August 2009 Archives

I went home just before the fun started Sunday morning.

I worked until Midnight Saturday, and headed home, but I just heard from a resident at 27 Jackson St., Thomas Vachon, that not long after midnight a resident scared off a kid who was casing cars in the parking lot out front.

Police were called, but with the suspect already gone, that's not exactly a priority call. Before officers arrived the suspect was back, and he smashed the window on Vachon's car, and another car.
The kid made off with a GPS unit and a camera from Vachon's car.

This time police did make a priority response, and Vachon said they were there within seconds. Fast enough that the kid had to climb a tree to get over a fence separating the parking lot from the canal.

Unfortunately for Vachon, the kid plunged right into the canal with the GPS unit, which is probably resting rather uncomfortably at the bottom now. His camera was recovered right on the edge of the canal, and is safe.
He's out about $150 for the GPS and $150 for the window, though.

The fire department came and fished the bad guy out of the water, only to learn that he was in fact a mere 14-year-old boy.

Police confirmed Vachon's account and said the kid was charged with breaking and entering motor vehicle, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct. He was released to his parents later in the morning.

Vachon heard the kid had done this type of thing before.

"It sucks," he said. "I'm more annoyed that he's 14, and this isn't his first time."

Vachon got me some video of the kid taken from a local surveillance camera, but I'm going to have to upload it once I'm home tonight, or tomorrow once the video people here at The Sun are back.
My powerbook just doesn't want to open it correctly.

This one is a bit old, but Capt. James McPadden and I used to talk about the value of having police on details around the state back when he was the shift commander at the time of night I work.

And, Wednesday afternoon it was McPadden who was working a detail on Lawrence Street when a motorist pointed out another man who he said had just tried to break into his house.

McPadden tracked down the suspect, who soon ran, but with the help of another motorist and Falco, Officer Todd Donaldson's canine partner, the suspect was found hiding in the basement of a Pollard Street home that he had broken into in his quest to escape.

Darlon Silvano, 23, of 218 Nesmith St., was charged with attempted breaking and entering, breaking and entering and resisting arrest.

I went out that way for a reported pedestrian accident at Middlesex and Baldwin about 6:30 p.m.

The pedestrian was fine, actually smiling at the scene, but at the same time there was a minor crash right on the Rourke Bridge, and by the time I was leaving traffic was backed up past the intersection with Pawtucket Street.

Quite a mess out there, and a few cruisers on the way to help direct all the traffic.

There is also a gas leak in a fairly remote area back off Perry Street, between Bradford Industries and the Concord River.
I went out to check it out, but it wasn't really accessible, and there appeared to be no homes in the area, so no evacuations or anything. National Grid was on the way to fix it up.

I'm just going to do one big blog entry on the weird note tonight ended on.

About 11:15 or so, I headed out to Interstate 495 north, about a mile south of Route 133, because state police had a car that rolled over into the woods off the right side of the highway.

It came to rest about 100 feet or more from the road, on its roof, in the mud. It was empty.

Tewksbury Fire had a thermal imaging camera and there were tons of troopers trying to figure out if they had an ejection, or just a driver who had fled. They found no one ejected, so when I heard that there had been a home invasion at 56 Aiken Ave., in Lowell, at about midnight, I bolted from the scene.

The car was so far into the woods I wasn't able to get a picture of it.

In Lowell, I learned that two men had been taken to the hospital with minor head wounds after two other men broke into their second-floor apartment at 56 Aiken while armed with handguns.

The two suspects, described only as males wearing masks, fled down Dalton Street. A police dog lost their scent down the street a little ways.

As I was at the home invasion, Car 4 in Lowell found a guy on Nesmith Street who said he had been in a rollover accident somewhere on Route 38.

It turned out he wasn't quite sure where he was, and he was, in fact, the guy who had rolled his car over on I-495, a mile south of Route 133.

How did he get from that far down the highway to Nesmith Street? Your guess is as good as mine.

He is now in custody, though, for something, and still on his way to the State Police barracks in Andover as of a minute ago, so his name and the charges against him aren't available.

The car he wrecked is registered to a 47-year-old Dorchester woman, according to state police radio broadcasts.

It is now 1:01 a.m., and I'm going home before any further weirdness occurs.

According to the arrest log I obtain nightly from Lowell Police, Eduardo Pena, who I wrote about yesterday is now facing a single count of murder in addition to the charges I wrote about yesterday.

Pena is charged in connection with the death of Anthony Oliveira, 33, of Lowell, who was found about a block from the scene of a shooting that Pena and Jose Martinez have already been charged in connection with.

But, neither of the DA's two spokespeople seem to be returning my calls tonight.

I mean, arrest logs, with name, address, charges, etc, are public record by statute anyway. It's not like a reporter who's watching for murder arrests is going to miss this.

Pena, and Jose Martinez will both be arraigned on Monday in Lowell District Court. Both men are also charged in connection with the shooting of 22-year-old Vichot Suon, of Lowell, who is expected to survive the gunshots he suffered.

I normally wouldn't blog about this, but it was a nice grab and the guys involved didn't want their pictures taken.

I'm going go ahead to post pictures for just that reason.

The issue was that police say one of these guys

Flashed a handgun at a fella on West Fourth Street in Lowell about 10:45 or so. Police put out a description of a Lincoln Navigator almost immediately, and Officer Jason McGrail spotted it on the other side of the river.

