By Chris Lisinski
State House News Service

Attorney General Maura Healey on Wednesday defended her call for mandating COVID-19 vaccines among public employees as a “matter of common sense,” urged state and federal lawmakers to pursue a “systemic” overhaul of child care, and criticized President Joe Biden’s campaign goal of forgiving $10,000 per person in student loans as insufficient.

In a wide-ranging discussion with business leaders, Healey also hinted at additional legal action her office could take against opioid manufacturers and urged employers to take a stand in favor of securing voting rights.

Healey, whose office confirmed Wednesday that she will require some of her staffers to get vaccinated when they return to in-person, public-facing work, reiterated her stance that some public-sector employees such as corrections officers and state police should be required to receive COVID-19 vaccinations.

Asked during a question-and-answer session with the New England Council how state officials could enforce such a requirement, Healey said she views the mandate as “common sense” for employees who regularly interact with the public as a function of their jobs, and pointed to other required vaccinations.

“We require flu shots, we require certain vaccinations, we require hep B shots if you work in a hospital,” Healey said. “People have suffered so much, and we know — I believe in science and data, I’m listening to the people at the CDC, I’m listening to the public health experts. To me, it’s a wartime effort and everybody’s got to step in and do their part, and doing your part means getting vaccinated.”

In a statement to the News Service after the Wednesday morning event, Healey spokesperson Emalie Gainey said the attorney general will implement a similar policy in her own office once employees are no longer remote.

“AG Healey believes everyone eligible for a vaccine should get one, and is encouraged by the millions in Massachusetts doing their part at clinics across the state,” Gainey said. “Again, it is her personal policy view that vaccines should be required for certain state employees that interact with the public on a daily basis to help prevent the spread of the virus. While her office is still operating on a remote basis, she has encouraged staff to get the vaccine, pending any exemptions, and will require vaccinations for employees who have regular interaction with the public when we return back to the office.”

Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who has repeatedly urged people to get vaccinated, opposes the idea of requiring state employees to get a COVID-19 vaccine. On Monday, he said he prefers to focus on communicating the vaccine’s efficacy and expanding access.

“The idea that I would kick somebody out of a job — and especially in the kind of economy we have now — because, quote unquote, they wouldn’t get vaccinated right away on an EUA-approved vaccine … No. I’m not gonna play that game,” Baker said Monday.

Healey, a Democrat who pundits have watched as a possible gubernatorial candidate, said there could be legally protected exemptions for public employees for reasons such as disability or religious belief. State workers who refuse to be vaccinated should be handled on a “case-by-case” basis, she said.

Healey cited the frequent calls for widespread vaccinations from national experts such as National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci and CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.

“There’s something real about vaccine hesitancy and I want to acknowledge that. People are scared. Now there’s information coming out about vaccines for kids 12 to 15 or under 12,” she said. “I get that fear, and I get the history of vaccinations, particularly as it relates to communities of color and the fear there, but I think that’s something we’ve got to address with more education and more personal dialogue about things.”

“I don’t want to diminish people’s genuine concern and fear, but I trust Fauci, I trust MGH’s own Rochelle Walensky, who’s now heading the CDC,” Healey added. “I mean, science, you know? I feel like this is the way to go and a path to a quicker resumption of regular life.”

In March, days before Healey first said she believes vaccines should be mandatory for some public employees, declared Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ben Downing called for all state police, first responders and teachers to become vaccinated. Unlike Healey, Downing said specifically that he believes any of those public-sector employees who refuse a shot should not be allowed to remain on the job.

Her prepared remarks to the council focused on three main topics: opioid use, child care and voting rights.

As Healey noted, the pandemic has thrust early education and child care into the spotlight, forcing many parents to grapple with day care and school closures. Center-based care for infants costs an average of $21,000 per year in Massachusetts, Healey said, the second-highest average cost in the country behind Washington, D.C.

She told the council, whose members employ many of the people who are juggling work and home life responsibilities, that high costs of care are an untenable burden for many parents and are disproportionately keeping more women out of the workforce.

