CAMBRIDGE — Police say a gas station clerk was shot in the foot when he confronted a customer who tried to steal a bottle of water.
Cambridge police say the 50-year-old clerk was taken to the hospital after he was grazed by a bullet at about 4 a.m. Wednesday.
He has since been released.
A police spokesman says the suspect purchased a bottle of soda and then argued about having to pay for water.
The clerk followed the suspect out of the store and the customer went to a nearby vehicle being driven by another person and took out a handgun.
The shooter fled on foot and the car drove away.
The driver has been located and is not being charged, but police are still looking for the alleged shooter.
FRAMINGHAM — Police in Massachusetts say tests on a substance they believed to have been a “fentanyl mix” came out negative.
Police had to decontaminate a station cell after a prisoner supposedly smuggled the substance inside.
Framingham Police Lt. Patricia Grigas says tests revealed a “pharmaceutical-grade drug.”
A small amount of the opioid fentanyl can cause a potentially-deadly reaction, and is 30 to 50 times more powerful than heroin.
Prisoners in the cellblock were evacuated and the area was decontaminated. The station can hold 21 prisoners.
Police haven’t released the identity of the prisoner involved but said charges are pending.
NORTHAMPTON — A tow truck driver charged with raping four women has been held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing.
Arthur Salsbury Jr., of Ware, pleaded not guilty to 11 charges including four counts of aggravated rape at his arraignment Tuesday in Hampshire Superior Court.
Granby police started investigating two alleged sexual assaults that occurred this year. The women said they were driven to the same location in Granby where they were assaulted. Police say when Salsbury’s DNA was entered into a DNA database, he was linked to a sexual assault that occurred in 2009.
Salsbury’s lawyer asked for a delay for the dangerousness hearing so his client could attend his daughter’s high school graduation.
BROOKLINE — Residents of a Boston suburb have voted to rename the elementary school once attended by John F. Kennedy because it was named for a former slave owner.
Town meeting members in Brookline voted Tuesday 171-19 to change the name of the Edward Devotion School.
It will be known as the Coolidge Corner School, after its neighborhood, until a new name can be approved at next spring’s town meeting.
Deborah Brown, who proposed the change, said, “No child should have to walk into a school named for someone who enslaved people.”
Opponents called the name change an empty gesture that doesn’t address racism’s underlying causes.
The future president attended from kindergarten through third grade.
ESSEX — A sewage spill has forced Massachusetts officials to close clam flats to diggers.
The sewer pipe broke around 10 p.m. Saturday in Essex, contaminating the Essex River and temporarily closing roads in the vicinity.
The clam flats have been closed indefinitely by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Steve Woodman, co-owner of Woodman’s restaurant, said all of their clams come from the local area. He says he will have to go elsewhere for their clams until the DEP deems the local supply safe.
PORTLAND, Maine — Yes, those baby seals are cute. No, you should definitely not touch them.
That’s the message from the federal government, which is reminding beachgoers that it’s pupping season for harbor seals along the New England coast. The NOAA says it’s common to see seal pups resting on beaches in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts at this time.
The agency says people who encounter a seal pup should “do the right thing and leave the seal pup alone.” Getting too close to seals can stress the animals out and lead to injuries to both humans and seals.
NOAA says it’s normal for a mother seal to leave a young seal alone on a beach for as long as 24 hours. It doesn’t mean the seal is stranded.
From Associated Press