McGrail followed the white Navigator across the bridge, and since there was a chance a gun was inside, police did a felony stop (guns drawn for safety) right in the Mcdonald's parking lot.

No handgun was found, but two guys in the car had warrants and another was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon (handgun) after a showup.

They're not all booked yet so I don't have any names.

If the law ever takes me down, I really hope it's not at McDonalds, though. A saw a few people chowing down as they watched these guys get lined up.

If you read the paper I'm sure you heard a 33-year-old Lowell man was found dead in the bushes near VFW Highway and Aiken Street Friday morning, just a few hours after a 24-year-old got shot during an incident a block away at Aiken and Lakeview Ave.

Are they connected? Still waiting for word.

I heard police had no word or evidence of a second victim when they went to the call at 1:30 a.m., and found that Vichit Suon, 22, of Lowell, had been shot. He's expected to be alright.

Friday morning at 7:30, though, police found Anthony Oliveira, 33, dead a block away. The medical examiner says it was homicide.

Eduardo Pena, 24, of Lowell, got picked up late Friday night for armed assault with intent to murder since police think he's the one who shot Suon, and on Saturday Jose Martinez, 24, of Lowell, got picked up for accessory after the fact of armed assault with intent to murder.

Interestingly, Martinez also had a gun on him, and is charged with illegal possession of a firearm, but no one is saying whether that gun had been used.

Police and the DA say they're still investigating whether the shooting and homicide are connected. No bail on either shooting suspect.

Someone steals a Chevrolet Jimmy while it's owner is pumping gas at Xtra Mart on Gorham Street, and then drives it into a gas pump, knocking the gas pump completely over.

That wouldn't have impressed me a lot, but then the owner of the Jimmy jumped in the passenger seat, and began to fight with the thief, who was still driving, as the thief hit two other cars and drove down Gorham Street and onto the Lowell Connector, all while fighting with the owner.

That must have been a hell of a site to see it all unfold.

The SUV eventually stopped just after getting on the connector, in the weeds off in the breakdown lane, and that's where this guy was placed under arrest. He's being treated by EMT's here, and was taken to Lowell General Hospital to get checked out.

The ID I got last night was wrong, the suspect is Jason M. Cucinotti of 2 Duris Ave., Billerica.

He is charged with carjacking, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (motor vehicle), operating after revocation, operating to endanger, and malicious destruction of property over $250. He was also arrested on two default warrants.

The carjacking charge surprised me since the owner wasn't in the driver's seat, but police suggested that since the owner was pumping gas he was still in possession or control of the vehicle, which would make it more than just car theft.

Hopefully everyone remembers what I think was one of my better blog posts this month on the Moody Street shooting in which a man was shot in the stomach and nearly killed.

The DA's office was initially brought in on this investigation because on the night of the shooting it wasn't clear that the victim would survive.

He did, and is still recovering, but police are still looking for the same suspect that they've been after since day 1, and they're getting close.

I'm going to sprinkle this entry with photos of the bullet holes the suspect left behind on Moody Street that day.

I didn't blog about it, but police got information on Monday afternoon that Otty Ortiz, 19, of Lowell, was spotted in the Suffolk Street area.

He was seen in a green Dodge Durango, that police found and stopped at gunpoint later Monday night on the Lowell Connector. I went out to the stop, but Ortiz wasn't in the car and police had a dead end.

Today, the PD put out a press release identifying Ortiz as the shooter, and saying they have a warrant charging him with armed assault with intent to murder.

Officers were patrolling pretty thick around Suffolk Street last night too. They want this guy pretty bad, and they're asking for help.

Police say they can't release a photo because it could cause some problems with the prosecution, but Ortiz should still be faily easy to spot.

He's 6 feet tall, about 170 pounds, with a long black hair he usually keeps in a pony tail.

He has pretty close to a full sleeve of tattoos on his right arm, including a dragon and a scorpion, and he has the words "Boricua Hasta La Muerta" tattooed across his chest.

If you see him, I don't recommend screwing around with him. Just call police immediately at (978) 937-3200.

If you have information on where he might be, call the criminal bureau at (978) 937-3242, or Crimestoppers at (978) 459-TIPS (8477). You can remain anonymous if you call crimestoppers, and make up to $1,000 if you're information leads to an arrest.

I didn't do any work on this cause Alex had it all taken care of by the time I got into the office, but the double fatal in Westford certainly needs to be mentioned here in the blog.

Here's a perplexing one from police in Salem, N.H.

Apparently, Salem Police found out on Tuesday that a table containing about $3,500 worth of clothing from the J.Crew store at the Mall at Rockingham Park had been cleared off by thieves.

Quite a haul, but what makes the story interesting is that police say store employees saw two females committing the theft, but called corporate headquarters instead of police, per company policy.
"They were unable to get permission to contact police until the next day," according to Salem Capt. Shawn Patten.

"We continue to be preplexed by the policies of some retailers with regards to notifying and cooperating with authorities when thefts occur in their retail store."

Oh and guess what? Police have no suspects or leads at this time.

I mean, seriously? J.Crew thinks some corporate security stooge is really going to take care of their junk better than police?
Or that it's better to wait 24 hours before investigating a snatch and grab robbery?

