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Fearing a ‘red zone’ for ‘roofies,’ Boston deploys array of efforts to prevent drink-spiking

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Fearing a ‘red zone’ for ‘roofies,’  Boston deploys array of efforts to prevent drink-spiking


Sarah says she had a few vodka pineapples at a bar close to Fenway Park in early July, however as an alternative of a well-recognized boozy feeling, she turned stumbling drunk, nauseous and delirious.

The Boston College Legislation Faculty scholar, who had simply attended a Purple Sox recreation, went residence with a pal in an Uber. She handed out on the sofa, sometimes waking as much as vomit.

Within the morning, Sarah—who requested that GBH withhold her final identify to guard her privateness — remembered nothing concerning the night time earlier than. She says that is an especially uncommon prevalence for her, particularly after consuming a couple of drinks over a protracted time interval.

Now, Sarah believes she was a sufferer of drink spiking. She’s not alone. There’s been an alarming improve over the previous 12 months in reported instances of spiking in bars and nightclubs round Boston and different cities across the world. Ladies have advised tales of being drugged, raped and waking up in unusual flats not realizing what occurred.

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A personal Fb web site launched in June referred to as “Booze in Boston,” which permits survivors to share drugging considerations, now has 6.6 million members. The Boston Police Division, involved about quite a few experiences, issued a warning final week to bar patrons to maintain an in depth watch on their drinks, deal with one another and speak to the police in the event that they see somebody “in misery.”

And house owners of a Florida-based firm offering anti-drugging paraphernalia – listening to phrase about issues within the metropolis – are visiting this week to advertise their wares.

Melanie Hubbard says she created the Fb web page “Booze in Boston” after one in all her TikToks concerning the uptick in incidents went viral. She calls the curiosity and dialogue a “motion,” with new posts warning of spiking allegations showing virtually every single day.

“Whereas I am not pleased with the truth that so many individuals have needed to be part of, I’m pleased with the truth that we have established a spot the place individuals can come ahead and share their story,” mentioned Hubbard, a Virginia native who now lives in Boston.

Hubbard is certain many different individuals have been afraid to inform their tales as a result of they didn’t get residence secure.

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“We’re not speaking concerning the individuals who have been raped, who’ve been mugged, who get up in a special metropolis, who get up in a special city, who get up in an unknown place — the individuals who do not get up,’’ she mentioned. “That is what we should be taking note of, the way more sinister facet of this downside.”

The Boston Police Division says there have been 57 allegations of drink-spiking in Boston between January 1 and July 31, however no arrests have been made. Sgt. John Boyle, a police division spokesperson, says town doesn’t have historic information to know whether or not the numbers have elevated.

However Boston experiences are doubtless an undercount. Many victims could also be too ashamed to report what occurred, and most toxicology screenings will not be outfitted to detect date-rape medication, like gamma hydroxybutyrate, recognized colloquially as GHB, in accordance with interviews with advocates and consultants.

When Sarah filed a police report, as requested by police, she was despatched to the Boston Medical Heart for a urine toxicology display. The screening didn’t present any proof of drugging.

Susan Wilcox, an emergency doctor at Massachusetts Basic Hospital, mentioned that many individuals who come for testing are disillusioned by the hospital’s lack of ability to run different assessments.

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“We don’t routinely take a look at for Rohypnol or GHB, the widespread medication which might be mostly utilized in these situations,” mentioned Wilcox, who has labored as an emergency doctor in Boston for nearly 18 years. “Sadly, with the restrictions of our toxicology screens, it’s troublesome to provide individuals the solutions to what precisely occurred.”

Massachusetts Basic Hospital didn’t reply to requests for remark. However the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory advised GBH Information that the know-how to detect such medication exists, although exterior of the hospital system.

A black and white block-lettered paper sign on a drink dispenser announces that customers may request a drink lid from their bartender.
An indication providing bar patrons drink lids is a sign of the rising concern about drink-spiking in Boston-area bars.

