Suffolk County, Boston | featured news

Officer Sean Gannon is being buried this morning down on the Cape, and people are asking, how was this dirtball Thomas Latanowich still on the street with 125 strikes at the age of 29?The answer is, welcome to Massachusetts.Officer Gannon was murdered in cold blood last Thursday. Less than 24 hours later, in a bitter irony, a moment of silence was observed at the State House Friday afternoon, just before Gov. Charlie “Tall Deval” Baker signed into law a “sweeping” — read, terrible — reform of the criminal-justice laws in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts Republicans with deep Bush family ties yesterday remembered the late former first lady Barbara Bush for her candidness and compassion.Andrew Card, who was secretary of transportation under Bush’s husband, President George H. W. Bush, said she had a “deep and abiding impact on my conscience.”“She had an unvarnished way of describing what you should be,” Card said, “and she caused you to correct your way and put you on a better path.”

The state fund that gives first-responders overdose reversal agent naloxone at a discounted rate had been depleted, but just received a $300,000 boost from Attorney General Maura Healey and a private donation.RIZE Massachusetts — a nonprofit launched by medical giant Partners HealthCare and General Electric to combat the opioid crisis — announced a $50,000 contribution yesterday following reports that the state’s Municipal Naloxone Bulk Purchasing Trust Fund ran dry last fall.

Elaine Wynn, the ex-wife of toppled casino CEO Steve Wynn, is urging the company’s board of directors to hold off on making any big decisions — including selling the Wynn Boston Harbor — until the board is overhauled.

SOUTH YARMOUTH — One by one, nearly 2,000 police officers marched solemnly by the casket of their slain brother-in-blue Sean Gannon, whose body will remain peacefully in St. Pius X Church under the close guard of fellow officers until his funeral this morning.Police paraded single-file into the church to the wail and drone of bagpipes, with hundreds of others standing by, waiting to pay their respects to the 32-year-old officer killed delivering a warrant to a 29-year-old man in Barnstable last week.

FALL RIVER, Mass. — A former Massachusetts Department of Corrections officer has been sentenced to serve three-and-a-half years in state prison for dealing heroin.Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn announced 43-year-old Stephen Lebreux pleaded guilty last week in Fall River Superior Court to a multi-count indictment with charges of trafficking and distributing heroin. An attorney for Lebreux has not been identified.

WASHINGTON, D.C.  — A Southwest Airlines jet apparently blew an engine at about 30,000 feet and got hit by shrapnel that smashed a window and damaged the fuselage Tuesday, killing a passenger and injuring seven others, authorities said.The plane, a Boeing 737 bound from New York to Dallas with 149 people aboard, made an emergency landing in Philadelphia just before noon as passengers breathing through oxygen masks that dropped from the ceiling prayed and braced for impact.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Two Harvard Law School professors say they are representing the Harvard undergrad seen in a video being punched several times by one police officer as others subdue him.Ronald Sullivan Jr. and Dehlia Umunna, the director and deputy director respectively of the law school's Criminal Justice Institute, said Tuesday that neither they nor their client, 21-year-old Selorm Ohene, intend to talk about the encounter publicly.They say Ohene continues to recover from injuries.

Yarmouth residents flooded the streets to watch a solemn procession carry the body of slain officer Sean Gannon to his wake at Saint Pius X Church where he’ll remain closely guarded by fellow officers until his funeral tomorrow afternoon.The seaside town — clad in blue at the police department’s request — lined the route which had been decorated with flags, ribbons, and signs expressing Yarmouth’s support for its cops and Gannon’s family.

LYNN, Mass. — A Massachusetts woman who needs a new kidney has put up a billboard in search of a donor."Young mother needs a kidney blood type O," reads the billboard put up by Miranda LeBrasseur.The 42-year-old Lynn woman has been diabetic since she was 17 and suffers from a genetic kidney disease. The Daily Item reports that she put up the billboard after a January fundraiser because she is on a five- to six-year wait list for a new kidney. LeBrasseur says she has been on the transplant list since June 2016.