I'm not sure I'd buy a ton of clothes from a company with that kind of brainpower. Although, who knows, maybe The Sun will be hit with more layoffs, and if I'm down on my luck I'll know where to "shop."

I ran into this same thing last year when I saw an armed robber running out of Store 24 on Bridge Street.
I walked in just as the guy fled and the clerk was on the telephone, so I didn't call 911 myself cause I didn't want to tie up the 911 operator with two telephone calls.

Instead, I called the Main Desk, and gave a brief description of the guy I saw.

The main desk had heard nothing of this robbery, and I would eventually learn that the clerk had not been on the telephone with 911. He called the store's owner before police.

Frankly, I wonder whether police should be able to just immediately write off such incidents.

Why should police resources be wasted investigating crimes against a company with policies that drastically reduce the possibility of solving the crimes?

I know this isn't crime related, but I'm not sure if we'll be able to get it in the paper or on the web in any other way at this hour, so here's the text of the email I just got from Kennedy's press office.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 26, 2009

Statement from The Kennedy Family

"Edward M. Kennedy - the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply - died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port. We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever. We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it's hard to imagine any of them without him."

###

Here's an idea. If you're going to rob a guy in the heart of downtown, say at about 10 p.m., on a Tuesday night, at Market and Central streets, maybe don't wear bright red pants while doing it.

Because I'm willing to bet those pants didn't exactly help the cause of the 16-year-old kid who got arrested for just such a robbery tonight.

Police say he and another boy, who got away, pushed and robbed an unidentified man at Central and Market streets, making off with his cellular telephone.

The 16-year-old still had the phone on him when Officer Billy Finn spotted him at Union and Chapel streets a short time later.

He'll be charged with unarmed robbery.

Jorge Legares, 30, of 169 Aiken Ave., is our winner so far.

Residents of Alder Street, just off Stackpole, within sight of Saints Medical Center, tell me Legares drove past their homes very fast at least four times Sunday afternoon before they called police.
They had yelled at him several times since kids always play in the area.

When police showed up, neighbors say they watched Legares immediately take off, and ingeniously drive immediately up Alder Street, which becomes Bartlett Street, which is a dead-end.

I say ingeniously, because apparently Legares' girlfriend lives on that street, so he had to know it was a dead end.

Two girls who didn't want to give their names, one 16 and one 27, told me they were standing on the corner at Alder and Stackpole when Legares came screaming by in his Dodge Durango and slammed into the back of this Honda Accord, owned by Arina Sor, 23, who was inside her house and heard the bang.

Sor is the girl in the red shirt, standing back by the police officer in the background.

"If that car wasn't there he probably would have hit us," the 27-year-old said.

"it was so freaking scary," the 16-year-old added.

Both women said Legares just started laughing after he struck the Accord, and while holding a cigarette in his hand, threw his SUV in reverse and sped up Alder Street.

Police say he bailed out after parking the car in the driveway at his girlfriend's house on Bartlett, and then ran on foot. He was captured after a short foot chase a ways down East Merrimack Street.

Incredibly, this is the front of his Durango, which is apparently a darn near invincible vehicle.

No one was hurt, but Legares is still in lockup at the PD as I type this, charged with operating to endanger, failure to stop for police, leaving the scene of a property damage accident, and resisting arrest.

Sor was left taking pictures of her ruined car with her cell phone camera, and trying to figure out how she was going to get to work on Sunday night.

I'm losing my touch. By the time I got to the stabbing in the area of 29 Walker St., tonight, the victim was already all packaged up and in the ambulance, so no pictures. It happened right about 10 p.m.

A 19-year-old guy got stabbed in torso during a fight outside a birthday party of some sort. Radio broadcasts indicated there were plenty of gang members around.

Capt. Kevin Sullivan, the sector commander in charge of that entire third of the city, was filling in tonight as the gang unit commander. Not a bad fit since Sullivan did that job full time back a few years ago when gang violence was a much bigger issue than it has been lately.

He said the stab wound was to the guy's torso, but that it appeared to be minor and non life-threatening. The victim was taken to Lowell General Hospital.

Police didn't seem to be getting a ton of cooperation at the scene. The gang unit guys have quite a bit of info about local gangs folks stored upstairs, though, so it sounds like they're already checking a few guys out here tonight.

Anyone with information is asked to call Lowell police at (978) 937-3200 or Crimestoppers at (978) 459-TIPS (8477). Callers may remain anonymous, but can receive up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest.

So, police got a 911 call tonight for a report that a woman had fallen through a porch at 98 School St., and was dangling, halfway through the porch, about 20 feet from the ground about 11:30 p.m., or so.

Police and firefighters sped to the scene, and Niels Christiansen and Jason McGrail got there to find the woman dangling a little closer to 8 or 10 feet from the ground, but possibly still high enough that just dropping would not have been good.

They held the woman up from below until firefighters arrived with a little ladder to get her down safely.

She had been standing on a sort of porch/fire escape, that had a big hole in it that's normally covered in plywood, but somehow the plywood got moved and she fell, through. This description isn't that great, so here's a picture of it. The bushes at the bottom of the pic are probably about 5 feet tall.

I can't really describe the porch-thing that well, so here is a picture of it.