“What became immediately apparent to me is that the only real solution has to be a systemic one,” she said. “For all of us, the pandemic has brought out of the shadows a system that requires too much of parents and pays too little to educators.”

The crisis has prompted renewed debate on how the state and country should structure child care systems. Supporters of universal early education say it will improve outcomes for children while simultaneously giving families more financial stability and ability to work.

But those reforms will be costly. The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center estimated in a recent report that offering universal, high-quality and affordable early education and child care in the state would cost more than $5 billion.

Biden’s $1.8 trillion proposal unveiled last week, which he dubbed the “American Families Plan,” would spend $200 billion to make free, universal preschool available to all 3- and 4-year-olds and $225 billion more to increase industry pay and make care more affordable for families.

At the state level, Senate President Karen Spilka has challenged providers, employers and lawmakers to partner on a “moonshot” to reform intergenerational care across Massachusetts.

Healey, who joined other attorneys general in July 2020 to call for $50 billion more in national child care funding, said Wednesday that she believes Americans should recognize child care as “an essential part of public infrastructure.”

“While there are some reforms we can make and have made, it also requires new investment,” she said. “This is an investment that will pay off. For every dollar invested in early childhood education, it’s yielding between $4 and $16 in returns. That’s a pretty good investment. I’m talking about increased high school graduation and college matriculation rates. I’m talking about higher personal earnings. I’m talking about decreased spending in special education, social welfare, decreased spending in the criminal justice system.”

Her remarks to business leaders on Wednesday opened with a warning that the opioid epidemic has “gotten worse” during the COVID-19 crisis, even as some public attention has been absorbed by other pressing health needs.

Healey cited data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control showing that more than 90,000 Americans died of drug overdoses from September 2019 to September 2020, a nearly 30 percent increase from the prior year. About 70 percent of those deaths were opioid-related.

“The isolation, the stress, the mental health strains brought on by COVID require us to build back our progress and to find ways to get more communities the support they need,” Healey said. “COVID resulted in job loss, economic stress, housing instability — it’s put so many people at risk of substance use and relapse and pushed so many people, understandably, over the edge.”

She praised the Biden administration for including $4 billion in the American Rescue Plan stimulus package to expand substance use disorder and mental health supports, and she called for additional changes to prescribing practices to help prevent addiction from taking hold.

In recent years, Healey pursued legal action against the Sackler family, who control Purdue Pharma, and against consulting firm McKinsey over their role in marketing and selling drugs such as OxyContin that fueled the opioid addiction crisis.

“I will tell you, there are further actions soon to come,” she said Wednesday.

In February, Healey and 16 other attorneys general urged Congress to push Biden to cancel up to $50,000 in federal student debt held by every student loan borrower via executive action.

On the campaign trail and in his early weeks in office, Biden indicated interest in eliminating $10,000 of student debt per person but questioned whether he has the authority to wipe out up to $50,000.

Healey on Wednesday called the roughly $1.7 trillion in student loan debt across America “a huge albatross” that prevents people from saving for retirement and purchasing homes.

“The plan put out that allowed forgiveness for up to $50,000 was a plan that was actually sensible and targeted to making a meaningful difference. Forgiving $10,000 isn’t going to move the needle on that,” Healey said. “We’ve got to get real and bite the bullet and just forgive certain debt.”

Some opponents have said that eliminating that much debt before it is paid back would be unfair to borrowers who already repaid their full balances, an argument with which Healey disagreed.

“I know it’s a line-drawing and some people are going to fall on this side and some people are going to fall on that side. I do not believe, though, that it encourages or rewards people for not paying their loans,” she said. “That’s not what I see in my office, and I’ve got a student loan assistance unit that every year is working through thousands of complaints. These are people who tried to pay their loans and for one reason or another, sometimes based on the terms of their loans or they shouldn’t have received them in the first place, aren’t able to.”

A Brockton man pleaded guilty Wednesday to conducting a scheme to take over victims’ social media accounts and steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency.

Eric Meiggs, 23, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy, four counts of wire fraud, one count of computer fraud and abuse and one count of aggravated identity theft. U.S. Senior District Court Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. scheduled sentencing for Sept. 15, 2021.

