Massachusetts State Police is firing back as a local law enforcement group pushes for a state review of the embattled agency.
Massachusetts
Salisbury Beach residents spent $600K on protective dunes — a single storm destroyed them
Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent in an effort to protect beachfront homes in Salisbury, Massachusetts, and it took just one storm to bring residents back to reality.
Sunday’s storm, like so many before, proved costly on Salisbury Beach, but for a different reason. On Thursday, residents had just finished trucking in 15,000 tons of sand, paying the $600,000 price tag out of their own pockets.
Just four days later, half of the sand washed away.
“As homeowners, I mean, we are kind of spitting into the wind here,” Joe Rossitto, a Salisbury Beach resident, said Tuesday.
“If we don’t build these dunes, our properties would have gotten damaged,” Tom Saab, a Salisbury resident said.
Saab and Rossitto say it isn’t as easy as moving, either. In both cases, their oceanfront homes have been in their families for generations.
“You just don’t walk away from that, you know what I mean?” Rossitto said.
Residents hope the state can help pay for a more permanent solution.
“Sacrificial sand buys time, but it does not buy permanence,” Republican Massachusetts Sen. Bruce Tarr said. “Obviously, this has been a very difficult year, we haven’t been able to stay ahead of it, but we need to continue to work together and use the tools that are available.”
Residents plan to meet with local and state officials on Wednesday afternoon to discuss a plan moving forward. Tarr estimates that plan will cost at least $1.5 million, and funding remains an issue.
“When you put sand on the beach, it is not a permanent solution, and that indicates how difficult the challenges that we face, again, to try and keep pace with erosion,” Tarr said.
With nor’easter season extending through April, residents worry about the next storm, and the one after that.
“You can’t give up. I won’t give up, I keep going,” Saab said.
‘She tased me’: Classmate allegedly used stun gun on girl in Boston school
A Boston student was injured Monday morning when a classmate allegedly used a stun gun on her.
The incident happened around 11 a.m. Monday at the Josiah Quincy Upper School on Arlington Street, according to a report from the Boston Police Department. The school serves students between 6th and 12th grades.
A substitute teacher told police he was trying to break up a shouting match between two students when he saw one of them pull out a stun gun. She started hitting her classmate in the head with it, then the substitute heard a zap, and the other student scream, “She tased me!”
The police report states the victim’s face was bleeding. Her mother declined for the girl to be transported by Boston EMS and said she would take her daughter to the hospital.
A friend of the victim told NBC10 Boston that the girl is recovering and plans to press charges.
The incident is the latest in a spate of violence involving Boston Public School students.
“There’s been some very disturbing incidents where it seems kids are lashing out,” Boston City Councilor Erin Murphy said Tuesday.
The councilor is to calling for a memorandum of understanding between Boston Public Schools and the Boston Police Department, which she said has been in the works since officers were removed from the schools almost three years ago and replaced with safety specialists.
“For many of our families and students, they do feel like they’re in a setting of a school that isn’t safe, and that has to change,” Murphy said.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said Tuesday that schools are not an appropriate place for armed police officers.
“We have more staff now focused on safety within our schools than we have in a very long time,” Wu said.
A 13-year-old was attacked a block away from the Condon School last week – fracturing her rib, ripping out her hair and injuring her hands.
A teacher at the Richard J. Murphy School in Dorchester — who asked to remain anonymous — told NBC10 Boston that students are screaming, fighting and threatening each other in the hallways daily. They say staff are getting hurt trying to break up the fights, and it doesn’t seem like anything is being done about it.
“When they share their concerns, sometimes they’re just told other good things are happening,” Murphy said.
“The city has taken a lot of efforts to ensure that all of our departments are working together on student safety and creating opportunity for young people from every single department,” Wu said.
