Articles labeled: Massachusetts

A mother who left her 2-month-old alone in the car outside Babies ‘R Us (hold up — isn’t that somewhere you actually might want to bring a baby??) is not going to be charged with a crime.

Shortly after 11 a.m., police were called to the Route 114 store after another customer noticed the baby was inside the car alone with the doors locked, according to police.

After rescuers forced entry into the car and retrieved the infant, the officer grabbed the car’s registration and went inside Babies-R-Us to look for the mother.

Police say she was visibly upset when they found her.

“She said she forgot she had the child with her,” Bonaiuto said.

She’s lucky being a dumbass isn’t a crime.

A 7-year-old boy in Massachusetts had to sit out his Little League game because his mother failed to show up to work the concession stand. Apparently they have a “No Super Ropes, No Play” policy.

Jodi Hooper of Freetown said she was unable to fulfill her obligation at the concession stand because she couldn’t get time off from work, according to MyFOXBoston.

Dave Brouillette, head of the Freetown Youth Athletic Association, told MyFOXBoston that the concession revenues are necessary to fund the league’s programs and that he has to enforce the rules, which require parents show up for their assigned concession stand shifts or risk suspensions for their children.

Brouillette told the station that he wasn’t able to see his own son play because he had to cover the concession stand shift for Hooper, according to MyFOXBoston.

A 21-month-old girl fell into a storm drain in Fall River, Massachusetts, but fortunately two heroes were there to spring into action and save her.

Bruce Hebert and Pedro Davila sprung into action after hearing the screams of the girl’s mother Saturday night.

The two used a lug wrench and a hammer to open the drain cover. Davila jumped in and retrieved the little girl who was face down in the water, the newspaper said.

Hebert administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation until the child started spitting up water.

The tale of Haleigh Poutre is an amazing one. She suffered a massive head injury in 2005 and remained in a vegetative state for two years. And just when doctors were about to recommend she be taken off life support in December 2007, she started to breath on her own and regained consciousness and was able to give police startling details about what may have put her in the coma in the first place.

Interviewed in her bedroom at Franciscan Hospital for Children, Haleigh communicated to investigators that her adoptive mother and stepfather, Holli and Jason Strickland, regularly used physical discipline, such as spanking her or slapping her in the face.

When asked about being hurt during her childhood, she did not directly say anything about the weekend in September 2005 when she lapsed into a coma. Prosecutors have described her adoptive mother as the harshest of her abusers, but Haleigh expressed to police largely fond feelings toward Holli Strickland, who took care of the girl since she was 4.

In another key development in the case, Haleigh’s younger sister, Samantha Poutre, 11, has given police a new statement this year about how Haleigh suffered her traumatic brain injury, the sources said. She told police that Haleigh was kicked down the stairs in an episode involving Holli and Jason Strickland. Samantha had previously told police that Haleigh may have hurt herself practicing a back flip and accidentally hitting her head on a basement pipe, defense lawyers have said.

Five knuckleheads have been arrested after they threw two 40 ounce bottles filled with gasoline into a house — one of the bottles went into a room where a 7-month-old and a 2-year-old were sleeping. Fortunately nobody was injured.

Dennis Edwards stood in the ashes of his home yesterday, thinking of everything he had lost and how close the small children under his roof had come to dying in the early morning firebombing that destroyed 50 Hiramar Road.

Edwards’s 4-year-old son and his girlfriend Michaela Salvodori’s two daughters — ages 2½ years and 7 months — were asleep in a bedroom when a Molotov cocktail crashed through the window and set the curtains and bed linens ablaze.

A friend, Donyel Carey, was watching a movie with her own baby on her chest when she heard the glass shatter.

She screamed and grabbed two children in addition to her own, while Edwards, 32, rescued the 7-month-old, Edwards said.

Salvodori said a tent canopy that formed the “roof” of the 4-year-old’s car-shaped bed was on fire.

Wow, here’s something you don’t hear every day — a government agency admitting they screwed up:

As the head of the state Department of Social Services admitted to a litany of mistakes, police arrested the mother of a 7-year-old boy yesterday, accusing her of letting her son be repeatedly beaten, bloodied, and burned with cigarettes by her boyfriend.

