1 dead after car crashes into high school

October 4, 2008

A driver was killed yesterday when his car crashed through a side entrance at Lincoln High School. No students were injured; they had been dismissed before the time of the crash. Carmel Mendoza, a school secretary, said she and another employee tried to pull the man from the car after it crashed. Mendoza identified the driver as a special education teacher's aide, but police have not released the victim's identity. Mendoza told WJAR-TV that the aide looked distraught when she saw him leave the building minutes before the crash. Television reports last night said he had been fired from his job. (AP)

A 62-year-old man died at Pacella Quarry yesterday morning after a large metal plate fell on him, police said. Police received a call about the accident around 7:30, said Captain Victor Neal. The large plate, similar to those that cover holes in the road, was used to keep rocks from getting under the quarry's rock-crushing machine. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. The man's death appeared to be an accident, Neal said, but police are investigating. Authorities did not identify the victim.

A longshoreman was convicted Thursday of falsifying 116 hours on his timesheet in an attorney general's investigation that has netted 19 guilty verdicts and more than $311,000 in fines and restitution. Robert Miller, 49, was convicted by a Suffolk Superior Court jury of fraud in the procurement of government services and conspiracy to commit larceny over $250. The South Boston resident is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 10. Miller was indicted in August 2006 along with 19 others defendants in an investigation into payroll fraud schemes involving longshoremen at Conley Terminal, which is operated by the Massachusetts Port Authority in South Boston. Investigators determined that from 2003 to 2004 names were inserted on timesheets so some longshoremen received credit for hours worked by others.

Responding to complaints about the timing of an earlier daytime hearing, a blue-ribbon panel advising the federal government on Boston University's research laboratory for studying deadly germs will conduct a nighttime public hearing. The public will have its say from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Oct. 14 at the Roxbury Center for Arts at Hibernian Hall, 182-186 Dudley St. The panel is advising the National Institutes of Health on how to improve its environmental review of the lab project, being built in the South End on BU's medical school campus.

A 21-year-old driver is accused of drunken driving, leading State Police on a 17-mile chase early yesterday morning, and speeding the wrong way on Route 3 while being pursued by at least a half-dozen cruisers. The chase began at 3:05 a.m. in Norwell as a vehicle sped on southbound Route 3, according to Trooper Thomas Murphy, a State Police spokesman. Police pursued the car on the other side of the road, heading north in the northbound lanes as the driver merged onto Interstate 93. Near Granite Avenue, police laid spiked stop sticks on the road, flattening the tires of the vehicle, which hit a guardrail. The driver, Siobhan Hayes, ran into a wooded marshland and was quickly arrested, police said. Hayes, 21, is facing charges of operating under the influence, possession of marijuana, and negligent operation. Additional charges are pending against the Randolph resident.

A man wanted in South Carolina in a fatal shooting has been arrested in Massachusetts, along with two people charged with helping him flee. Authorities caught 34-year-old Ronald Webster on Thursday at the home of an acquaintance in Peabody. Webster is wanted by the Berkeley, S.C., County Sheriff's Department in the Sept. 25 shooting of Jason Gadsden, 21, in Ladson, S.C. Authorities apprehended Adam DeQuina, 32, and Joeve Yagman, 40, in Lynn. They are charged as fugitives wanted as accessories after the fact to murder. (AP)