She looked to be alright for the most part, though she was definitely a little freaked out and frazzled. Trinity was going to take her to a city hospital to get checked out.

Hopefully no one reading this blog on a regular basis was crazy enough to think that I'm perfect, so lets go back a few days and address a pretty serious incident that I was utterly unaware of until this afternoon.

Early Sunday morning, about 1:30 a.m., a 32-year-old Lowell man got stabbed at least once in a chest during a fight on Warren Street. Another man also suffered minor injuries, but was treated at the scene.
The guy who got stabbed was in very bad shape, but MedFlight was grounded due to fog.

He was taken to an out of town hospital, but police aren't saying which one since they're not sure if the attacker, who has not been found, remains a threat to the victim.

The victim is expected to survive.

I thought this incident might have been bar-related, but police tell me that the victim had not been overserved, and that even though he was walking home from a bar the incident has nothing to do with the bar, and did not start there.

Anyone who knows anything about this one should give police a call at (978) 937-3200 or Crimestoppers at (978) 459-TIPS (8477). Callers may remain anonymous, but can receive up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest.

I hope I'm allowed to be a little nerdy and say wtf in a blog.

I'm pretty sure that would have been the polite version of my response had I been the 14-year-old girl who wrecked her bike along Broadway Street, near Madonna Circle, this afternoon, only to land on this thing about 5:30 p.m.

I didn't get an ID on the girl, but she must be pretty tough, cause police said on the radio that she had a pretty heinous gash to her leg from landing on this thing, which appears to be a broken off sign post.
She wasn't crying at the scene or anything, though the bandage on her leg went pretty much from her ankle to her knee. From what I heard her leg was ripped completely open.

Trinity took her to the hospital shortly after I arrived.

Car 7 responded for police, and radioed dispatch to get someone from the sign shop down there ASAP to do something about this thing before someone else hits it. Dispatch couldn't reach anyone from the sign shop last night, so police put a road cone up over the thing.

If you're not familiar with Madonna Circle, it's a small street just a few yards from the Canal and the Francis Gate House on Broadway Street.

No really, though, this one is pretty ridiculous.

I read the press release I just got from the Hudson Fire Department a little skeptically. A 2008 Toyota Tundra caught fire today near a home at 9B David Drive, about 1:49 p.m.

Firefighters found the truck fully involved, and eventually the gas tank failed and gas was introduced into the fire. Probably pretty intense to watch, but still just a car fire.

Until you get to the "most probably cause," as stated in the press release.

"It appears that two bags of wood shavings from a previous job the owner was at... spontaneously combusted..."

For the record, Hudson firefighters say the best way to store wood shavings is in a metal container, and that they should be disposed immediately, and soaked with a hose before disposal.

Hudson firefighters were busy today too. At 6:14 p.m., they went to 43 Lowell Road to put out a fire in "an upright pork cooker" at the Zheng Garden Restaurant,. It was a one-alarm fire that caused no injuries.

Firefighters say a lack of maintenance inside the pork cooker alloued the sauced used on pork ribs to build up to a point that allowed flames to be produced.

I'm not even sure if they have a rivalry with Andover or what, but I remember lots of nasty comments on Topix a while back when I wrote about a meth lab in Andover.

Well, as of about 6:39 p.m., Andover Police said over the regional NEMLEC radio frequency that connects local towns that they had a home invasion on Kensington Street, near I-495.
(which is not far from the Tewksbury line).

A white male, about 6-feet tall, 200 to 250 pounds, with ear length, dirty blonde hair, broke into a home and got scared off by the homeowner. He wore a blue hooded sweatshirt and jeans. A gray Chevrolet Blazer was seen in the area at the time.

Andover was asking surrounding towns to watch out for anyone fitting that description.

Call your town's police if you spot anyone.

So, back in June, after some questions arose on other local blogs and there was some controversy in Boston about officers possibly getting more rifles, I posted an entry about the firepower deployed by Lowell Police.

I haven't heard much about any of this since, but the Associated Press moved this story this afternoon, quoting the special agent in charge of the Boston FBI office as saying he thinks more Boston cops should be armed with rifles.

Not that he knows more about public safety than Tom Menino or anything, but I still found it interesting.

I'm not sure whether his comments apply to a place like Lowell, though. I can't imagine a bunch of terrorists leaping out of canal boats. But then again, not many folks imagined Mumbai.

I'll leave it for all of you to debate. My opinions don't really matter.

I should note, though, there is a slight local angle. Bamford is a Lowell native, and I'm told that both of his parents were police officers here in the Mill City.

