Girl dies from less than lethal weapon.

[Mosfet]

Musikman: you obviously havn't been on that street have you?

Its a 2 lane street usually with cars parked on either side making it one lane.
Fenway Stadium is on one side making it a solid wall there. Connected Buildings on the other side forming a single alley way out of the street.
Now, pack several thousand people into this several hundred foot long alley way with only 2 ways out, and tell me just how quickly you can get out of there.

And saying that if you were there makes you a participant makes as much sense as saying if you were at the bank when it got robbed then you were an accomplice. So i guess with your logic, if there is a union picket line, the moment you get within 10 feet of it, you are automatically a union picketer?
If there is a pro-life ralley going on at one end of a park and a pro-choice ralley at the other end, and you happen to walk by both groups, I guess that makes you a prolifer for one minute and a pro-choice the next?
You don't feel sorry for her. If you did, you would have thought about what you said before insulting her with you're faulty logic.

[Muzikman]

Nope, you got me wrong. Have you ever been in a riot? My guess is not. If you were, you would realize that no matter what, you can get out of there. And for you to say that I don't care just pisses me off, please don't tell me what I feel or don't feel!

[LudavicoSoldier]

damn. I know that area. I sometimes visit the Avalon.
even seen the sausage guy!

I think giving the marker to the mounted officer might have been a bad idea.
Given the raised elevation of the marker, this greatly increases the chance of a deadly shot.
In fact, there is no way that he can shoot down on a crowd without the balls passing through the plane (geometry) of the critical deadly zone.

It should have been in the hands of a ground trooper who can fire at shoulder level and have almost no chance of hitting someone in the face unless he was either aiming upwards, or the person is really short.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have a mounted officer. The height gives a command view of the crowd. But the PD needs to realize the implications firing from up there can bring.

Todays Green Metro states: "Boston Police take blame for Emerson student's death"

The officer who had the less-than-lethal gun was not mounted on horseback. The bottle startled (apparently) the horse, and a nearby officer on foot opened fire on the crowd.

[Mosfet]

ok, I might have been wrong to say how you feel, but it was rather callous to the girl and her family to accuse her of being a participant.

as for getting out of there. you have to remember, you and I would be out of there no problem. People like that girl, and my wife for one, would have most likely have broken down and have been "helpless" to get out of there. I know cause my wife doesn't handle situations like that very well.
If it were us two there, we'd probably have elbowed our way out and had fun at it.
Some people don't have the ability to do that and become incapacitated with confusion or fear.
so they end up standing there on the side hoping nothing happens to them.
That definately does not make them a participant.

[rkjunior303]

While it was busy, the crowd wasn't THAT bad....... A quick walk down brookline ave towards the fenway (not fenway park, it's different for all you out-of-towners) and you were out of any masses of people.. Everyone seemed to congregate towards Kenmore Square and Landsdowne. That's what I did and I got out fine.

[LudavicoSoldier]

Nope, you got me wrong. Have you ever been in a riot? My guess is not. If you were, you would realize that no matter what, you can get out of there. And for you to say that I don't care just pisses me off, please don't tell me what I feel or don't feel!

It wasnt exactly "riot" conditions down there, aside from a few small areas. Sure, people were rowdy, but very few were violent. The news media did a good job or showing both the good and the bad of the post game party. As Menino would put it, a few "jackasses or punks" can ruin a good time for everyone. Are you saying that fans should not be allowed to celebrate in pubic? Just because one person throws a bottle (that didnt even hit anyone), does not mean that the police should have carte blanche to open fire, when they have no idea who threw the bottle. Sure, they had an idea where it came from (across the street) but there were HUNDREDS of fans across the street. I just think that the officer believed that he and his fellow officers were under attack, and made a spur of the moment decision, which, unfortunatly was not the right decision, as the BPD has accepted full responsibility for the shooting.

Additionally, the BPD had not got a chance to use the pepperballs in real life, aside from training. This was the first time they were used in public. Perhaps they will now re-evaluate the terms of use for these crowd control devices.

[BetaMax]

It looks like the Boston Herald stooped to a new low by pubishing their cover page with the girl laying on the ground and her face covered in blood and another picture angle in the inside article.