Meiggs and co-conspirators targeted victims who likely had significant amounts of cryptocurrency and those who had high value or “OG” (slang for “Original Gangster”) social media account names. Using an illegal practice known as “SIM-swapping,” Meiggs and others conspired to hack into and take control of these victims’ online accounts to obtain things of value, including OG social media account names and cryptocurrency.

As alleged in the indictment, “SIM swapping” attacks involve convincing a victim’s cell phone carrier to reassign the victim’s cell phone number from the SIM card (or Subscriber Identity Module card) inside the victim’s cell phone to the SIM card inside a cell phone controlled by the cybercriminals. Cybercriminals then pose as the victim with an online account provider and request that the provider send account password-reset links or an authentication code to the SIM-swapped device now controlled by the cybercriminals. The cybercriminals can then reset the victim’s account log-in credentials and use those credentials to access the victim’s account without authorization, or “hack into” the account.

According to the indictment, Meiggs and his co-conspirators targeted at least 10 identified victims around the country. Members of the conspiracy stole (or attempted to steal) more than $530,000 in cryptocurrency from these victims. Meiggs also took control of two victims’ “OG” accounts with social media companies.

The charge of conspiracy provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $$250,000. The charge of wire fraud provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. The charge of computer fraud and abuse provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. The charge of aggravated identify theft provides for a mandatory sentence of two years in prison to be served consecutive to any other sentence imposed, up to one year of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Acting United States Attorney Nathaniel R. Mendell; Acting Assistant Attorney Nicholas L. McQuaid of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division; and Ramsey E. Covington, Acting Special Agent in Charge of Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations in Boston made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Kosto, Deputy Chief of Mendell’s Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit, and Senior Trial Attorney Mona Sedky of the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and are prosecuting the case.

“On Friday, April 30, the Massachusetts State Police partnered with the New Bedford Police Department and Bridgewater State University Police Department to assist with the criminal justice portion of the 47th annual SkillsUSA Championships for the state of Massachusetts.

The SkillsUSA Championships are career competition events showcasing the best career and technical education students in the nation. Contests begin locally with a written test and continue through to the state and national levels. This past Friday, the state winners for Massachusetts appeared at the Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School in Upton. The highest scoring participants will continue to the national competition held virtually later this year.

Ten regional Vocational and Technical students from area cities and towns, focusing their studies on Criminal Justice, and Legal and Protective Services were run through a gamut of scenarios, written testing, and a verbal interview.

Troopers and officers judged the students on what they have learned during their studies, to include: duty belts, traffic stops, public speaking, domestic violence situations, and how to act as if they were a police officer in different scenarios.”-Massachusetts State Police.

All photos by the Massachusetts Police:

By Chris Lisinski
State House News Service

Labor and immigrant rights leaders have had little success convincing Democratic leaders to pursue their immigration priority reforms in recent years, but they are hopeful that substantial legislative support on two high-profile bills forecasts action this session.

A bill that would allow undocumented immigrants in Massachusetts to acquire standard driver’s licenses now sports 101 co-sponsors, just more than half of the Legislature’s 200 sitting members and an increase of 17 from last session. Another proposal to limit police interactions with federal immigration enforcement has 93 co-sponsors, down slightly from the 97 last session.

Republicans and some law enforcement officials have opposed both proposals, and legislative leaders have mostly avoided bringing either forward for a full floor vote.

Buoyed by the rising number of lawmakers on board with the licensing bill, activists with the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition on Tuesday pitched it as an important public health and equity measure amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Allowing the state’s roughly 200,000 undocumented immigrants to becomme eligible to acquire driver’s licenses, they said, will help them access critical services without facing transmission risks.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, denying driving privilege to immigrants without status forces workers to take crowded public transportation or to share crowded rides,” Dalida Rocha, political director for 32BJ SEIU, said during a virtual advocacy day MIRA hosted. “Without the ability to drive, many immigrants outside of greater Boston can’t get tested or vaccinated. They can’t protect their families, themselves and their communities.”

