[responsive_youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtH9wUPHOpE]
The North End Public Safety Meeting was held on September 6, 2013 at the Nazzaro Community Center hosted by Boston Police District A-1, Captain Thomas Lee, Sgt. Thomas Lema and Officer Teddy Boyle.
Video timeline for the meeting:
- 00:00 Welcome and overview – Captain Thomas Lee
- 04:15 Crime statistics and arrests (see attached sheet) – Officer Teddy Boyle
- 26:15 Question Period
- 32:00 Discussion to establish a new local police district for the North End and Charlestown – City Councilor Sal LaMattina
That guy running against Sal should have addressed the issues people were actually talking about and not suggest that we need a parole officer riding around with a police officer. I am sure we have our share of people out on parole but they are not the ones causing the late night loud party problems and the underage drinking in the parks. B&Es and drug dealing maybe. What we need are more officers patrolling the neighborhood and breaking up these groups and looking for the low lifes who are lurking about looking to grab someones purse or phone or worse.
You will have to fight the BPD union but you need the cop walking the beat not riding around blabbing or texting on phones.
Who do these cops think they are kidding? Janet made a great point, we want a list of the 911
calls and also proof that fines are being given out to the people causing the problem in the area.
The police are only pacifying everyone. I know a Landlord from Cleveland Place who called the
cops on his own tenants because they were loud, and smoking grass, and the Police came to
apt., did not tell them to stop smoking, they asked the Policeman if he wanted to join them, he said
NO, and told them to just lower their voices. The landlord came running down the stairs, and said
I heard what you just told them, which was to continue what you were doing and just lower your
voices. The landlord was enraged by the way the Cop handled the situation, and this particular
incident happened in and around 10 years ago. When you take a job as a POLICEMAN, you know
the paper work involved and because you don’t feel like writing up these complaints others have to
suffer for it and have been suffering for far too long. There are solutions to every problems, these
police are looking for details from restaurant owners, which is a great idea, but while the restaurants
are paying for details, our tax dollars should be protecting the residents from this insanity that we
are dealing with. If there is such a shortage of Boston Police, then call in the State Police and if
that doesn’t work, then you will leave residents no choice but to take things into their own hands.
Was completely with you up until the barely-veiled threat of vigilantism. What does ‘take things into their own hands’ mean? Going out on the beat yourselves with baseball bats? I suffer regularly from lack of sleep due to noise coming through my earplugs and over the fan late at night, but assault is something else entirely. Get your priorities straight.
I support Sal LaMattina’s proposal to have the North End and Charlestown combined into a single police district separate from Area A. Our own precinct with our own Captain and our own officers dedicated to each of the two communities is what community policing should be. Then when residents of the North End call about a loud party or a fight about to happen or swarms of teens in the parks drinking and causing trouble, we won’t have to hear the excuse that there was a shooting in Chinatown or the theatre district or a fight and a stabbing in North Station or Quincy Market and the officers were needed there. Instead of our quality of life calls being a priority -1 , they might move up to a priority 7 or 8 or maybe even a 9 or 10. I urge everyone to support Sal in this matter.
Resident, I would never condone baseball bats, but you have not heard what we have listened to
in the past few years. It will only be a matter of time until one of these people says something
to somebody’s mother or father, or family member, and what do you think is going to happen?
There is going to be an act of violence, because people are tired of the insanity in the neighborhood.
The police have been jerking this neighborhood around for years, this could be very simple if they
did their jobs.
Residents are making threats, that are positively frightening. There is a solution, but unless
somebody demands that the police do their job, unfortunately, it will be a nightmare. The police,
firemen, and meter maids have the hardest jobs in the city, but they all knew what the
job consisted of going in. The poor firemen has to deal with possibly dying every time he goes
out to fight a fire, the cops risk their lives also, but in this neighborhood, all they have to do is give out fines and the word gets out that the police are doing this and things could possibly quiet down.
The poor meter maids, get run over, spit at, and kicked, etc. for doing their jobs. The only thing
the police have to do in this neighborhood is give out the fines, they are not involved in shoot outs
like they might be in the theatre district, or downtown Boston areas. What a shame, they just can’t
be bothered.
What is the most ridiculous is that you have to call 911 to complain about kids drinking on roofdecks and being loud. If you call from a cell phone, it goes to the state police department. By the time anyone actually comes by, IF THEY EVEN COME BY!, the noise is over. Yes there are many more dire incidents taking place in the city but the undergrad students are posing more problems in the North End than we ever had and the residents are not happy about a 22 year olds throwing up and defecating on their sidewalks. It is ridiculous.