REVERE — A decorated Massachusetts police officer charged with beating his girlfriend’s 5-year-old son has resigned.
Revere police said that Marcos Garcia resigned late last month. He had been placed on paid administrative leave after he was charged.
The 32-year-old Garcia, of Saugus, pleaded not guilty to assault and battery on a child causing injury and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Prosecutors say Garcia stripped, handcuffed, and beat the boy on Jan. 12 after he refused to eat dinner. Investigators say Garcia told the boy to lie if asked about the injuries.
His lawyer has not commented.
Garcia’s girlfriend, also a Revere officer, has also been charged.
Garcia received a heroism award last year for saving two victims of a car crash.
BOSTON — Lawyers for former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez asked Friday for a three-month delay to the start of their client’s double-murder trial so they can review new information, including prosecutors’ disclosure that they could call team offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels as a witness.
The information includes new motions, evidence, and eight witnesses, including McDaniels and a Boston television sports reporter.
McDaniels, with the Patriots in Houston for Sunday’s Super Bowl against the Atlanta Falcons, could testify on the possible meanings of some of Hernandez’s tattoos, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors say some tattoos link Hernandez to the 2012 drive-by killings of 29-year-old Daniel de Abreu and 28-year-old Safiro Furtado. Hernandez became enraged after one of the men accidentally bumped into him at a Boston nightclub and caused him to spill his drink, prosecutors say.
Over the objections of the defense, Judge Jeffrey Locke previously ruled that jurors will be allowed to see Hernandez’s tattoos as evidence. The defense argues the tattoos are irrelevant.
SPRINGFIELD — Police in Springfield have identified a Chicopee man who is believed to have drowned after fishing with a friend.
Authorities say they responded to the area of Lake Lorraine and Five Mile Pond at about 3:30 p.m. Sunday to recover a body. They say 63-year-old William Kitovich Jr. was found near the railroad tracks that divide the two bodies of water.
Lt. Mark Rolland says Kitovich had been fishing with a friend and became separated. He says Kitovich is believed to have drowned and that his death isn’t considered suspicious.
WORCESTER — A local activist has come forward to say he called protesters “freakin’ morons” during a public meeting after the comments were captured on a live microphone and attributed to a Massachusetts mayor who apologized for the remarks.
Worcester activist Richard Aucoin and Democratic Mayor Joseph Petty both acknowledged Thursday that Aucoin made the remarks Petty apologized for on Wednesday.
Aucoin says he was frustrated that protesters were chanting at a City Council meeting on Tuesday. The demonstrators had gathered at City Hall earlier in protest of Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
In a video of the meeting, someone can be heard uttering “freakin’ morons. Morons, morons, morons.”
Petty says he initially denied making the comments. But as more people seemed convinced that he made them, he started to think they were right.
From Associated Press