By DENISE LAVOIE
AP Legal Affairs Writer
BOSTON (AP) -- City police officers should be armed with assault rifles to be better prepared for a terrorist attack like the shootings in Mumbai, India, that killed more than 160 people last year, the head of the FBI's Boston office said Tuesday.
Warren Bamford, the special agent in charge of the FBI in Boston, says he is baffled by opposition to a proposal to give some neighborhood police officers the semiautomatic weapons.
In May, Boston Mayor Tom Menino criticized a proposal to arm up to 200 officers with M-16s that the police department had ordered from the U.S. military. Menino said only specialized police units should have the guns. The proposal also drew criticism from community leaders who said they were concerned about neighborhood police officers carrying assault weapons.
Bamford said he believes more officers should have access to the guns in the event Boston becomes the target of a terrorist attack like the ones in Mumbai in November.
"Really, one of the key points that came out of that really was the inability of the local police officers to respond to the threat," Bamford said. "If something like a Mumbai thing took place (here), there's nothing that is going to stop it except those local police officers."
The Boston proposal, first reported by The Boston Globe, called for arming as many as 200 patrol officers with semiautomatic assault rifles. The plan was to give specialized units, including the bomb squad and harbor patrol, the rifles first, then to give them to patrol officers in neighborhood precincts.
The M-16s have a fully automatic function so they can operate like machine guns, but the Boston plan was to convert them for semiautomatic operation.
Menino's spokeswoman, Dot Joyce, said Tuesday that the mayor believes "there needs to be the availability of this type of weapon within the Boston Police Department."
"But he believes that they belong in specialized units that can be available to the neighborhoods, not given to individual police officers to have on patrol," Joyce said.
Bamford said other large city police departments have made semiautomatic assault rifles widely available to officers, and Boston should, too.
"I don't know why there was such an outcry ... they should have access to these weapons," Bamford said.
"They don't carry them on their shoulder, they carry them safely secured in the trunk of a car."
Bamford said he planned to meet with police Commissioner Ed Davis to talk to him about the assault rifles. A spokesman for Davis said police had no immediate comment on Bamford's remarks.
Davis told the Globe last month that the department will likely expand its SWAT teams so that more officers could be trained to use M-16s. He said he also plans to increase the hours of the SWAT team operations so that there are more police cruisers armed with the assault rifles, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I could never confirm this on deadline to really blow it up in Tuesday's paper, but this sure looks legit to me.

I wrote a breaking news story tonight about Karen Hughes, 32, of 2B Scotia Drive, Pepperell, who was busted by Nashua Police for aggravated driving while intoxicated late Friday night, after she drove through a telephone pole in Nashua.

The accident sent an unidentified 5-year-old to the hospital.

As of 11:57 p.m., I just got this link emailed to me by someone anonymous.

Hughes may be a licensed child-care provider in Massachusetts.

The profile looks legit, and I navigated to it myself from the main mass.gov page to make sure it wasn't a spoof. Same address for Hughes everything.

Here is her mugshot, courtesy Nashua Police.

Watch for a lot more on this come Tuesday. I've forwarded the information to the troops.

Hughes, last I heard, was being held on $2,000 bail and will be arraigned Sept. 9.

Get a ride from someone sober.

So far I've gotten press releases from both Nashua Police and State Police.

Nashua will be conducting a checkpoint on Friday night, somewhere in Nashua, and state police will be conducting one at the same time somewhere in Middlesex County.

Neither agency ever says exactly where the checkpoints will be.

But lets be honest, if you get smashed, and drive through one of these checkpoints on Friday night, no one is going to want to hear you crying.

Call up a friend or two, find someone sober to drive. I'm lazy and the last thing I need is a giant arrest log to type in on Saturday.

I have a story running in Monday's paper about the identity theft case of a Lowell man, Hung Kim Te, that probably leaves as many questions as it provides answers.

I didn't like that at first, but the more I thought about Te's case, the more I realized the case itself has more questions than answers, since it's still ongoing.

Hopefully the story is at least a snapshot of how bad identity theft can be, though. That's what I intended.

As promised at the end of the story, here are some of the best links I could find about how to prevent, and deal with identity theft, though I think Te's case shows dealing with it can be a lot harder than imagined.

Attorney General Martha Coakley's identity theft resources page.

A similar, and more comprehensive page from the Federal Trade Commission, which deals with the issue nationally.

The Identity Theft Resource Center, a non-profit group recommended by Coakley's office, and who's found is quoted in my story.

I wish I could have gotten better play for this in the actual paper, so I'm going to blog about it too.

Billerica Police have a new YouTube channel that they've been using, and this month they're highlighting an old unsolved, and pretty grisly, murder, in the hopes of getting some new clues.

You can watch it here. It's pretty good stuff.

I searched our archives, and it looks like The Sun only ever wrote two stories about Melvin Ramos, who's real name is Santo Milcio Mejia, after he vanished on Feb. 13, 2003, the same day his Chevy sedan was found burned on Richardson Street in Billerica.

Here is a picture of the car.

On March 11, 2003, Mejia's body was found burned, with a bag wrapped around its head, in the snow along the MBTA tracks near 86 Billerica Ave.

The death was ruled a murder, and the cause was blunt trauma to the head and "thermal injuries."

Not pleasant at all.

Despite the apparent lack of press this pretty heinous crime got, Billerica Police are still working it. Sometimes I think the public doesn't care much when the victim isn't well-off, but police do.

Mejia had moved here from the Dominican Republic about two years earlier, and was working as a painter, and at odd jobs. His last known address was 423 Pelham St., unit 9, in Methuen.

He is pictured below.

Anyway, police still want to solve this crime, and while it doesn't make international headlines when someone who didn't graduate from Harvard gets murdered, I'd still like to support that effort.

"We're looking for leads," Detective Bill West told me last week. "We're looking for people who might know anything about his history and who he was involved with, and especially who might have committed the crime of killing him and burning his car and his body."

If you think you might be such a person, do the world a favor and call Billerica Police at (978) 667-1212.

