned a corner this summer.

EVERYTHING’S CHANGED.

InCity Voices

Statement by Worcester Mayor Joseph M. Petty on recent proposals to increase the presence of outside law enforcement agencies in Worcester

August 5, 2015 admin

I have full confidence in [Worcester Police] Chief [Gary] Gemme and the Police Officers of Worcester.

The Worcester Police know our community and our neighborhoods.

We have a great community policing program, as well as the Police Summer Impact Unit.

Law Enforcement on all levels are already working together to solve the problem of violence in our community. They are working under the leadership of Police Chief Gary Gemme.

But when guns are easy to obtain, you end up with guns in the wrong hands. Unfortunately, right now, we have gang members with small minds carrying big guns.

I am disappointed in some of my [city] council colleagues who try to have it both ways:

You can’t vote against funding for the police and then claim that they don’t have enough money.

You can’t call for level-funding the budget and then say we don’t have enough cops.

You can’t file orders one day supporting the police and then show a total lack of respect for their professionalism the next.

I am asking my colleagues to stand with me in my support of the Worcester Police Department. We need everyone in this fight. We need the Worcester Police, we need neighborhood crime watch groups and we need community groups, all who know the neighborhoods of Worcester.

InCity Voices, Neighborhood Roundup

Gun buy-back in Vernon Hill this Saturday! PLEASE! All guns must be unloaded and wrapped in bags!

June 23, 2015 admin

Info from city website:

Goods for Guns – Gun Buyback!

EMS Garage, 100 Providence St. (the old fire station)

Saturday, June 27

9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Kids and guns do not mix!

A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to kill a family member or friend than to kill an intruder.

With gun ownership comes the responsibility of storing guns locked, unloaded and inaccessible to kids. If this is not something you can do, let us dispose of the firearm for you by participating in “Goods for Guns.”

Turn in your operable gun and receive:

Semi-automatic weapon: $75 gift certificate to a local merchant.

Handgun: $50 gift certificate to a local merchant.

Long gun: $25 gift certificate to a local merchant.

Also accepting non-operable guns, live ammunition and firearm accessories (no gift certificates issued).

Get gun locks for free, even if you aren’t turning in a gun. FREE!!!!

Anonymity ensured – no names asked.

No gun registrations required.

IMPORTANT: All guns must be brought unloaded and wrapped in a bag.

Questions: Call (508) 799-8531

InCity Letters, InCity Voices

The violence at Worcester’s North High School: how to make our schools safe

March 4, 2015 admin

By Edith Morgan

[North High] teachers are afraid – administrators get attacked, thugs run rampant … . Why? Because staff have been for decades dis-empowered: fear arises from powerlessness.

If teachers are to be held responsible for the learning and behavior of students, they MUST have the power to enforce rules, keep order, insist on performance, and be backed up when they report infractions.

It is the responsibility of parents to send to school children who have been trained to be responsible, respectful, and willing to learn. We have alternative programs for those students who can not, or will not, allow learning to take place, and who are so ego-ridden that they must disrupt the learning of others.

I know teachers know who these students are, and they should feel supported when they take action to secure their classes. And any student who lays a finger on staff should be automatically remanded into an alternative program.

Teachers and staff who feel the need for training in getting respect should have it made available immediately. But above all, power and responsibility must go hand in hand: power has to be earned, little by little, as ability to behave responsibly is demonstrated.

All children and young people deserve protection, from parents and schools, but not decision-making power without assuming a lot of responsibility.

I would bet the teachers at North High School know exactly who the handful of troublemakers are. Identifying and isolating them would go a long way toward solving the school’s problems, and making all the rest of the student body safe.

InCity Times writer Edith Morgan was a teacher, foster parent, and served on the Worcester School Committee.

InCity Feature, InCity Letters, InCity Voices, Uncategorized

Worcester Police Dept. needs ShotSpotter – another crime-fighting tool for our urban tool-box!

