Ace local political reporter jumps ship | The Mass and Cass story Wu doesn't want you to read | T's new Red Line cars stuck in Philly | Here's a big new apartment project that's not stalled |
Mass and Cass insanity: Globe reporter, photographer, narrowly escape violent confrontation on drug-infested Boston strip with help from brave neighborhood residents
Fed-up South End residents were leading a guided tour of the sordid Mass and Cass drug scene, a pair of Boston Globe journalists in tow.
First, a drug-addled man swinging a “cat’s paw,” a nasty-looking carpentry tool with a claw for pulling nails, threatened them. Before long, Globe City Hall reporter Niki Griswold and photographer Barry Chin and their neighborhood sherpas were surrounded by a group of what appeared to be drug dealers on bikes, demanding that they delete their pictures and turn over the camera.
One of the neighborhood residents bravely confronted a 300-or-so-pound dealer as he started towards the Globe’s photographer. The Good Samaritan flipped the thug to the ground when the man appeared to reach for a weapon, sources who were at the scene told Contrarian Boston.
That was enough to enable the little group to scramble to the safety of the nearby Boston Water and Sewer building.
Oh yeah, and all this happened after Boston police swept the area around Mass and Cass in an attempt to push the drug crowd away, a common practice when the department hears that reporters are on the prowl, neighborhood residents contend.
It’s a wild story – and one that the Wu administration, in the middle of a heated reelection campaign in which the Mass and Cass disaster has been a major issue, appears to be doing its best to keep from the public.
For years now, the notorious intersection by Boston Medical Center has been synonymous with the city’s flailing efforts to rein in open-air drug use and dealing, and related ills like prostitution and street crime, neighborhood residents contend.
Boston Police have declined to release the report on the incident, which happened in the early evening of July 16, more than a week ago.
A department spokesperson, in response to queries from Contrarian Boston, said he could not release the report without the authorization of a vacationing supervisor.
Ok.
The Boston Guardian, which routinely scoops the Globe on all manner of city stories, came out Wednesday night with a full account on its app of the harrowing episode. You can read it in the Guardian’s print edition, due out early Thursday afternoon.
And as for the Globe, whose reporting too often treats uber progressive Boston Mayor Michelle Wu with kid gloves?
There is no sign yet of any story by the Globe on the close call by its City Hall scribe and one of its photographers, or, for that matter, on the Mass and Cass mess that the pair were, to their credit, doing some old-fashioned, shoe-leather reporting on.
If or when that story hits, it will be interesting to see whether there is any mention of Wu’s failure, more than a week after the terrifying incident, to reach out to the South End residents who responded so courageously.
By contrast, City Councilor Ed Flynn, state Rep. John Moran, and mayoral challenger Josh Kraft, among others, have all reached out to these upstanding citizens.
Jumping ship: CommonWealth Beacon loses ace political reporter
The nonprofit news site can be a little too wonky at times for us - there is only so much public policy we can digest at one sitting.
But thanks to a mix of veteran reporters and editors and rising young talent, CommonWealth Beacon breaks stories and does some great in-depth pieces as well.
So it was too bad to see CommonWealth’s top-notch political reporter, Gintautas Dumcius fly the coop, though we are glad he has found a new venue for his talents.
