Today in History: April 20, the Columbine High School shootings
In 1812, the fourth vice president of the United States, George Clinton, died in Washington at age 72, becoming the first vice president to die while in office.
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In 1912, Boston's Fenway Park, now the oldest active stadium in Major League Baseball, hosted its first official baseball game in front of an estimated 27,000 spectators. (The Red Sox defeated the New York Highlanders 7-6 in 11 innings.)
In 1914, militia and Colorado National Guard members opened fire on an encampment of striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colo.At least 19 people in the camp, including 12 children and one National Guard member, were killed in the 'Ludlow Massacre.'
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In 1971, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools.
In 1972, Apollo 16's lunar module, carrying astronauts John W. Young and Charles M. Duke Jr., landed on the moon.
In 1986, following an absence of over six decades, Russian-born pianist Vladimir Horowitz returned to the Soviet Union to perform a concert at the Grand Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.
In 1999, two students shot and killed 12 classmates and one teacher and injured 23 others before taking their own lives at Columbine High School, near Denver, Colo.
In 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, leased by BP, killed 11 workers and caused a blowout that began spewing an estimated 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. (The well was finally capped nearly three months later.)
In 2021, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder and manslaughter charges for the killing of George Floyd. Chauvin was later sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison.
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Parole officers at the crossroads: Are they social workers or cops?
And they exercise enormous power over the lives of those ex-prisoners they are charged with supervising. A beer can on the table can mean a violation and that could eventually lead to reincarceration — and with it the loss of a job, housing, and those ties to community that take time to build or rebuild. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up But Governor Maura Healey's personnel choices signal that a shift is well underway. The man Advertisement But he is also the son of Puerto Rican-born parents, who, he told the Governor's Council Wednesday, came north with little money, and depended on a variety of social services for a 'hand up.' 'I believe those who come before the Parole Board are looking for a hand up,' he said, adding his guiding principle has been and remains ' ser justo , to be just.' He also told the council that since the passage of a major 'We're not police. Our mission is different,' he added. 'We have evolved dramatically.' Well, yes and no. Even a cursory read of the parole officer In fact, as recently as the last available Now keep in mind, parole field officers were never a part of the 2020 Advertisement And, as state Senator Will Brownsberger (D-Belmont), who helped draft and shepherd the police reform bill through the Legislature, explained, 'We don't really think of them as law enforcement officers. Their job is primarily supervisory.' And so both parole and probation officers were never part of the regulatory scheme. But that hasn't stopped some parole officers from joining in the police action when the occasion presented itself — that is until a new agency protocol was signed, effective March 19, expressly prohibiting their participating 'in other investigations and warrants' unless they directly involve a parolee. The edict provided the impetus for at least one angry letter to the Governor's Council, from Bryan Westerman, a parole field officer, who opposed Gomez's confirmation and blamed him for 'dismantled law enforcement partnerships.' There is no hiding the tension between what the Healey administration, officials like Gomez, and his supporters want for the direction of the agency and what they are up against in moving the parole system into the 21st century. 'The newer parole officers are much like social workers,' said Senator Jamie Eldridge (D-Acton), a champion of criminal justice reform and a supporter of Gomez's confirmation. 'They recognize that people want to find a job and housing and don't want to go back to prison.' They see their roles as 'coaches, not referees,' he added. 'But if you have a parole officer focused on technical violations, they're not really serving the cause of justice.' Advertisement And those who simply want the adrenaline rush of a police raid ought to be looking for another job. Gomez, whose confirmation comes up for a vote before the Governor's Council next week, is the right man at a critical time. But he and his fellow board members are up against a workforce that has had things its way for decades. Turning that ship around will be everybody's job. Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us
NBC Sports
19 hours ago
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Giants pitcher Sean Hjelle accused of abuse by wife, MLB investigating
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Ukraine warns teenagers the enemy is inside their phones