This was a real battle of intelligence, starting at 11:15 p.m., in Lowell.

An 18-year-old Tewksbury woman left her Honda running as it sat at the Getty Mart on Chelmsford Street in Lowell.

The car, surprisingly, was stolen, but the owner saw it being driven away, and a taxi followed it to Highland Street, near Parker Street, where police caught up with it, and arrested Thomas Lopes, 32, of Lowell.

Here's Lopes explaining his masterful criminal theory to detectives Steve Alexander and Chris Kelly.

Lopes was charged with larceny of a motor vehicle, and driving with a suspended license. The car's owner, who was at the scene, called him a "piece of" you guess the third word, and informed him that she hopes he crashes into a tree and dies next time he steals a car.

She drove from the scene while honking her horn, at 11:30 or so, in a residential neighborhood. I think she came pretty close to getting herself pulled over and cited by the officers who had just helped her out.

Are there any winners in this one?

UPDATE: I've gotta add to this and make it a bit of learning experience, because right after I posted this entry, what happened?

I headed home from work, and stopped at Tedeschi at Bridge and West Sixth in Lowell, where a perfectly nice looking girl pulled into the parking lot ahead of me and left her pretty new-looking SUV running while she headed into the store.

So, if you know a young blonde girl who drives a gray, newer-model Ford SUV with a Dracut High School sticker on the back, point out this entry to her, and tell her not to leave her car running next time she's in Lowell.

I'm a little quiet in person, so I didn't mention it. I don't talk to strangers at 12:30 a.m., in Lower Centralville, much less leave my car running.

It sounds like firefighters from Chelmsford, and maybe Hudson or Nashua as well, are converging on the Merrimack River because a powerboat containing six people lost power.

The boat is north of the bridge in Tyngsboro and floating down with six people on board, the youngest of whom is 16, according to radio broadcasts.

It sounds like everyone is fine, but without any power, they're going to need a hand getting to shore as of 5:50 p.m.

UPDATE: Radio broadcasts indicate the boat has a dead battery and is getting a tow back to a boat ramp in Lowell. All is well.

I spent most of the night working on a story that will run in a few days and a story about a meth bust up in New Hampshire, with some locals involved.

If you recognize the names of Phillips and Beaulieu, it's because they were both arrested in June of 2005, when Chelmsford Police found a meth lab at 56 Groton Road.

Phillips had a lab setup in his mom's basement, and Beaulieu was busted at the scene with some meth on him.

Phillips got a 2 to 3 year sentence for that whole deal in 2007, so the fact that he was already out of jail must mean he got some credit for time served.

The DEA still tells me meth isn't a very big problem around here compared to heroin and Oxycontin, though it can be found.

Oddly, they said heroin and Oxycontin really aren't much of a problem in some parts of the midwest where meth is just out of control.

Check the paper for a lot more on this story tomorrow.

9:46 p.m., police toned out a shots fired call at 76 S. Whipple St., in Back Central, and arrived to find 14 shell casings in the street, and the following mess.

Below is the only person who was hit, and he appeared to have just the slightest of flesh wounds. He declined treatment beyond the little patch on his neck.

Inanimate objects didn't fare as well, though.

First was this very poorly parked Dodge Intrepid, which got hit in the tire and there on the quarterpanel.

Then this Mitsubishi Mirage, parked just behind the Interprid, that got hit in the hood.

Eduardo Lugo, who shares the Mitsubishi with his daughter, said he was in the shower when he heard six gunshots. "1, 2, 3, 4 in a row, then two more," he told me.

He said he was a little freaked out by the gunshots, but both he and his daughter said it was also just part of living in the city.

"It happens all the time," said that girl, who really didn't seem phased.

The small yellow house at 72 S. Whipple Street got hit three times, as you can see below in closeups of the bullet holes on the right side of the house, including this first one which pierced the electric service line to the home.

And these two.

Which were a few feet from the first bullet hole.

Inside the home were Orlando Callejas and Doris Gallego.

They told me through a kid at the scene who agreed to translate for me that they were on the second-floor of their home watching television when they heard gunshots.

When they went downstairs, they found these two bullet holes in the living room wall.

This one was just a bit higher than the first one.

Once inside, the bullets hit a banister, a window, a table, and the ceiling as they moved around.
Eduardo said he wasn't scared, but Doris was.

They said they were going to have to stay with friends last night, because they were told the power to their home would have to be cut due to the damage to the electric service line.

Radio broadcasts indicated police were looking for a black or dark-skinned Hispanic male, about 5'5, heavyset, with a ponytail, who was last seen wearing a red shirt, shorts, and a backpack.

He ran up South Whipple Street and took a left onto Moore Street.

Anyone with information is asked to call Lowell police at (978) 937-3200 or Crimestoppers at (978) 459-TIPS (8477). Callers may remain anonymous, but can receive up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest.

Looked like a little kid got struck by a car on Mammoth Road, just over the city line in Dracut this afternoon about 5 p.m., but the officers at the scene were too busy to talk and I just checked in with a shift commander who said no report is in yet.

There were two large dents on the hood of the Honda at the scene, and two fairly small shoes in the berm. I'm told the injuries weren't anything too major, but that's about all that I've heard.
I'll be checking back to see if I can get a report by the end of the night.

