BOSTON — Boston Mayor Marty Walsh says the city has begun issuing body cameras to police officers.
The Boston Globe reported Friday that the first of about 400 cameras will be worn by officers in the South Boston and Dorchester neighborhoods. Training for the officers will start next week.
Implementation of the body camera program comes after a yearlong test. Researchers from Northeastern University who studied results from the test found the devices provided “small but meaningful benefits” in encounters between police and community members.
The Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association continues to oppose the cameras. The union unsuccessfully tried to block the previous test.
Walsh says the program, estimated to cost $8.5 million over the first three years, will “support the incredible progress we have made in community policing.”
WORCESTER — A man is in custody after a security breach at Worcester Regional Airport in Massachusetts.
State police said there was no terrorism threat involved, but the 31-year-old man managed to get himself on to the airfield Wednesday evening and took a fuel truck for a ride.
The man was later found inside a fuselage that is used for training exercises by firefighters at the airport. Police said he had a black substance believed to be tar on his face and was speaking incoherently.
The Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates the airport, said there were no “operational impacts” as a result of the incident.
The suspect, from Lawrence, has not been identified. He faces trespassing and several other charges.
Authorities are investigating how he accessed the airfield.
BOSTON — Two pharmacists have been convicted of approving shipments of falsified prescriptions while working at a now-defunct Massachusetts pharmacy blamed for a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak.
Court records show Michelle Thomas and and Kathy Chin were found guilty by a federal jury in Boston Thursday of introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce with the intent to defraud and mislead.
The charges were not directly linked to the deaths or the contaminated drug.
Thomas, an assistant pharmacy professor at University of Rhode Island, and Chin worked at New England Compounding Center. More than a dozen people in all were charged in connection with the outbreak that prosecutors say killed more than 100 people and sickened hundreds more.
Thomas’ lawyer, Michael Bourbeau, told the Providence Journal the case appeared to be one of guilt by association.
BOSTON — The rules for recreational shark fishermen are going to get more difficult to try to protect a vulnerable species of shark.
An arm of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has signed off on changes to the size limits for Atlantic shortfin mako sharks in state waters. The panel says the new standards stem from an assessment of the shark’s population that found it was being overfished.
The panel says it’s also making the changes to respond to a determination by the International Commission on the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas that said its member countries must reduce the catch of shortfin makos by 72 to 79 percent to stop the population from further declining.
Shortfin mako sharks are listed endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
From Associated Press