Advertisement Think of this class, in a secondary school in the western city of Lviv, as the Ukrainian version of 'Scared Straight.' The course, introduced this spring by Ukraine's top internal security agency and the national police at high schools nationwide, aims to deter teenagers from falling under the influence of Russian operatives. They have started paying Ukrainian minors to set fires or plant homemade bombs, Ukrainian authorities say. 'I remind you that criminal responsibility in Ukraine begins at 14 years of age,' said the camouflaged man at the presentation on a recent Wednesday. 'Unfortunately, this easy money can lead either to criminal liability or to death.' For more than a year, Ukrainian authorities say, the Russian state security agency, known as the FSB, has targeted Ukrainian teenagers on social media apps like Telegram, TikTok and Discord. They are offered hundreds or even thousands of dollars to do simple tasks: Deliver a package. Take a photograph of a power substation. Spray graffiti. Advertisement The FSB did not respond to a request for comment for this article. Many young people do not necessarily know they are being recruited. The Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, says the teenagers often just search for 'easy money' on Telegram, where the Russians are waiting for them. But some agree to more complicated missions, often because they were blackmailed for the first task they performed, or for compromising photographs hacked from their phones. The SBU said late last month that authorities had accused more than 600 people of trying to commit arson, terrorism or sabotage in Ukraine after being recruited by Russian intelligence services. Of those, about 1 in 4 were minors. (The adults often had criminal records or a history of drug abuse.) One perpetrator was only 13. In May, the head of the national juvenile police said in a TV interview that almost 50 other children had reported to authorities that Russians had tried to recruit them. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, both sides have engaged in clandestine warfare. Ukraine has recruited people in Russia for targeted high-level killings, law enforcement sources said. For instance, the Ukrainians claimed responsibility for assassinating a top Russian general and his aide with a bomb planted in a scooter in December. But with the recruitment of young Ukrainians, the Russians are taking a new step by aiming for more indiscriminate attacks, near military recruitment centers or railway stations, said Roksolana Yavorska-Isaienko, an SBU spokesperson for the Lviv region. It is reminiscent of how teenagers were used as suicide bombers in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. Advertisement In December, the news in Ukraine was filled with reports of a significant case. The SBU and the national police detained two groups of teenagers in the eastern city of Kharkiv who they said had been tricked online into joining a fake 'quest' game, in which the 15- and 16-year-olds were sent tasks like setting fires and taking photographs and videos of certain targets, even air defenses. Ukrainian authorities said the Russians used the information to carry out airstrikes in Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city. These claims could not be independently verified. During the class, the camouflaged agent and Yavorska-Isaienko went through other examples, one by one. In March, in the case that resonated the most with the students, a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old were recruited on Telegram in the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk with the promise of $1,700, Ukrainian authorities said. Following instructions, the teenagers built two bombs out of thermos flasks and metal nuts. When they tried to deliver one of the bombs, authorities said, Russian agents detonated it remotely near the train station. The 17-year-old was killed, and the 15-year-old lost his legs. In April, the SBU caught a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old who burned train relay boxes in Lviv. They were recruited on Telegram, authorities said. Searches of their cellphones showed text messages between the teenagers and their Russian handlers. 'Yeah, the money will be there tomorrow,' the handler wrote, adding that it would arrive around lunchtime. 'Got it, bro,' one of the teenagers responded. Eventually, about $178 was transferred to his account. And in May -- just three days before the class -- two teenagers in the western city of Rivne made an explosive device from Russian instructions, put it in an abandoned building, positioned an ax there and covered the whole contraption with paint, authorities said. Then they called emergency services, claiming there was a dead person. After the police responded, the bomb exploded, but no one was harmed. The teenagers were arrested. Advertisement The recent class was about the 200th that the agency has done in the Lviv region since the outreach program started in April. The presenters knew how to hold the teenagers' attention. 'Maybe not all of these special operations are reported in the media -- but believe me, the enemy is not sleeping,' Yavorska-Isaienko said. 'They are working actively and carrying out illegal activities, as strange as it may sound, directly inside your phones.' She added, 'And when you hear an offer to earn quick money for a brand-new iPhone or $1,000, of course, it sounds very tempting. Sometimes, the task is disguised as a simple courier delivery, taking pictures of critical infrastructure or spraying provocative graffiti. That is often the first step toward your recruitment.' This classroom in the Lviv secondary school No. 32 resembled a typical science classroom in the United States, complete with creaky wooden floors; a poster of a tiger on the wall; models of DNA and lungs in the back; and teenagers in hoodies and jeans, heavy-metal T-shirts and a Barbie sweater. But these students did not make jokes or whisper the way many teenagers do. They asked questions: How did the Russians do surveillance? How could they help fight the FSB? These students had grown up with the war against Russia. Relatives were fighting on the front lines. One girl's uncle was missing. Advertisement 'Can I help and report it to the security services if I've already been approached for recruitment?' asked Volodia Sozonyk, 17, a boy in a blue hoodie and a manga T-shirt. 'If they've sent me an address or something I need to do, can I identify that spot for your operatives to help?' Yavorska-Isaienko and the camouflaged man told the students they could anonymously report any recruitment attempts to a new chatbot called 'Expose the FSB Agent.' And Yavorska-Isaienko told the students to use their common sense. 'No one in real life will suddenly offer you $1,000 or $2,000 just like that,' she said. 'You need to understand: The only free cheese is in the mousetrap.' This article originally appeared in
