Trooper on motorcycle injured in collision

A state trooper was taken to Brigham and Women's Hospital yesterday after his motorcycle was struck by a car at the intersection of Beacon Street and Park Drive around 6:15 p.m. He sustained minor injuries and was to be released last night, State Police said. Traffic on Park Drive had come to a stop, witnesses said, and the officer drove into the opposite lane to go north around a gold Dodge Stratus driven by Northeastern student Michael Benson, 23. The car then made a left turn, crashing into the rear of the motorcycle, police said. The officer had his lights flashing but was not using his siren, witnesses said. No charges have been filed, and State Police are investigating the accident.

Boston police yesterday arrested a Somerville man in an attempted robbery at an ATM near Downtown Crossing. Felix Pierre, 27, was arrested at about 8 p.m. after a witness saw him struggling with the 51-year-old victim, police said. The witness helped wrestle Pierre to the ground and called police. The victim, whose name was not released last night, was attempting to make a deposit at the Sovereign Bank at 30 Winter St., and was stabbed with a screwdriver above the right eyebrow after refusing to hand over money, police said. He was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was being treated for injuries authorities said were not life-threatening. Pierre is scheduled to be arraigned today at Boston Municipal Court on assault and armed robbery charges.

The Rev. Diane C. Kessler, the longtime executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, has announced that she will retire at the end of June 2007. A United Church of Christ minister, Kessler has worked since 1975 at the council, which is a coalition of Protestant and Orthodox Christian churches on Beacon Hill. She has played a major role not only in inter-Christian relations, but also in interfaith relations, and has expanded the council's membership to Orthodox churches and its dialogue to include evangelical Protestants and Muslims. Recently, the council organized the successful opposition to proposed legislation that would have required religious organizations to disclose their finances to a state agency. Previously Kessler also played a leadership role in interfaith talks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and after differences over Israel caused a rift in Christian-Jewish relations.

The Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition yesterday praised the MBTA for its pledge to increase the number of buses equipped with bike racks to 380, nearly 40 percent of the fleet, by summer 2007. In a recent letter, Daniel A. Grabauskas, general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, said 155 new buses, already with the racks, will arrive by then, building on his prior commitment to put 250 bike racks on buses starting this spring, the coalition said. (Some buses in the fleet are already equipped with racks.) In a statement, Dorie Clark, executive director of MassBike, urged the T to equip all buses with bike racks within the next five years.

SANDWICH

A doctor who practiced in Sandwich has been indicted on charges of illegally prescribing drugs to his patients, Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly's office said yesterday. Michael R. Brown, 52, of Mashpee was indicted by a Barnstable County grand jury on 16 counts of violating the Controlled Substances Act and 10 counts of violating the Medicaid False Claims Act, said Beth Stone, a spokeswoman for Reilly. Brown, who operated a private practice in Sandwich from 1984 until 2005, was arrested in August and found to be in possession of hydrocodone and more than $60,000 in cash, authorities say. Over a two-year period, Brown allegedly prescribed seven patients OxyContin, Roxicodone, and other Oxycodone-based medications with no legitimate medical purpose, Stone said. Brown will be arraigned at a later date.

CAMBRIDGE

Police issued a community alert yesterday after a student reported she was sexually assaulted in a Lesley College dormitory. The woman said she was attacked about 2 a.m. in a fourth-floor lounge by a suspect described as a Hispanic male, 20 years old, 5-foot-7, and 170 pounds, with dark hair, a thin moustache, a beard, and a goatee, and wearing a blue shirt and blue jeans, police said. The suspect had been seen in the lounge that night and also two nights earlier, police said.