The licensing bill earned vocal praise from Senate President Karen Spilka last session and cleared the Transportation Committee by a party-line 14-4 vote, but it died in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

When bill authors unveiled the latest version of their proposal (H 3456 / S 2289) in February, they attributed its demise last session to the pandemic’s disruption.

The current version of the bill — which now features an emergency preamble explicitly citing COVID-19 — has 20 co-sponsors in the Senate and 81 in the House.

House Speaker Ronald Mariano, in his first term wielding the speaker’s gavel, gave supporters a glimmer of hope about the bill’s fate in March. “I recognize the value in bringing all drivers under the same public safety, licensing and insurance structures,” Mariano said in a statement at the time, stopping short of explicitly endorsing the proposal.

Activists also continue to push for creation of a legal firewall between local law enforcement and federal authorities such as the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency.

The bill (H 2418 / S 1579), which supporters dub the “Safe Communities Act,” would prohibit police and court officials from asking about someone’s immigration status unless required by law, plus bar them from notifying ICE about an individual’s pending release from custody unless the person is completing incarceration.

Rep. Ruth Balser, a Newton Democrat and an author of the legislation, said Tuesday that she hopes President Joe Biden’s first few months in office will motivate state lawmakers to “lead the way” on immigration reforms.

She, too, pitched the bill as a way to protect public health.

“The Safe Communities Act would make sure that people in the immigrant community wouldn’t have to worry about getting tested for COVID,” Balser said. “They wouldn’t have to worry to go and get their vaccination. They wouldn’t have to worry that someone’s going to talk to ICE and let them know something about themself or someone in their family. We want people to feel safe, so we want to pass a bill that says there will be no local or state involvement with federal immigration enforcement.”

“This is the session we’re going to get it done,” Balser later added.

Boston Mayor Kim Janey threw her support behind both bills Tuesday, calling the immigration enforcement restriction “critical to vaccine equity and equity in general” during MIRA’s virtual advocacy day event.

“Fear of being detained or questioned without proper consent has actually kept some of our immigrant community away from getting the life-saving vaccine, and we cannot have that happen,” Janey said.

Longtime opponents of the bill include the Massachusetts Republican Party and Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson. In January 2020, when the Public Safety Committee heard testimony on a prior version of the legislation, Hodgson said that limiting cooperation between Massachusetts police and federal authorities could create safety risks.

In 2018, the Senate voted 25-13 to adopt an amendment similar to the so-called Safe Communities Act in its fiscal year 2019 budget bill. The provision did not survive budget negotiations with the House.

The Public Safety Committee favorably reported a version of the bill in 2020 without disclosing the vote margin, but it did not advance beyond the Ways and Means Committees.

Republican Gov. Charlie Baker opposes both the enforcement and licensing bills, so Democrats would likely need to line up a two-thirds majority to overturn any prospective veto if they plan to advance the bills this session.

By Katie Lannan
State House News Service

New statewide school attendance data show the percentage of students deemed chronically absent was up so far this pandemic-disrupted school year, as compared to the last three academic years, with rates soaring among English learners, economically disadvantaged students, and students with disabilities.

Seventeen percent of Massachusetts students have been categorized as chronically absent — meaning they missed 10 percent or more of their enrolled school days — through March of the 2020-2021 school year, according to Department of Elementary and Secondary Education numbers updated Friday.

With a statewide enrollment total of 911,465 students, that figure works out to more than 154,000 students absent for 10 percent or more of their school days.

Through March 2 of last year, 13 percent of students were chronically absent students, and the percentage hovered near that point in the 2018-2019 (12.9 percent) and 2017-2018 (13.2 percent) school years.

The average number of absences per student so far this year sits at six, close to the 5.7 recorded last year and below the 9.6 from 2018-2019, the last school year not disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Schooling in Massachusetts — as in other places across the country and the globe — has been transformed by COVID-19, creating new challenges for students, families and educators.

School buildings throughout the state shuttered in March 2020, forcing an abrupt and experimental transition to remote learning amid a public health crisis that threw much of daily life into disarray.

When the new school year began in the fall, some districts remained fully remote while others brought back in-person learning part-time or full-time. More students have returned to classrooms throughout the year, and as of April 27, 146 districts were fully in-person for grades K-12.

Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Jeff Riley this spring set deadlines for districts that had not already done so to phase out remote learning. Except for cases where the state approved waivers, elementary and middle schoolers were due back in classrooms in April, and May 17 is the date for high schoolers.

“Absenteeism is one of the challenges that has prompted the Department to urge and require school districts to provide in-person learning,” Colleen Quinn, a spokesperson for the Executive Office of Education, said in a statement to the News Service. “While school committees set policies related to attendance, and parents and school districts have the primary responsibility for attendance of individual students, the Department recognizes chronic absenteeism as an important element of all school districts’ accountability measurements, and uses the data in combination with other indicators to make determinations as to which school districts need more assistance and involvement from DESE.”

Remote instruction means students don’t have to worry about inclement weather, missing a bus or having a parent available to take them to school. It also lacks the engagement with peers and teachers that comes along with in-person classes and can present new obstacles to participation, like a lack of reliable internet or quiet workspace, or a need to oversee a younger sibling’s schoolwork.

Families are able to choose to have their students continue remote learning for the rest of the school year, and state guidance requires that students who are learning remotely have a daily opportunity to interact with a teacher. The latest updates to that guidance require a visual component as part of the daily live check-in, using videoconferencing or other methods of seeing students.

“Schools and districts need to assess how to use video conferencing in a way that is respectful of individual student’s needs,” the guidance says. “For example, if a student is reluctant to be seen in their home by classmates, a teacher might meet with the student in a breakout room with a virtual background for a short period of time to conduct the live check-in. In situations where the district or school has concerns about a student’s attendance or level of engagement, they should employ additional levels of support to re-engage the student.”

Along with new efforts around keeping students engaged in learning, this school year has presented districts — and state and local budget-writers — with new questions around enrollment numbers. Largely driven by declines in pre-K and kindergarten, the state’s 400 school districts experienced an enrollment decline of more than 30,000 students this year, and it’s unclear exactly how many will return to their public school systems in the fall.

Statewide, the 2020-2021 attendance rate stands at 94 percent, down from last year’s 94.7 percent and the 94.6 percent recorded in each of the previous two years. The number of students with more than nine days of unexcused absences this year is 3.9 percent, down from 6.8 percent in 2019-2020 and 16.7 percent in the 2018-2019 school year.

Attendance and absenteeism figures vary by district, and across student subgroups.

This year’s chronic absenteeism percentage is higher among students who are economically disadvantaged (29.6 percent, from 21.5 percent last year), English learners (29.6 percent, from 19.5 percent last year) and students with disabilities (26.3 percent, from 19.9 percent last year) than the statewide 17 percent.

That figure also varies by race and ethnicity — 6.8 percent of Asian students, 12.7 percent of white students, 23.9 percent of African American and Black students and 28 percent of Hispanic/Latino students fall into the chronically absent category.

Among the largest school districts, the department’s data show 26.7 percent of Boston’s 48,112 students are chronically absent, along with 23.2 percent of Springfield’s 24,239 students, 21.7 percent of Worcester’s 23,986 and 21.1 percent of Lynn’s 15,587.

The chronically absent percentage differs across the three districts under state receivership — 46.2 percent in Southbridge, 39.1 percent in Holyoke and 18.6 percent in Lawrence. Districts consisting of one school, like charter or regional schools, land all over the spectrum.

Phoenix Academy Public Charter High School in Lawrence — which aims to serve “resilient, disconnected students” and on its website classifies 33 percent of its students as “formerly truant/dropout” — has a chronically absent rate of 99.4 percent, according to the DESE data, and Learning First Charter Public School in Worcester has a rate of 2.4 percent.

At Nashoba Valley Regional Vocational Technical School in Westford, 1.2 percent of students are chronically absent, and at Ralph C. Mahar Regional School in Orange, 64.9 percent of students meet that description.

State education officials in 2018 added chronic absenteeism as one of the indicators in their updated school and district accountability system.