December 2, 2013 admin Leave a comment

By Sue Moynagh

This past Election Day, I had an informative conversation with a neighbor as we did standout for our respective candidates. We have a lot in common. We are both long time residents of Worcester’s Union Hill neighborhood. We attended the same church, school, shopped in local stores and walked on the same streets. We have both seen the changes in our community, the ups and downs, and we hang in there, hoping to effect changes for the better in the future. She spoke of the high crime rate on her street; drugs, violence and shootings. We both hear the gun shots, especially at night, and we are both glad of the response we are getting from the city, especially the police department. The latest “weapon” in the battle against crime could be ShotSpotter. What is ShotSpotter? What are the pros and cons? And why do I favor its use in this community?

First, I want to give an update on this war against crime. This past July, a community engagement meeting was held at Worcester Academy announcing that a special Community Policing Precinct was being formed for the Union Hill neighborhood. This is in response to the increase in violent crimes in this area, especially those involving guns. The Precinct involves the Police Operations Division, which works in conjunction with the Vice Squad and Detective Division to focus on problem situations within the community. In the first week, there were 7 coordinated drug busts and a large number of persons with outstanding warrants were apprehended. Large numbers of illegal abandoned or unregistered vehicles were also towed. The police officers are now walking throughout the streets of Union Hill, and you can see patrol cars everywhere. There is also a greater state police presence now that they have opened a division at 81 Lafayette Street along with the Attorney General’s office. What does this mean for the neighborhood safety?

In the past week, I have seen numerous state and Worcester police cruisers on Harrison, Dorchester, Madison, and Providence Streets. Cars are being stopped. When people see such an expanded police presence, there is a perception that it is safer. As one local businessman said, “People feel more secure. They are out walking, with kids, with baby strollers. There are more kids playing in the parks.” Unfortunately, there are still problems, including gunfire. More is needed to increase public safety in Union Hill and adjacent neighborhoods. This brings me to the ShotSpotter initiative.

I first heard about ShotSpotter at a CSX Neighborhood Advisory Committee that meets once a month to discuss funding proposals for three Worcester districts most impacted by the opening of the CSX railroad freight yard on Shrewsbury and Grafton Streets. The first meeting I attended was held at North High School in March. I testified that Union Hill was impacted by the CSX freight yard, and should receive mitigation money. A number of projects were proposed including the installation of 12 surveillance cameras along Providence Street and the surrounding streets. This would cost approximately $35,000 for stationary surveillance cameras. As far as I am concerned, anything that would give police added information to apprehend criminals is worth it. At the September CSX meeting, members of the Worcester Police Department gave a presentation of the ShotSpotter technology. A follow- up presentation was made in October.

ShotSpotter is a high- tech auditory system in which sensors pick up gunshots and relay this information to the police, allowing them to assess the situation and respond immediately. Sensors are activated by loud noises, but backfiring cars and fireworks are identified and filtered out. Data includes number of shots, location and, if shooters are in a vehicle, travel direction. Numbers of police needed and action required can be decided depending on information relayed to the police. Data provided by ShotSpotter would allow police to formulate long- term strategies to deal with criminal activity. Areas that are most problematic would get the most attention in terms of personnel. In some cases, ShotSpotter data can be used in courts as evidence. On at least one occasion, police were accused of instigating a shooting incident. Evidence showed that the police did not fire first. If police can get to the scene of a shooting in a much quicker time, there is better chance of making arrests and collecting more evidence.

I did some research about the system and was impressed by what it could do. In a report by Erica Goode in a New York Times News Bulletin, trials were conducted at the Charleston Navy Yard in 2006. ShotSpotter had a 99.6% “correct” rate of identifying and locating 234 gunshots at 23 locations within the test area. Other cities that use the technology claim an 80% plus success rate. ShotSpotter is rated favorably in many locations, including Washington DC, Springfield, MA, Oakland, Boston, Milwaukee and Gary, Indiana. Some of these cities claim that ShotSpotter use has reduced crime, especially gunfire by as much as 60- 80%. Overall crime rates have been reduced by a similar percentage, in a relatively short period of time.