The [boy’s mother, Michelle Henry] was arrested after the child gave a heartbreaking interview to police in which he said that his mother was present when the boyfriend, David J. Privette, touched his genitals and buttocks with a cigarette, according to a police report filed in court yesterday.

DSS Commissioner Angelo McClain said that his department failed the boy on multiple fronts.

McClain said the agency had become so alarmed by the situation at the boy’s home that it initiated proceedings to take custody of the boy and his 3-year-old half-sister earlier this month. But he admitted DSS had waited too long to take the action.

Wow, the flu seems to be hitting hard this year, claiming twice the number of children in Massachusetts than usual, and the season isn’t even over yet. Is it too late to get a flu shot? Is there a doctor in the house? Scary stuff.

A 12-year-old Worcester County girl died Sunday from influenza, the fourth Massachusetts child to succumb this year to the respiratory illness, state public health authorities announced this afternoon.

Officials also disclosed that a 15-year-old boy from Newton died Friday of pneumonia triggered by the flu. Neither of the children was identified because of patient confidentiality laws.

Most years, no more than two children die from the flu in Massachusetts. This flu season, though, has proved especially severe, with significantly more cases of the viral disease reported among adults and children than the previous two winters. Disease specialists estimate that during a typical winter, 36,000 people — mainly the elderly and patients with chronic illnesses — die nationally from the flu.

A birthday party turned into a “birthday melee” (sweet) when a mom decided to put the beat down on another mom whose kid wouldn’t share a video game. Hilarity ensued.

A child’s birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Massachusetts was cut short when a fight broke out between two mothers.

The mother of the 9-year-old birthday boy apparently became enraged because the other woman’s son was “hogging” an arcade game, Natick, Mass., police said.

Catherine Aliaga, 38, and Tarsha Williams, 33, both of Boston, will be summoned into court to answer charges of simple assault and battery stemming from the scuffle, Sgt. Paul Thompson said.

Thompson told the MetroWest Daily News that police received a number of 911 calls about the fight Saturday night.

OK, we’ll confess that we used to steal money from our parents so we could head over to the local mini-golf place and play Xevious and Q-Bert. But we didn’t have to crack a safe in order to do it.

Cameras caught the students from Bellingham, Mass., spending 20 minutes using a knife to pry open a classroom door. Inside, a safe contained $800 in student funds, which were raised through local fundraisers for class trips or donated by parents, MyFoxBoston reports.

The suspects used a blow torch to burn off the safe’s lock. With all the cash in hand, cameras show the teens, wearing ski masks and rubber gloves to conceal their identities and fingerprints, running out of the building, MyFoxBoston reports.

Police report $700 of the stolen funds has been recovered. The rest of the money allegedly was spent on Chinese food and video games, MyFoxBoston reports.

Here’s the video of the perps in action. Listen for the reporter say it’s, “something straight out of CSI.” Uh, nice try, dude, but we don’t believe anybody was found dead at the scene. Perhaps “Simon & Simon” would be a more apt comparison.

On January 11, 2008, Marcelle “Marci” Thibault of Bellingham, Mass., walked across I-495 with her niece and nephew, and all three were killed when struck by oncoming traffic. After a week of speculation and the family trying to make sense of this tragedy, the Middlesex District Attorney announced the result of his office’s investigation today, and they have ruled the case a murder/suicide:

“Based on our investigation, we believe Ms. Thibault took her niece and nephew and walked with them into oncoming traffic on Rte. 495, tragically resulting in the deaths of the two young children while taking her own life in the process,” said Leone. “The facts of this matter make it a truly heart-wrenching case, with troubling and very difficult findings.”

Through the DA’s office, the family has released this statement:

“This is a time of terrible tragedy for our families. We love Marci, Kaleigh, and Shane and we miss them very much. We ask everyone to join us in prayer for their souls, and to help us get through this most difficult period of our lives. We ask that the media respect our privacy and allow us the time to grieve and heal as we mourn our great loss.”