On March 10, 2020, when Gov. Charlie Baker first declared a state of emergency around COVID-19, officials also announced measures to give districts more flexibility in their response to the public health crisis. For the 2019-2020 school year, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education disregarded attendance data beyond March 2, 2020 for accountability purposes, calculating chronic absenteeism based on numbers up until that date.

On April 28, New Bedford Police Department narcotics detectives seized 1,175 grams of marijuana, 1.5 grams of cocaine, 59.7 grams of oxycodone pills, 46 pills of fentanyl, 702 packages of edible THC marijuana dressed up to appear as candy, a 9 mm Glock, two ammunition clips, 15 bullets, and $13,067 at 391 Tarkiln Hill Rd.

The target of the search warrant was 21-year old Teagan Dauphin-Potter of 230 Hathaway Blvd. He was and charged with multiple drug trafficking and firearms offenses.

Detective Jordan DaSilva investigated the case.

If you have any information on criminal activity in your neighborhood, the New Bedford Police Dept. wants to hear from you. You can leave an anonymous tip on our voicemail at (508) 991-6300 Ext. 1.

By Brendan Kurie
New Bedford Guide Contributor

New Bedford Police Department officers determined by observation that Ward 3 City Councillor Hugh Dunn was not intoxicated while investigating a three-vehicle accident on South Water Street early Saturday morning.

An Incident Report and a Motor Vehicle Crash Report were released Tuesday afternoon by the department. Responding officer Abraham Nazario wrote in the incident report that while “Mr. Dunn seemed confused, shaken and disoriented” the “common indicators and cues that would indicate possible consumption of alcohol were not observed while on scene and at that time.”

The explanation of how the accident occurred is limited, with the crash report noting that “while backing out of a parking spot” Dunn struck the back of a black Chevrolet pickup truck before hitting a granite curb and colliding with the passenger side of a red Toyota Rav 4. The crash report says Dunn “then parked his vehicle on the North side of the lot and waited for police to arrive.”

When Dunn gave a statement to police around midnight on Monday, he said his memory of the accident was “fuzzy” but that he had taken Benadryl for allergies to a new dog.

Dunn stated he remembers hitting the first vehicle, but then “lost it” and struck another vehicle. The report states “he felt disoriented and felt he needed to move his vehicle to a safest spot to try to call the police.”

When asked why he didn’t call the police, Dunn stated he couldn’t find his phone. Responding officers were unable to locate a phone in the car.

When asked where he was coming from or headed to, Dunn stated he was headed home after a late dinner downtown, according to the report.

Nazario’s report begins with a call at 1:23 a.m. for a possible hit-and-run accident. The driver was reported last seen driving toward the YMCA.

When Nazario arrived he found his partner, officer Jesse Branagan, talking with “several males” in the Chevy pickup. They stated they were waiting for a cab and were unaware of the damage to the rear of the vehicle.

According to the incident report, Branagan then located Dunn’s damaged gray Hyundai Genesis near 35 Commercial Street. Dunn was seated in the car. At first, he was unable to give his name, but “eventually” stated it, the report states. When asked where he was, Dunn asked if he could reach for his phone. No phone was found.

“During this short interaction I began to form the opinion that Mr. Dunn could have possibly been injured in some way causing him to be disoriented as such,” Nazario wrote.

Dunn was asked to step out of the car and did so “without staggering or fumbling his gait,” the report says. When asked if he needed medical attention, Dunn said he did, noting his head and neck. Dunn was seated in a police car to wait for paramedics to arrive.

During their interactions, Nazario wrote “Mr. Dunn spoke very little, when he did it was not slurred and at no time was I able to detect or notice any odor slight, moderate or otherwise of any alcoholic beverage coming from his breath or body. There was no excessive sweat observed, no clammy, red flushed skin. No red glassy-bloodshot eyes were observed.”

The report also notes Dunn was not rude or aggressive with officers. They did not take a statement from him at the time “due to his current physical state,” Nazario wrote. Dunn’s car was towed and he was informed he must call or return to make a statement and he agreed to do so.

When giving his statement about 72 hours later, Dunn told the police he had been released from the emergency room around 5 a.m.

A note at the end of the incident report adds that the owner of the Rav 4 contacted police about a possible video of the incident.

