William Gross: Criminal courts need to reopen further as shootings mount in Boston

Police Commissioner William Gross called for the courts to further reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic so law enforcement can better lock up shooters.

Boston’s top cop made the call in a press conference on Tuesday after a long holiday weekend that included 12 shootings.

Gross, speaking to the press at a news conference on Tuesday, said the dozen shootings over the course of the weekend were all “independent” — unrelated, according to the police investigations, he said.

“We need the courts to be open, because these individuals committing violence in our neighborhoods should be locked up,” Gross told reporters.

Gross thanked people living near the shootings for calling the cops, and reiterated the message he has said at many crime scenes: that the people committing the street violence in Boston are the same small sliver of the population that keeps re-offending.

“The people that we’re seeing committing the crime are part of the same group,” Gross told reporters. “You’ve heard me say it over and over again: The same repeat violent offenders are committing the crimes.”

Gross also said that “some folks” who are being “hyper critical” of the Boston Police Department response need to do more themselves about people causing various types of trouble.

“We need everyone to do their jobs, not point fingers — get off the fence, go out and talk to the people,” Gross said. “We’re out there. We just need other people to be out there.”

The commissioner added, “That’s why you have 12 shootings within three days. It’s the same individuals, there has to be some accountability.”

Mayor Martin Walsh, speaking at the same press conference, backed up his police commissioner, saying that while the courts have resumed some operations, they’re “not as full as they have been.”

“It really is important that we address some of the folks that are doing the shooting in the city of Boston, that we get a process moving,” Walsh said.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3iizLSA