A nod to unsung heroes of Hub police By Michele McPhee/ The Beat Boston Herald Police Bureau Chief Monday, October 23, 2006
During the first nine months of this year alone, 93 Boston police officers were assaulted - including six who were confronted by men armed with fully loaded weapons, according to department stats.
Two were cut by sharp objects. A total of 50 were assaulted by weapons other than guns. And 35 cops were beaten up during arrests.
Just this weekend, an officer working a detail on Chatham Street was punched in the face by a Lowell man allegedly intent on carrying on with the fisticuffs he was engaged in.
But that encounter was a minor one, compared to the incidents reported by Boston cops this month, and by reported, I mean only to their superiors. These officers have not been heralded for their heroics at the Hanna awards, nor have their actions been splashed across headlines.
MBTA commuters in Roxbury should be grateful to Officer Andre Sanders of District B-2. Earlier this month, he was on patrol when a desperate MBTA bus driver pulled up next to his cruiser, flagged him down and mouthed: “He pulled a knife on me.” A deranged man had entered the crowded bus from the back door at Dudley Station allegedly wielding a double-edged knife and made his way down the aisle threatening terrified passengers until he lunged at the driver screeching, “Let me off the bus!”
Within seconds, Sanders boarded the bus, tackled the armed man and wrestled the knife away. As Sanders, who was injured in the fight, cuffed him, the suspect snarled,
“I’ve been shot before and being shot is no big thing.”
Apparently being shot is not a big thing to many of these thugs out there menacing police officers with guns, knives, and fists. And that’s the problem. They are fearless. Look at Amos Carasquillo, one of the many gangbangers who have been busted at the Bromley-Heath housing development for gun violence, drug activity and gang-related bedlam. Two weeks ago, Carasquillo allegedly pulled a gun on a Boston cop and was shot in the arm.
That bullet was not the first fired at him, and the gun he was carrying was not the first he was ever busted with, according to court records.
Carasquillo, one of the alleged leaders of the gang “The Heat,” was carrying a letter from the court that allowed him to hang around in the Bromley-Heath development as long as he agreed not to “have any weapons or drugs on the property or engage in any criminal activity” - despite an eviction order keeping him out.
Well, considering Carasquillo was one of 23 accused drug dealers swept up by the feds this month, a bust that came days after he allegedly pointed a loaded gun at Boston cops, it looks like he might have broken that agreement, and the letter he carried in his pocket ordering officers not to arrest him for trespassing was a free-pass for mayhem.
Last week, rookie cop Chris Carr wrestled a gun away from a teenager who had a .32 tucked in his waistband, only after two violent struggles for the weapon. As he battled the suspect, Carr’s badge, like the shields of cops across New England, was swathed with the black band of mourning for the slain Manchester, N.H., police officer gunned down by a man with ties to Roxbury. That officer, Michael Briggs, was buried Saturday.
Those of us who live in this city should remember that, God forbid, any one of those 93 violent encounters one of our own officers had this year could have turned just as deadly.
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