Local News

Morning Updates: An abandoned Patriots car, dramatic prison escape, and more

A car registered to New England Patriots linebacker Brandon Spikes sits in a tow yard. The Boston Globe

By Eric Levenson @ejleven

June 8, 2015

3 minutes to read

Good morning, Boston. Here are the stories you need to know today, including police investigating why a Patriots’s car was found damaged and abandoned, Boston Police gang unit, and a dramatic escape from prison.

Trooper: Charge likely in case of Brandon Spikes’ abandoned Mercedes: “State troopers have ‘reached out’ to Patriots’ linebacker Brandon Spikes about why his car was abandoned early Sunday morning on an interstate in Foxborough, police told Boston.com. ‘In 21 years as a road trooper, experience tells me that there will at least be a charge of leaving the scene of a property-damage accident,’ [police] said.’’ (Boston.com)

Legal system: Keep your eyes on the ball: “A roughly century-old so-called Baseball Rule states that stadium owners and operators are not responsible for injuries sustained by foul balls or pieces of shattered bats, so long as netted or screened seats are in place for a reasonable number of spectators. The onus is on the fans to be alert during the game. … Debate about the controversial rule renewed after Tonya Carpenter, 44, of Paxton was struck and seriously injured by a shattered baseball bat at Friday night’s Red Sox game at Fenway Park.’’ (The Boston Globe)

Inside the Boston Police gang unit: “There was a warrant out on him for violating parole on a drug charge, and they steered the car toward the group. The 17-year-old looked up, spotted them, and took off at a sprint, disappearing down a side street. The officer behind the wheel punched the engine and sped around the corner after him. It was just the kind of situation that officers have come to regard as among the most perilous they face, when things happen fast and unpredictably. … But the officers, John Burrows and Andrew Hunter, had an advantage largely missing from policing in such cities as Baltimore or Ferguson that have exploded in protest over police brutality: They knew the young man they were arresting.’’ (The Boston Globe)

Kevin Hart invited all of Boston to run a ‘spontaneous 5K’ with him. So we did: “Hundreds of people are now standing in a scrum watching Kevin Hart stretch. I’m on the outside so I can’t see or hear anything. Fortunately, a bodyguard/video producer has a phone directly in Kevin Hart’s face. So now I’m standing maybe 15 feet from Kevin Hart, but watching on Periscope as he stretches and chooses music from his iPhone.’’ (Boston.com)

Sunday night TV recaps: Game of Thrones, Veep, and Silicon Valley.

The terrible suicide of a young man abused and beaten by the law: “Last fall, I wrote about a young man named Kalief Browder, who spent three years on Rikers Island without being convicted of a crime. He had been arrested in the spring of 2010, at age sixteen, for a robbery he insisted he had not committed. Then he spent more than one thousand days on Rikers waiting for a trial that never happened. During that time, he endured about two years in solitary confinement, where he attempted to end his life several times.’’ (The New Yorker)

Escape from ‘Little Siberia’: “The plot was more Shawshank Redemption than CSI: two hardened inmates using power tools, handmade decoys and their hands to chisel and crawl their way out of a maximum-security prison in a subterranean escape. … [Two convicted murderers] were discovered missing during a 5:30 a.m. bed check on Saturday. Further investigation showed the two men had assembled crude dummies to fool guards, and had used cutting tools to carve holes in the sides of their adjoining cells, before scrambling down into the bowels of the prison, into a two-foot-wide pipe, and out under the 30-foot walls.’’ (The New York Times)