Elsewhere, Chelmsford Police are now out looking for a guy, I think in connection with a car break, who fled from an officer on Sleigh Road, near Acton Road and the Westford town line.

It sounds like Westford Police are helping setup a perimeter as police await arrival of a dog.

Suspect is described as a thin, white male, 20 to 25-years-old, wearing a white shirt, baggy shorts and white sneakers. This all started about 9:30 p.m.

Billerica Police have been searching for a 29-year-old man since about 10 because he choked his pregnant girlfriend in their town, according to police radio broadcasts.

He's driving a gray, 2001 Mercedes ML55 SUV, and was said to have family and friends in Lowell, according to radio broadcasts.
No word on how bad the girlfriend was hurt. A shift commander in Billerica wasn't immediately available tonight.

Just now at 11:35 p.m., though, police cancelled the bolo and said the guy was in custody.

In Lowell, I guess some witnesses saw a guy breaking into a car around Warren Street, but someone scared him off, and police arrived in time to see the guy fleeing.

The guy must be a hell of a swimmer, because he managed to cross the Concord River near the Andover Street bridge, even though the water looked pretty darn high and fast.

According to NOAA, the Concord is at a little over 2 feet below flood stage, although flood stage is only 8-feet, so that's not as close as it sounds.

Here are some video clips of the search.

There was a pretty nasty head-on on Old Ferry Road right in front of the fire station in Lowell this afternoon.

It looked like a Cadillac and a Corolla met driver's side front to driver's side front, airbags popped out all over both cars, and somehow there were no serious injuries, even though four adults and three children had to go to the hospital.

The crash was directly in front of Engine 10's headquarters, and Deputy Jeff Winwood told me the three firefighers inside responded in seconds.

"They heard the colission," Winwood said. "The guys were here right away."

Three firefighters with seven patients on their hands was a tough situation, but the guys on scene immediately called for more fire engines, police, and extra ambulances.

This picture only shows about half of the patients, but should give you a bit of an idea.

There were four ambulances all together that I spotted, paramedics, two more fire trucks, and several police. None of the injuries were life-threatening.

The driver of the Corolla was a 21-year-old Lowell woman, but police hadn't grabbed an ID from the Cadillac driver at the scene.

I'm told there were two adults and two kids in the Caddy, and two adults and a young child in the Corolla.

I'll try to track down more information at the end of the shift tonight when a report on this might get approved and filed. No immediate charges. What caused to happens is still being investigated.

Two witnesses at the scene basically told me that two cars ran into each other. A compelling and detailed account, but I doubt it'll seal up the investigation. Hopefully they had more info for police.

I may have finally found the number 1 all-time crime that there is absolutely no chance you're going to get away with.

Courtesy of an allegedly drunken Nathan Lounsbury, 19, of Hudson, N.H., a gentleman and a scholar, we now have exposing your genitals to a police department employee while being held in lockup.

List of bad ideas grand prize winner number 5.

Lounsbury was already off to a great start on Saturday night, which is why he was in lockup.

Hudson Police say he was speeding down Musquash Road, near Stable Road, about 7:30 p.m. Police say Lounsbury was already drunk at that late hour, and drove clean through a telephone pole before his PT Cruiser tumbled down an embankment and ended up on it's side.

After a smooth move like that, the marijuana, booze, and drug paraphernalia police say they found in the PT Cruiser probably weren't the end of the world.

Lounsbury still had an ace up his sleeve, though.

Police say Lounsbury, and I'm just going to quote this directly from the press release "exposed his genitalia in an alarming manner to department members assigned to monitor him while in a cell."

I'm just going to leave it at that.

Lounsbury was additionally charged with indecent exposure and lewdness.

He couldn't come up with his $1,500 cash bail, so he was shipped out to the Valley Street Jail in Nashua, pending arraignment on Monday.

Best of luck to whoever is assigned to watch him there.

Here are some links to previous winners.

Stealing from Firefighters

Leaving Your License at the Scene of a Robbery

DWI + DWI / 13 Hours = Winner

Hi, 911? Get me some cigarettes

(and yes, I know I screwed up the count, but I'm too busy tonight to go back and fix it right away).

Billerica Police said they finally found the body of the missing 29-year-old Russian boater who went missing after falling out of his small, inflatable boat on Wednesday evening.

Police announced the discovery in press release, and declined to answer more questions tonight when I called. I guess he was found in the area where he went missing, but police wouldn't tell me exactly where, or whether he was buried under mud or weeds or something.

I'm still amazed he was missing for so long. They certainly did everything they could to find him. I've never seen so many crews involved in a search.

Police also identified the victim as Roman Muzychen. He is from Russia and is here without family. He was living near the lake.

It sounds like there was a head-on collision that required MedFlight this afternoon in Dracut, but I've been unable to get any information so far. Still tracking down more information. I'm not even sure of a location yet because it happened just before I walked in the door.

YIKES, this is why we never listen to rumors in the newsroom until we confirm them.

There was in fact no collision in Dracut this afternoon. I was heading out to Route 110 which is the area where I thought the crash was, when Deputy Police Chief David Chartrand called me to let me know there had just been an ATV crash, not any kind of mva.