UPDATE: tragedy now ruled a murder/suicide

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A woman and her niece and nephew crossed a busy highway in Boston and were run over by two separate cars.

The whole situation is so bizarre. First, the woman had pulled over because she was driving on the wrong side of the road, and then proceeds to walk into traffic with the 4 and 5 year old. Makes me think that maybe alcohol was involved??

Poor babies. Their aunt should have made every possible attempt to keep them safe but instead, lead them to an agonizing death.

Marcelle Thibault, 39, of Bellingham, Mass., was driving in the wrong direction on the highway when she drove her 2003 Lincoln on to the grassy shoulder of the road, state police said. Thibault was traveling southbound in the northbound section of the road.

Thibault then got out of the car with the 4-year-old boy and 5-year-old girl who were traveling with her.
Police did not offer an explanation for what happened next.

Thibault and the two children walked out into the middle of the road, police said, where they were hit by two cars. All three were taken to hospitals and pronounced dead.

UPDATE: The district attorney has ruled this case a murder/suicide.

A prank call to a residential, special needs school in MA, asking the school to give two teens electro-therapy, resulted in the teens being shocked with no valid order to do so.

It’s hard to believe that ANY child would be subjected to this, let alone a special needs child. This country is so messed up. We let Pedophiles out of jail after serving only a few months, yet allow a school to electrocute Autistic kids at the drop of a prank call.

BOSTON — State officials are investigating complaints that staff at a special needs residential school gave at least two teenagers unnecessary electric shock treatments after receiving a prank phone call from someone pretending to be from the office of the school’s founder.

Initial investigations showed that a former student at the Judge Rotenberg Education Center allegedly called in orders for electric shock treatments on Aug. 26 and officials at the school self-reported the prank call and unnecessary treatments the day after they occurred, Cindy Campbell, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Early Education and Care, said Monday.

Well, at least she wasn’t successful.

And, unlike most cases in which the mother tries to kill her children, at least this mother wasn’t selfish enough to try to spare her own life claiming that she was doing her children a favor as in the case of so many other sociopathic mothers . I hope those kids aren’t forced into a relationship with their mother, mandated through the court system, if they don’t wish to have contact with someone that tried to murder them .

TAUNTON, Mass. — A Taunton mother stabbed her two children early Tuesday morning, then herself and the children’s grandmother may have prevented a greater tragedy, police said.

Sandra Meninno, 39, stabbed her children, ages 10 and 12, before stabbing herself. She was then disarmed by her 64-year-old mother, according to police.

Drugged out “father” bites his 22 month old’s lip completely off. The damage to his lip was so bad, it could not be re-attached. Imagine the PAIN that little baby suffered and why? Why? Why? Why???

LOWELL, Mass. — A 26-year-old Lowell, Mass., man faces child abuse charges for biting off his 22-month-old son’s bottom lip, police said.

Thy Chan, 26, was arrested after the Sunday incident, reported WCVB-TV in Boston.

Police Superintendent Kenneth Lavallee told The Lowell Sun that officers were called to a Lowell apartment after someone called 911 to report that the child’s lip had been bitten off.

Responding officers found the child covered in blood, but found his bottom lip, which they gave to paramedics who rushed the boy to the hospital. Doctors at Children’s Hospital in Boston attempted to reattach the lip.

The Boy Scouts did the right thing. They asked permission to set up donation boxes to collect money for care packages to send to our troops. Some asshole complained that it was a political message (Really???) and the donation boxes were immediately taken down.

Let the karma police bless this stupid town.

Big-hearted Boy Scouts collecting donations for care packages for U.S. troops are still scratching their heads after being sent packing from polling stations when Cambridge officials ruled their generous effort “political.”

“We just wanted to make a lot of troops happy,” said Scout Patrick O’Connor, 16. “I was devastated that someone would think to take (the donation boxes) out,” he said.

O’Connor of West Cambridge was one of the Scouts who wanted to collect toiletries, magazines, candy and other items for care packages after one of his relatives was injured in an IED explosion while serving in Iraq.