Is ShotSpotter perfect? Of course not; there are cons. As with any new technology, there are imperfections. Sometimes police respond and there is no evidence of gunfire. In some cities, the police don’t utilize the information received correctly. Training is required for police personnel. It is also necessary to adjust SpotShotter according to each city’s unique auditory or acoustic “fingerprint.” An area with hills and large numbers of wooden buildings would reflect sound waves differently than one with flat terrain and with a large number of skyscrapers. Positions are determined by triangulating input from more than one sensor.

Some people fear the “big brother” aspect of this technology. Would private conversations be overheard? How much of this evidence should be allowed in courts before someone’s civil rights are jeopardized? Sensors are supposed to be placed at high levels and are activated by loud noises, not conversation. Surveillance cameras are not required, but recommended to be used with ShotSpotter. People feel uncomfortable with cameras in their neighborhood. I do. I also feel like I am willing to put up with this uneasiness if it means criminals can be identified and removed from my neighborhood, increasing overall safety. I also see these measures as temporary.

Another concern comes from those who have invested financially in the neighborhoods. If you own property or businesses in the community you want people to come in- to live, shop, dine and work here. There is fear that no one will want to come into a neighborhood that needs cameras and sensors. I would argue that the crime itself would dissuade people from moving into a neighborhood. If people feel safe, they will come and live, shop and work. Bad reputations are made by the crimes themselves, not responding technology.

Another fear is that ShotSpotter and cameras will drive crime into adjacent neighborhoods. Guess what? It is already there! There are no physical barriers separating the neighborhoods. People who commit crimes may live in one section of the city and be apprehended for crimes committed in another section of the city or even in another town. Many of the trouble-makers in Union Hill came from other parts of the city. In time, if not arrested, they will move elsewhere. Let’s work together to deal with problems, not close our eyes and point fingers.

One argument states that statistics do not bear out the need for high- tech tools. Few gunshots are reported, and other cities are even worse than Worcester in terms of violent crime. True. One reason brought out at the ShotSpotter presentation for low gunshot reports is that few people call the police when they hear gunshots. I know I don’t. It is very difficult to determine where the sounds are coming from unless the shots are very close by. Some people feel that they may be mistaken. Could it be fireworks? Others are just plain afraid of retaliation. So statistics about gunfire don’t tell the whole story. As for other cities being worse than Worcester in terms of violent crimes, I am sure there are. As far as I’m concerned, one gun fired or one crime committed is one too many.

At a recent meeting, I was accused of being an alarmist, for basing my endorsement of ShotSpotter and surveillance cameras on fear rather than on information. This comment was based on the testimonies given by myself and another resident at the CSX Advisory Committee meeting on October 12. Neither one of us are alarmists. Are we afraid? Certainly. But we are both intelligent, well- educated women that are able to make sound decisions, based on facts, not on hysterical, knee- jerk reaction. There are still guns being fired and other crimes being committed in this section of the city and we want the police to have whatever tools they need to respond quickly and effectively to problems that arise.

In closing, I want to make reference to a book I am reading, “The Quest,” by Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla. It is a book about making improvements in an individual’s spiritual life, but I think it relates just as well with the health of a community. One section deals with the use of denials and affirmations. It states that if you change a baby’s diaper, you don’t put a clean diaper over an old one. You clean up the mess first! That’s what is needed now. We have to allow the police to do their work and get rid of all the CRAP in this neighborhood…in this city before improvements will take hold. I endorse ShotSpotter because it will enable the police to do an even better job of cleaning up my community, safely, efficiently, and effectively.

InCity Letters, InCity Voices, Uncategorized

In Piedmont today: anti-violence/peace speak-out in loving memory of Nathan Otero

October 17, 2013 admin Leave a comment

TODAY (OCT. 17)! 5:30 pm

Winslow Peace Park – at the corner Pleasant and Winslow streets

Please join the family of Nathan Otero, the Pleasant Street Neighborhood Network Center and community members in speaking out against youth violence in our community and continuing the discussion on building solutions in our neighborhood and city .

Our Neighborhood Peace Park is become the place in Worcester where people from across Worcester come to speak out against violence and injustice.

Let’s continue to support the growth of Women Together/Mujeres Unidas’ dream.