Councilors eager to dig into Healey’s pot pardon plan
Two of the elected officials who would vote on Gov. Maura Healey’s plan to pardon convictions for simple cannabis possession expressed their support Tuesday, a day before the governor is set to provide details of her proposal at a State House ne…
Police in Mass. seek missing Hanson woman whose car was last seen in Maine
Police are looking for a Massachusetts woman who has been missing since last week.
Fae Barbone, 40, of Hanson, was last seen Thursday in the area of Williamstown, authorities said.
Her car, a black Ford Fiesta with Massachusetts plates reading &…
Frustrated fan turns to NBC10 Boston for help getting refund for rescheduled concert
When a New Hampshire man bought tickets to see a legendary musician at TD Garden last year, he was hoping it would be a night to remember.
Instead, it became an evening he wished he could forget after the show was postponed and he couldn’t get his money back.
Raj Jathar’s mother was visiting from India in December. For her 80th birthday, he took her and his sister to see Andrea Bocelli perform at TD Garden.
But the December 7 show never happened.
Bocelli and his wife appeared on stage to announce a postponement. Video of the moment was posted on his Facebook page.
He told the crowd it was a sad moment for him. “Believe me, I did all my best to sing tonight, but I can’t,” he said.
The Italian tenor could not perform due to health issues.
“We were bummed about it, and we were hoping that, maybe it gets rescheduled to a few days later and we’re able to make it after all,” says Jathar. “But unfortunately, it got rescheduled all the way out to the 20th, by which time my mom had already left. So we weren’t able to make it.”
When the new show date was posted on Bocelli’s Facebook page, it said for those who were unable to attend the rescheduled December 20th show, “a 14-day refund period” would begin the following week “at point of purchase.”
More from NBC10 Boston Responds
“I bought the tickets originally from Vivid Seats,” says Jathar. “So I contacted Vivid Seats saying, hey, I just got the news that it’s been rescheduled and for the folks who cannot make the new date, they can get a refund.”
But it didn’t go well.
“In talking to them, their response was, well, we are a ticket resale site, we’re not in the business of refunding for, if anything was to go wrong other than a cancellation,” says Jathar. “So sorry, you know, you’re not going to be able to get a refund from us.”
In an online chat, Vivid Seats suggested that Jathar gift the tickets to friends, or resell them himself, but told him they could not be resold again on the Vivid Seats site.
“It looked like there was no other option but to resell them,” he says. “Then I tried to resell them, except electronically, when you look at the ticket on your phone, it actually, the sell button is grayed out.”
When he couldn’t physically initiate a sale of the tickets, Jathar says Vivid Seats told him to contact the company that originally issued the tickets for help. But he says that company referred him back to Vivid Seats. He says he also contacted the promoter and venue about getting a refund but couldn’t get anywhere.
“So this ping-ponging back and forth took me the better part of a week,” he says. “I was either on the phone with somebody or chatting online with somebody for a good hour or two every day, trying to figure out if there’s somebody, anybody who could help me. And when it was clear that nobody was going to step up, that’s when…I got in touch with NBC.”
With more than $400 on the line, Jathar contacted NBC 10 Boston Responds two days before the rescheduled show. We reached out to Vivid Seats and a couple of hours later, the company contacted Jathar and issued a full refund of $ 444.36.
“It’s incredible how after a week of banging my head against the wall and run around and nobody being able to help me and everybody just waving their hands and shrugging their shoulders, that within hours I got a call from Vivid Seats saying, guess what? We’re going to issue a refund,” he says. “They were very polite and very apologetic and they took care of everything right away.
Vivid Seats tells us the refund happened less than a week after the consumer reached out and before the rescheduled event took place.
“I’m so happy to have this as a recourse,” he says. “You know, I cannot imagine, I’m sure there are other folks who didn’t do that and, who probably ended up eating the cost of the tickets, and I feel for them.”
If you have a consumer problem, contact NBC10 Boston Responds by filling out our online consumer complaint form.
We will get back to you. We’re the only local station committed to answering all of your calls and emails.
