Councilor Linehan speaks to his neighbors regarding recent violent incidents in South Boston.
First, I would like to offer my sincere condolences to the family and friends of Amy Lord. My heart goes out to the parents, and love ones. My own daughters of the same age walk these regularly safe streets, my deepest sympathies to all. My thoughts and prayers are also with the two other women who were violently attacked in the 19 hours of viciousness.
Evil strikes communities without warning and sometimes with no root cause other than evil itself. Three young women were the target of horrible violence in our community; the victims were unconnected and random. When this occurs we all must take responsibility for each other. The people of South Boston must stand together. We must create new lines of communication so we can look out for the new as well as the not so new residents of our community. Women in particular must be cautious of their surroundings, use this present sense of fear to create better discipline when out and about. Men need to look out for potential trouble, especially other men who would harm or exploit women. I am personally concerned and horrified that these attacks occurred and threaten our sense of well-being.
I have called on the Boston Police to increase deployment in the area and to pay special attention to communicate with women walking our streets. I have asked friends and family to go out into the neighborhood and interact with neighbors to demonstrate our commitment to look out for one another. I personally will be out and about this weekend. If you see me, or any of my people please say hello. Southie has always looked out for one another; it is time we demonstrate this completely. A meeting is scheduled between U.S. Congressman Stephen Lynch, State Senator Linda Dorcena Forry, State Representative Nick Collins and I tomorrow to discuss further action and the collective monitoring of public safety efforts moving forward.
Please report any information you may about the incidents and any suspicious behavior to the police by calling 911. If anyone feels they have information and would like to leave it in confidence please call my office 617-635-3203 and we will forward the information to police.
Please forward this to your friends and neighbors in South Boston.
Thank you.
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I realize this is well-intentioned, but it’s also very paternalistic in tone.
“Women in particular must be cautious of their surroundings, use this present sense of fear to create better discipline when out and about.”
No one would advocate recklessness obviously. But, the implication here is that women need to be more disciplined, implying they are not by nature when out? There’s no reason to believe this poor woman was not aware of her surroundings or that it had anything to do with this. Or that other women are not careful when they’re out. Again, it’s always good to not be reckless, but most people – men and women – are not. Let’s not assume it’s otherwise.
The point of this was NOT to insinuate that women are acting recklessly or without discipline. Women are more likely to be targeted by evildoers, and should be EXTRA attentive, especially during these times. This message is a positive one, trying to bring additional awareness to the community. Let’s not make it into women being belittled, because that’s not what this is about.
I think this is a great first step, but we really need more police patrols out and less just talking. Let’s take serious steps to correct the issues. There are far too many absentee landlords letting anyone rent in our good neighborhoods so you never know who some of the folks trolling around are – friends of the renters, druggies, etc. These renters have parties and have lord knows what kind of people attending them.
Why hasn’t our great State Senator Linda Dorcena Forry stepped out and spoken about this tradegy? She certainly had plenty to say about local leaders and racial profiling, how about a murder of a young girl in your district and those attacks of the other women? A good reason why South Boston needs to keep electing it’s own neighbors to represent us.
Also, I’m pretty sure the renters and their friends aren’t the people doing heroin and oxy and breaking into cars and houses. Walk by the courthouse in the morning and you’ll see the junkies/B&E-ers are Southie born and bred.
Major Menino, Mr, Linehan, Ed Davis, Southie residents,
As you well know, Southie has a long standing series of issues that ultimately creates the local Southie culture that we have today. I’m going to say a few things that some locals and politicians don’t want to hear.
– The long-stading “code of silence” is alive and well. Has anyone come forward to say they saw Amy hurt/crying while entering ATM’s?
– The (not exaggerating) MASSIVE heroin problem is swept under the rug and instead we hear “Southie is a great place to live” from the clown we have as a major.
– Station 6 is a joke.
– There was a body found behing the library last week and a dead girl found on the beach. Why dont we hear about it? Junkie on Junkie crime. If a junkie kills a junkie, nobody cares.
– Junkies can’t kill other junkies for money. It’s a zero sum game.
– When a junkie kills an innocent non-junkie people pay attention. As the drug problem escalates, more junkies will need to steal from more non-junkies one way or another, perhaps violently.
– When a junkie (I’d bet anything Alemany is a junkie and getting Methadone in Bridgewater) kills another Junkie, it’s swep under the rug or into the back of a truck, like roadkill.
– Long standing Southie townies are understandably too afraid to speak up. It’s normal here.
– New residents get to hear the mayor respond to Amys murder by talking about what a nice part of town Southie is… the beaches… wheres the mention of the last weeks dead girl on the beach.
– Whitey is on trial, but what’s really different about Southie. Less Extortion! Thats a bonus. Whitley & crew brought the drugs into town, they’re mostly locked up, but the drugs remain.
– The detective that decided there was no probable cause when Alemany strangled the girl last year, and LEFT HIS WALLETT BEHIND, should be fired immediately.
– If you really want to address Amy’s murder, clean up the town and stop having the old code of silence apply to law enforcement and to junkie on junkie crime. I could go on, but does anyone REALLY care? I don’t think so.
– I’d come to the community meeting tonight, but honestly, I’m scared for my safety. Too much corruption all around…
BK
I disagree with your “code of silence” in regards to Amy’s murder. She was taken to ATM’s outside of Southie- nobody could hear her cries other than when she was taken in her jeep at 6am. I think that any respectable human would call the cops or intervene if they saw/heard her being attacked, that is not a code of silence. And I for one, have had LOCALS keep an eye out for ME (a non local) so I would give your community a lot more credit. I hate how a murder of a girl from a possible druggie has created some war between “yuppies” and locals- who is doing the drugs and creating the violence? Yuppies? no. Locals? no. Outsiders- more than likely. I am no expert on drug wars, but I really can’t see some of these arguments. And for the record, the girl found on M Street beach was indeed breaking news and was in the news. Her name wasnt released because it was drug related overdose and I am sure her loved ones did not want it released. It posed no danger to the neighborhood therefore it was not made a public safety concern, but it was still sad and people still mourned.