It is one thing to report the facts and the sad story, but another to publicly show the victim.

The only question I have with that is why isn't the photographer doing anything to help the girl?

[LudavicoSoldier]

Here is an update from The Globe:

"A Boston police officer who is familiar with tactics and nonlethal weapons and who spoke on condition he not be identified, said grenadiers are trained to fire the so-called pepper balls at the chests of people because that allows a cloud of pepper spray to rise into the targets' faces. He said the pepper-spray-filled plastic balls are less accurate than some other nonlethal weapons and that the rounds sometimes curve in flight.


Boston Police officials did not specify the company that manufactured the pepper-filled ball used by Boston's force, but a spokesman for San Diego-based Pepperball Technologies confirmed yesterday that it sells guns and the pepper powder-filled balls to Boston Police.


The spokesman, director of marketing Chris Andrews, said the company would not comment on its products' use here until Boston police finish investigating the death of a young woman early yesterday.


The marble-sized Pepperballs travel about 300 feet per second. They shatter on impact, dispersing eye-stinging pepper powder.


"Our product saves lives," Andrews said. He said his company's product has never been known to cause a serious injury and does not have enough energy to pierce the skin or eyeball. "The best way to describe it is like a paintball but travels a little bit quicker and delivers pepper."


There is a second pepper product on the market that can fire with much more force and employs a spray of oleoresin capsicum, rather than a powder. FN Herstal company, which makes that product, could not be reached last night and it was not clear whether Boston police use it.


Police around the country have acquired thousands of these weapons, in an effort to avoid using guns or other types of lethal force."

[LudavicoSoldier]

It looks like the Boston Herald stooped to a new low by pubishing their cover page with the girl laying on the ground and her face covered in blood and another picture angle in the inside article.

It is one thing to report the facts and the sad story, but another to publicly show the victim.

The only question I have with that is why isn't the photographer doing anything to help the girl?

I saw that this morning, and thought it was in poor taste. The Herald is a tabloid paper, known for blatent sensationalism, so it really does not surpise me. Yet another reason to read The Globe.

[Mosfet]

Because photographers do not get involved.
They capture news, they dont make it, modify it, or in any way tamper with it.
Its rather crappy at times, but thats what they do.

The pic is just wrong! The Metro is showing a pic of her from school or something, but to show a pic of her dieing or dead is about the lowest thing they could have done to the girl and her family! Theres even a rule against that sort of thingin the Geneva Convention!

[Muzikman]

"Our product saves lives," Andrews said. He said his company's product has never been known to cause a serious injury and does not have enough energy to pierce the skin or eyeball. "The best way to describe it is like a paintball but travels a little bit quicker and delivers pepper."

The idea that they would actually say it can not pierce the eye scares me. This tells me the people selling these "pepper balls" do not know what they are selling.

[Stewylouie]

Steel,
If you look at the link you posted, FNH calls their line of systems "less lethal" but if you actually read the text of their description, you'll see they refer to the class of weapons "less than lethal".
The class of weapons are designated "less than lethal", common usage is less lethal for short. Their designation has to do with intended use, can they still kill sure, even a banana peal can kill in certain circumstances.

[Pacifist_Farmer]

I've got to agree with Muzikman, 90 minutes after the game sounds like the amount of time it would take the Northeastern students to band together and carve a swath of destruction through Boston.

If you were in Kenmore, or that area near Fenway, at that point in time it was for one reason...

Any one sober enough or smart enough would have left by then.

I feel sorry for the girls family, and all of the people who lost things because some baseball hooligans stopped caring about other peoples welfare, and property.

Theres nothing wrong with a little party, but when things start getting torched and flipped its time to get the Hell out.

Like every body else I think the BPD should do an investigation and take the correct disciplinary action, but otherwise I feel it was merely an accident, a very tragic accident.

[rkjunior303]

I guess page 4 or 5 is even worse, with a close up of the girls face....

[Banshee23]

hey i was in boston to post game it was awsome. i saw a car get tourched cuz it a NY licence's. GO SOX

Yeah man that's so awesome!! A girl got killed, a bunch of property was destroyed, a bunch of people probably got messed up in the crowd. OMG just so cool, I wish I had been around there too for it Moron