Kana Ruhalter / GBH Information

Hubbard referred to as the “Booze in Boston” social media dialogue a “a motion of the individuals” prompted by the dearth of authorized motion. She joins and different on-line influencers additionally say companies have to do extra to guard their visitors.

“If I am coming to your institution, and I am risking my life to take action,” mentioned Hubbard, “I actually hope that you simply care sufficient about me and your patrons to have our greatest pursuits in thoughts.”

Late final 12 months, town’s Licensing Board urged companies to take steps to maintain individuals secure, together with putting in safety cameras, posting security data and cooperating with police. “It’s every Licensee’s duty to run a enterprise that’s secure for patrons and freed from criminal activity,’’ the warning mentioned.

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Some bars have taken heed. Roadrunner, a brand new dwell music venue in Allston, positioned indicators on the bar warning patrons to “shield [their] drink.” Recreation On, a Fenway sports activities bar, has rest room indicators that publicize an “angel shot,” a drink order that alerts to the bartender that an attendee feels unsafe or uncomfortable. And Empire, a restaurant in Seaport, provides complimentary cocktail covers and has an indication advising diners to “be secure and sensible.”

Craig Henry, a bartender on the waterside bar, The Tall Ship, in East Boston, advised GBH Information that since phrase unfold he and different bartenders are taking further precautions to make visitors really feel secure, like opening cans immediately in entrance of them. He additionally helps methods for individuals to speak if they’re feeling at risk.

“I believe it’s nice to have an indication that lets the bartenders know you’re in hassle,” he mentioned.

Native spiking experiences have additionally caught the eye of a Florida-based firm referred to as NightCap which creates hair scrunchies that broaden right into a drink cowl.

Shirah Benarde, NightCap chief government, says she’s planning to go to this week to advertise her preventative covers at Boston College, Fenway Johnnie’s and Membership Royale.

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Bernarde, now 20, says she got here up with the concept at 16 when her shut pal was drugged at a bar. Her first prototype was created out of an previous hair scrunchie and a pair of her mom’s pantyhose. Now the corporate has bought over 300,000 scrunchies in 40 nations and is backed by traders on the TV present, “Shark Tank.”

“We’re getting into the ‘Purple Zone,’ which is [a period] from now to Thanksgiving break the place sexual assault instances spike,’’ she mentioned. “I hope [the scrunchies] can assist them keep away from these incidents.”

Shannon McKean, president of Boston College’s Panhellenic Council for fraternities and sororities, says she found the drink covers whereas searching for details about methods to fight spiking after listening to about extra incidents from classmates and fellow Greek-life members. McKean, a school junior, says she additionally has been a sufferer of spiking.

The council is internet hosting a personal occasion on the college on Thursday, the place college students can decide up free scrunchies and different preventative instruments. “NightCap’s merchandise have been the right manner for us to cease spiking earlier than it occurs and attain a lot of college students on the very starting of our fall semester,” she mentioned.





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Boston, MA

It may be a silent protest, but the message is loud and clear. And ‘temporary graffiti’ is building a following. – The Boston Globe

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It may be a silent protest, but the message is loud and clear. And ‘temporary graffiti’ is building a following. – The Boston Globe


“I’m coming to Boston, I’m bringing hell with me,” Homan said at a political conference in February.

In early March, on the night before Mayor Michelle Wu was due in Washington, D.C., to testify before Congress about the city’s immigration policies, a group of activists had an answer for Homan.

“You can’t bring hell to Boston,” the artists projected in vintage typeface on the brick facade of the Old State House. “It’s been waiting for you since 1770.” Photographic evidence of the temporary installation quickly made the internet rounds.

The Silence Dogood display at the Old State House.Handout

Not by happenstance, that day was the anniversary of the skirmish that came to be known as the Boston Massacre, when the colonists’ disagreements with the British Parliament and King George III’s occupying troops boiled over into deadly violence. That kind of link to this city’s revolutionary past is what drives the folks behind Silence Dogood, the small collective that has staged about a dozen acts of protest with stealthy nighttime projections in and around Boston in recent weeks.

