I just posted about domestic violence a few days ago, so this report struck me as especially egregious tonight.

Police got a call about 5 p.m., from a 19-year-old woman in downtown Lowell. She told officers she had a fight with her boyfriend earlier in the afternoon.

During the fight, police say Moises Rodriguez, 21, of Lowell, repeatedly punched the 19-year-old in the face.

Police say he then knocked her down, and kicked her directly in the stomach. She is two months pregnant.

Police say Rodriguez then removed the 19-year-old's shoe and hit her in the face with it. As officers took a police report, an imprint of the shoe's tread was still visible on the side of the woman's face. So was swelling around her eye.

Police say that after the beating stopped, Rodriguez got a knife and held a knife to the 19-year-old's throat while threatening to kill her.

Police say Rodriguez then took the 19-year-old's purse, and some of her clothing, and left.

Officers found him about 6:30 p.m., at 452 Merrimack St.

He was being held without bail Monday night, pending arraignment in Lowell District Court on charges of assault and battery on a pregnant person, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (shoe), assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (shod foot), assault with a dangerous weapon (knife), larceny from a person, and threatening to commit a crime (murder).

The 19-year-old was taken to a hospital. It sounds like the fetus will survive, but police couldn't release much more about her condition.

An off-duty Chelmsford Officer, Jason Poor, was driving around town this morning when he noticed the green, Chevy S10 that is pictured below driving up and down Tyngsboro Road and Middlesex Street.

Poor recognized the vehicle as one suspected of being involved in several recent house breaks, so he kept an eye on it, and eventually it pulled into Kennedy Drive, where two men got out and broke into a condo at 7 Kennedy Drive, according to Chelmsford Police.

Poor called on-duty officers too the scene, and as soon as the guys inside saw them they jumped out a second-story window and ran, according to Deputy Chief Scott Ubele.

Photo by Jon Hill

Both men were arrested a short distance away.

They were identified as Jose Mercado, 36, of Lowell, and William Ashton, 29, of Lowell.

Both were charged with breaking and entering day, larceny of property over $250, and possession of burglary tools. Ashton faces a second count of breaking and entering because police say he broke into a second building while trying to elude police.

If you recognize his name, it's because he was a party to the lawsuit the Kennedy family, Brian and Michelle Kennedy, filed against Billerica Police a few years ago. He also joined the Kennedy family in asking a federal judge to issue an injunction preventing Billerica Police from arresting them in any other town.

The judge refused. Billerica Police had no involvement in this incident.

Kennedy is also facing charges in Lowell Superior Court because he allegedly broke into the home of a Billerica Firefighter on Handel Road in June of 2008 along with Patricia Barbarossa and stole 11 firearms, cash, jewelry, and even a deer's head.

Barbarossa plead guilty last year.

Ashton and Mercado will be arraigned Tuesday in Lowell District Court. They were being held in Chelmsford last night.

Vice detectives were in the Highlands tonight when out of nowhere they heard gunshots in the area of South Canton Street about 7:50 p.m.

Moments later, detectives saw a car quickly fleeing the area and followed it into a driveway at 166 Stevens St., where officers got the three occupants out of the car at gunpoint.

Detectives found a .22 semi-auto and a .25 semi-auto in the car, so all three men were arrested. I'd imagine that's why this guy looks so glum.

And why this guy doesn't look like he's happy either.

After securing the guns and the guys in the car, detectives and officers who arrived as backup found six small-caliber shell casings like the one pictured below in the middle of South Canton Street, between Westford Street and Princeton Boulevard.

They also found three cars struck by bullets, including this one...

...and this one...

...and Saint George's Greek Orthodox Church, 44 Princeton Blvd., was struck, though the building suffered little more than a hole in a piece of spouting and a small chip in the outer wall, as pictured below.

Seyrattanak Keung, 17, of 505 Wilder St., unit 3; Noun Meas, 23, of 166 Stevens St., unit 9; and Michael Rin, 17, of 16 Spring Ave., are all facing one count of carrying a loaded firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling, two counts of unlawfully carrying a firearm, unlawful possession of a firearm while committing a felony, unlawful possession of a firearm, and three counts of destruction of property.

Among the most serious felonies in that list is unlawful carrying, which is a 1-year mandatory minimum.

A bail commissioner had not yet set bail last night. They'll be arraigned Thursday in Lowell District.

Keung was arrested less than two weeks ago for a violation of the city's dangerous weapons ordinance.

Meas was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in November of 2009, and on Christmas night in 2005 he was charged with possession of ammunition after police found bullets inside his apartment while investigating a shots fired incident on Powell Street.

It should be noted that I just confirmed that no one ever called police to report those six gunshots in one of the city's most densely populated neighborhoods. If the folks in Vice hadn't heard the shots...

I've been too busy tonight to really blog much, so once again I'll just cut and paste a story in here.

By all accounts, this sounds like a normal family. No history of domestics, no history of violence. Former Chelmsford Police Chief Raymond McCusker just went to Foxboro with his friend Brian Marchand two weeks ago, and said Marchand was his usual, jovial self.