Previously, acting police chief Paul Oliveira had released a statement: “As a result of an accident overnight Saturday involving Councilor Hugh Dunn, the NBPD has launched a review of the matter to ensure the incident was handled properly. If anyone has any information on the incident, please contact the NBPD.”

A pilot whale swam into Clark’s Cove on Saturday. The whale was euthanized because it was in poor health.

“It is with a heavy heart we share with you that our 6th-grade math teacher Mr. Shane Martin passed away peacefully last night, after a courageous battle with Pancreatic Cancer.

We know he touched the lives of so many students and colleagues during his time at Ford Middle School and will be greatly missed. The middle school will have extra counselors available on Monday for any students who may need support. Please keep Mr. Martin’s family in your thoughts during this difficult time.”-Acushnet Public Schools.

Acushnet Teachers Association photo.

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“Hey I’ll make this brief but I figured I’d reach out to you all to see if you could get a thing going for my old middle school teacher Mr. Martins’s family who recently just passed of pancreatic cancer.

I’m 31 now and I don’t remember much about middle school let alone names but I do remember Mr. Martin specifically because he would do whatever he could to help the people such as myself who could not pay attention if our lives depended on it. This man would keep us after class to explain or help us understand what at the time was the hardest subject for most, mathematics.

He constantly would ask us about life and how we felt and if we needed anything even if it was in a different class. He helped me and my best friend along with a handful of others in our grade pass. If we had bad days or things happening outside of school he would teach us don’t let things distract us from the bigger pictures in life. But most importantly he showed us not to give up.

Acushnet Teachers Association photo.

Now years later I have 2 kids, a house my family, and that kid who was my best friend in school has now died. I saw Mr. Martin a few years ago after my friend’s death and he was fine and in good spirits like always. He even remembered to say sorry for my loss and asked how my life is going.

This is truly a big loss to Acushnet and anyone who attended Ford Middle School and if anything even if gathering money for his family wouldn’t work, making a post to let people know who he was as not only a man but as a teacher and role model to the kids he taught would be greatly appreciated by others including myself.

Thank you,
Harrison Ingham.”

Acushnet Teachers Association photo.

Acushnet Teachers Association photo.

Humans have poised themselves as the greatest polluter of nature and the environment. In spite of the bad apples and losers who couldn’t care less and toss their rubbish on the ground, there are far more good apples who want to see a cleaner, more beautiful New Bedford. If you are one of them, here’s how you can help!

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“Together we can make New Bedford a cleaner, greener place to live, work, and play!

Join Us for a May Cleanup:

Saturday, May 22nd
9:00 am to 11:30 am
Meet at the public parking lot at Cotali Mar Restaurante at the corner of Acushnet and Sawyer Streets, New Bedford.

Volunteers will be clean up the surrounding areas in the North End.

• Free t-shirts to all volunteers
• Gloves and tools provided
• Wear closed-toe shoes
• Wear a mask
• Review the safety notes

You can register for the May Cleanup here.

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Earth Day Cleanup on Palmer’s Island:

Last month, 40 volunteers came out for Operation Clean Sweep’s Earth Day Cleanup of historic Palmer’s Island in New Bedford. The team collected 50 bags of trash, 4 tires, 1 mattress, many rubber gloves, 2 fish totes, 6 needles, what seemed like miles of fishing rope from netting, and so many plastic bottles and cups. Watch the video of our Palmer’s Island cleanup here.

Operation Clean Sweep photo.

Operation Clean Sweep photo.

Operation Clean Sweep photo.

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Upcoming Cleanups:

June 19: Me & Eds, South End, 30 Brock Avenue
July: No cleanup scheduled
August 21: ServPro, Purchase Street
September 18: AFC Urgent Care, Coggeshall Street

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Operation Clean Sweep is working to improve the quality of life in New Bedford through organized cleanups, education, and advocacy for enforcement of city ordinances. Education is a key component of Operation Clean Sweep. By creating awareness through classroom presentations, OCS Team members have reached out to over 4000 students in New Bedford. We ask the students to think about their trash and how to dispose of it properly. We encourage everyone to recycle and NOT Litter.