The group borrowed the name from the Boston native Benjamin Franklin, who used it as an alias early in his illustrious life. At 16, while apprenticing at his older brother’s print shop, Franklin adopted the pen name after James Franklin declined to print his young sibling’s letters in his weekly newspaper, the New-England Courant.

A display on Old North Church.Aram Boghosian

Benjamin Franklin imagined his alter ego to be a middle-aged widow, a defender of “the Rights and Liberties of my Country” and “a mortal Enemy to arbitrary Government & unlimited Power.”

Silence is “a bit of a busybody,” explained Diane Dwyer, who has become the default spokesperson for the Silence Dogood project.

On a recent Friday afternoon, Dwyer sat in a shared artist space on the second floor of an old brick building in the Fort Point district. Scale models covered most flat surfaces; artists’ renderings were pinned up across much of the available wall space.

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A display in Boston Harbor.Handout

Dwyer, who grew up in Maryland, moved to Boston a few years ago, after earning a master’s degree in narrative environments from the University of the Arts London. She has a background in theater, “and I’m a huge history nerd,” she said.

She was recently named a grant recipient of the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture’s Un-monument | Re-monument | De-monument: Transforming Boston initiative, a public art program that solicits ideas designed to “spark conversations about public memory, monuments, and collective history.” Dwyer’s proposal, called On This Site…, will reimagine Boston’s 400 or so historic markers to be more inclusive.

“We’re inviting people to write their own plaques,” Dwyer said.

While she’s currently compiling a database of Boston’s existing markers — and noting the overwhelming prevalence of white men (there are, she says, as many references to Paul Revere as all women combined, and more than all Black people) — she still gets excited about making connections to the country’s founding fathers.

A display on Faneuil Hall.Handout

Silence Dogood’s projections have featured statements attributed to George Washington (“The cause of Boston now is and always will be the cause of America,” projected in the water at the base of the Boston Tea Party Museum), Joseph Warren (“May our land be a land of liberty,” at the Bunker Hill Monument, on the site where Warren was killed), and, yes, the aforementioned silversmith Revere (“One if by land, two if by D.C.,” projected on the Old North Church, though that’s not a direct quote).

Silence Dogood’s work at Old North Church on April 17, 2025.Mike Ritter

The Rev. Dr. Matthew Cadwell, the vicar at Old North Church, didn’t know about those projections until he saw them on “The Rachel Maddow Show.” Silence Dogood’s warning came during a busy week for the church, which doubles as an active Episcopal mission and a historical site. It was the 250th anniversary of Revere’s famous ride.

One of the projections borrowed from the last stanza of Longfellow’s mythmaking poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride”: “In the hour of darkness and peril and need…” The message implicating “D.C.” was “a little edgier,” the vicar acknowledged.

“In the main, people were very enthusiastic about it,” Cadwell said over the phone. “It was neat. It was a powerful capstone on that night of historic remembrance.”

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To stage the Silence Dogood protests, Dwyer borrows state-of-the-art projection equipment — and sometimes enlists production help — from the small circle of Boston creatives who specialize in outdoor art. At one “activation,” an unexpected hailstorm sent volunteers scrambling to cover the expensive projector with their jackets.

Visual artists Jeff Grantz and Diane Dwyer are part of a grassroots group that uses high-powered projectors to beam protest messages on the facades of Boston historical buildings, reminding people of connections between Boston’s revolutionary history and the present day.Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe

In recent years, projection-mapping artists have fine-tuned the art of “temporary graffiti.” Some say the practice of projection mapping as a form of protest took off during the Occupy demonstrations of 2011. During the first Trump administration, multimedia artist Robin Bell made world headlines for projecting “PAY TRUMP BRIBES HERE” over the entrance to Trump International Hotel.

Another group, the Illuminator, has projected hundreds of simple messages around New York City: “Protest Trans Youth,” “Bans Off Our Bodies,” “Ceasefire Now.” In San Francisco, an activist trolled Elon Musk on the Twitter building after the billionaire acquired the social media company (now X).