No matter how many murders I've covered, this one still boggles my mind. How do you kill your own child?

For starters, here's a sidebar we did about Olivia tonight.
And here is a link to a Facebook group in Olivia's memory, already with over 3,000 members.

Here's a banner put up at Westford Academy today.

All of the students were too upset to talk today. We initially thought some might want to talk, but then Mr. Antonetti asked us to keep our distance and let them grieve, which was a request we respected.
Here is what we could piece together anyway on student reaction. Based on the comments on the facebook page, it looks like the students are coming together.

It looks like financial worries may have motivated this, though it also appears that not much of anyone will ever really know for sure.

If you saw all the cruisers and commotion up there about 6:30 p.m., don't worry it was just for a stolen car. A few arrests were made, I think three, but I have no information yet.

The large response was just because police had a fix on the car, which was recovered.

Not much is known on this. Capt. Roy gave a statement to some reporters who called the station while I was on the way to the scene tonight, but I was never able to reach him. The chief and the other two captains didn't reply to emails.
Jessica Venezia from the DA's office could only confirm that investigators were on scene, and said the DA's office would not be putting out a statement tonight.

Here's what I put in the paper. It's massively short on details, so stay tuned for more tomorrow. Trying to upload some video but I'm currently having technical problems.

By Robert Mills
rmills@lowellsun.com
WESTFORD -- It had been 22 years since the last homicide in Westford, but three people have now been killed in a pair of incidents less than a month apart.
Police last night were still at the scene of a home at 7 Makepeace Road, where they found two individuals dead and a third person critically wounded about 8:30 p.m.
The town was shocked on Jan. 9, when prosecutors say Frederick Leduc, 45, shot and killed his wife, Karen, with a .357 magnum and then turned the gun on himself inside a home at 48 Forge Village Road.
Leduc survived the gunshot wound and is now being held without bail as he faces murder charges.
Details were scant, but Westford police last night said a shooting left two people dead and a third person injured. The injured individual was taken to UMass Medical Center in Worcester by a medical helicopter.
The incident was domestic in nature, police told a Boston television station, though no one was available to confirm that report last night.
A spokesperson for District Attorney Gerard Leone said she could not immediately comment except to confirm that investigators from Leone's office were at the scene.
Neighbors on Makepeace Road had nothing to say last night. One man simply said "all set" when a reporter came to his door.
Makepeace Road is a short stretch of road in the northern tip of Westford near Route 3 that connects Tyngsboro and Chelmsford. It is called Dunstable Road in those towns.
Westford's online assessors' database shows the 100-year-old Colonial home where the incident occurred has been owned since 1989 by Brian and Jody Marchand.
Assessors' records show the home at 7 Makepeace Road has a mailing address of 373 Dunstable Road, Tyngsboro, even though it is located in Westford.
It was not immediately clear last night whether Marchand lives in the home or just owns it.
A white van was parked in the driveway near the well-kept white home last night as uniformed police and plainclothes investigators attached to Leone's office flooded the property, eventually being joined by a hulking mobile command center from the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council.
Several people put white booties on their feet before entering the home, and investigators could be seen taking photographs on both the first and second floors as news crews set up cameras along the street.
Police tape guarded by a uniformed officer kept all but investigators off of the property.
The killings this year are the first since July 2, 1987, when a woman was killed at a home on River Street.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Chelmsford Fire Chief Jack Parow mentioned to me tonight that sometimes sprinklers get a bad rap because they can cause a mess when they freeze or burst when they're not needed.

Not the case in Chelmsford tonight.

Firefighters got called to the Radisson Hotel at 10 Independence Drive about 7:45 p.m.

The call was a box alarm and a reported dryer fire, but the first crews on scene were greeted with an alarming sight - smoke pouring from the roof of the five-story building, and more smoke coming out the front door.

It turns out the incident really was a dryer fire, though.

A large-capacity, gas-fed industrial dryer had caught fire on the first floor. And this is where we get back to sprinklers, because even though the dryer runs on natural gas, a spinkler head directly above it was triggered and it kept the fire in check until firefighters arrived.

Take that sprinkler head away, and one has to wonder what would have happened.

"This is when they really do their job," Parow said of sprinklers. "It kept the fire in check until we could get here."

Firefighters had the flames knocked down by 7:51 p.m., and by 7:58 p.m., radio broadcasts indicated the fire was out and the sprinkler head had been shutoff.

It was not immediately clear how many guests were evacuated, but all were able to return to their rooms last night. Firefighters only knew that the hotel was not at capacity.

Employees were planning to call each room and check on anyone who didn't answer the telephone in person last night, just to make sure all guests were okay.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Chelmsford's ladder truck was out of service last night for maintenance, so a Lowell ladder truck went to the scene, though in the end it wasn't needed.

There was water damage around the laundry room, where all the fire damage was contained as you can see in the picture I posted.