A 24-year-old man wrecked an ATV in some sand pits out off Jackson Street, which is way out off Route 110, and had a compound fracture of the leg.
No life-threatening injuries, but a compound fracture is nasty enough that EMT's decided to have MedFlight take him to Boston where they could really fix it up.

This all happened about 4 p.m.

Nothing else to report so far. Searchers were on the Merrimack River looking for Helena Fells today, and they were also on Nutting Lake in Billerica still searching for the young man I wrote about on Wednesday night.

No word of success in either search.

For the second time in about a week, a boater has gone missing.

I rushed to Nutting Lake in Billerica after I heard police calling for a boat about 7:55 p.m.

It turns out someone had flagged down an officer who was driving near the causeway where Middlesex Turnpike crossing the lake about 7:55 p.m., and reported that several people had seen a man fall out of his small inflatable boat and go into the water.

Officer Jeff Strunk was there almost immediately, and Sgt. Steve Elmore was there in under a minute. Elmore grabbed a rope from his cruiser trunk and used it to secure Strunk as Strunk plowed straight into the lake, through thick weeds, in an effort to find the victim.

The victim was said to have gone under about 50-yards from shore, near Mickee's Sports Pub and the Turnpike Market.

Lt. Tom Greenhalgh was the Billerica shift-commander last night, and he's also a trained diver. He grabbed his gear and was under the water within 15 or 20 minutes, but even that didn't help.

By 9:50 p.m., at least three dive teams, including those from Billerica, Lowell and Bedford, and six boats were out on the lake. The man's boat was found, but there was no sign of him.

The search was suspended about 12:05 a.m., and will resume Thursday morning.

No immediate identification on the victim.

Well, if you've ever had an issue with Littleton Police, here is your chance to see Littleton Police Chief John Kelly getting wiped out in a dunk tank.

Kelly bit the proverbial bullet during the town's National Night Out event, where police get together with residents so they can have a little fun and get to know each other when there's no flashing lights or handcuffs involved.

Despite his oath to protect the residents of Littleton, Kelly had a real love of tossing soaking wet Nerf balls at people, and got me in the stomach as I was taking pictures.

I also tried on some goggles that simulate being drunk, first at the legal limit, and then at .20.

I did alright catching a ball and driving a golf cart at the legal limit, but it turns out I can't stand on one-foot with crap. I put on the .2 goggles, and was quickly convinced I shouldn't even try to drive the golf cart.
Littleton PD would have had a 911 call for a golf cart into the middle school.

Lowell has a very tight budget this year and barely avoided layoffs, so for the first time in years the city had no National Night Out tonight. The Law Enforcement Trust Fund case that usually funds the night instead went toward buying new police cruisers, which, if you follow the cops around like I do, you know were needed.

I can't tell you how many banged up cruisers and cruisers with only one headlight I've seen in the past year. Poor Kooly (spelling on that!?!?), the department mechanic who got a civilian achievement medal from the PD this year, must have been losing his mind with all the work.

The call came in at 7:29 p.m., shots fired near Merrimack and Cabot streets. Police were there within a minute, but it turned out the shots were actually fired on Moody Street, just between Archambault Towers and North Canal Apartments.

Officers found 7 fairly large shell casings next to a parked car on Moody Street, maybe 9mm, but I'm not sure.

Here is one of them.

Officers soon learned from witnesses that a man had been shot in the stomach, and immediately driven from the scene to Lowell General Hospital by friends.

At last word, he was in critical condition, and being flown to a Boston hospital. State homicide detectives attached to the DA's office are on their way to the scene, if they're not their already.

A witness told me she, and her son, both saw a white male with short, curly hair, a red shirt, black shorts, and a black hat, running down Moody toward the downtown while firing shot after shot.
When he was done he turned and ran back toward Cabot Street.

It appeared he was shooting diagonally across Moody Street.

The shell casings were found just behind the police cruiser in this picture, and were fired in the direction of where I stood as I took this.

As I took this picture, the following things were behind me.

A bullet mark in a tree in front of the North Canal Apartments.

A bullet hole in the grill of a GMC pickup parked in the lot at North Canal.

A bullet mark in the brick wall of an apartment at North Canal.

I spoke to the woman who lives in the apartment just inside that wall. She was in the shower when the shooting started, but her son heard the shots and thought they were fireworks, though he noted they were unusually loud.

She was pretty freaked out by all this, but pretty glad she has brick walls.

The witness I spoke too was scared, and pretty pissed too. Her kids play out in the yard on Moody Street all the time, and just happened to be inside last night.
She said she even yelled at the shooter as he fled, using some very choice words.

I spoke a bit to that woman's son, who said he was only a little scared.

As of now, there's still no ID on the victim. Police are looking for a maroon Honda with a black bumper. If you see it, call police. They're also looking for a second car, I think a green Honda, but I'm not sure why.

There seemed to be plenty of witnesses, and I think there's video surveillance at Archambault and at Club Passe Temp, across the street.

If you know anything, call police. They're at (978) 937-3200.
If you want to be anonymous, call Crimestoppers at (978) 459-TIPS (8477). You can be anonymous and still get up $1,000 if your information leads to an arrest.

UPDATE: The victim hasn't been identified, but I'm told he is a 27-year-old Lowell man, who is now expected to survive, though he continues to be treated at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston.
No arrests have been made. I'll be ready to try and get pictures and video if that changes.