In Boston during the racial reckoning of 2020, some of the city’s projectionists partnered with street artist Cedric Douglas after the removal of a Christopher Columbus statue in the North End. They created a temporary memorial to notable Bostonians of color — Mel King, Elma Lewis, the late rapper Keith “Guru” Elam — on the vacated plinth.

While redefining the nature of public protest, these artists have also been grappling with the unresolved debate about the legality of their protests. Some legal experts cite property rights and laws governing trespassing. Others argue that the right to free speech covers projections just as it does signs and banners.

Arists Diane Dwyer and Jeff Grantz project a quotation from George Washington on the wall of a vacant Dorchester tire store on Tuesday, June 24, 2025. Ken McGagh for The Boston Globe

Dwyer and her colleagues talk often about their First Amendment right to protest and the potential collateral damage to the other work they do, for advertisers, art festivals, and more. Dwyer, who heads her own venture, Stories & Spaces, has worked with clients from the Smithsonian Institute and the NFL to Universal Orlando’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

For her, the commitment to activist work came into sharp focus on a Friday in May, when she watched the live feed of a joint Town Hall meeting hosted by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell. The event featured four other state attorneys general from across New England.

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“They were speaking to the coordinated resistance without hemming and hawing,” Dwyer recalled. After another period of despair, she said — “Who can remember the headline of the day?” — the Town Hall discussion fortified her.

It also made her feel, for the first time, like she’d become a bona fide Bostonian.

You just hope, she said, “that we’re not screaming into the void.”

James Sullivan can be reached at jamesgsullivan@gmail.com.





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Celtics give injury updates on Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown

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Celtics give injury updates on Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown


There is no timeline for Jayson Tatum to return from his ruptured Achilles, and the Boston Celtics don’t anticipate having one anytime soon. At least the news is better on Boston’s other injured star, Jaylen Brown.

Celtics president of basketball ops. Brad Stevens held court with reporters late Wednesday night after taking Spanish wing Hugo Gonzalez with the No. 28 pick in the NBA Draft, but also gave a quick update on the health and well-being of Boston’s top two players.

Stevens said both Tatum and Brown have been training at the Auerbach Center on a daily basis and are fully committed to their rehabs.

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“It’s usually the time of the year when I don’t see those guys a lot,” said Stevens. “They usually go and kind of rest, and get away, but they’ve both prioritized getting better and rehabbing, and after a long season, I appreciate that about them.”

No timeline for Jayson Tatum

Tatum ruptures his Achilles in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the New York Knicks, but was able to undergo surgery the very next day. That is expected to expedite his return, though he’ll likely miss the entire 2025-26 season.

And the Celtics are not going to rush the 27-year-old back. Stevens was asked if there is a timeline for Tatum’s return, and said not to expect one for a while.

“We don’t and we won’t. We won’t put a projected timeline on him for a long, long time,” said Stevens. “As we look at it, there’s no reason to. It’s baby steps right now.”

Stevens said that Tatum has “progressed great” so far, but knows it’s a long road ahead for the six-time NBA All-Star.

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“I don’t know what that means with regard to projected timelines,” he said. “That’ll be in consultation with him and [team trainers] Nick [Sang] and Phil Coles and everybody else to make sure that when he hits the court, he is fully ready and fully healthy. That will be the priority.”

Jaylen Brown expected back before training camp

Stevens gave a soft timeline for Brown, who had to undergo a procedure for a partially torn meniscus. Brown has already returned to limited on-court activities, and the Celtics are expecting him to be ready to go “well ahead” of training camp. 

“He’s doing great,” Stevens said of Brown. “His rehab looks good. He was actually on the court the other day doing some ball handling and doing some light work around the rim. Nothing big movement-wise yet.”

Priorities for rest of Celtics offseason

While the moves aren’t yet official, the Celtics are reportedly trading away veterans Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, moves that have put the team get under the vaunted second apron. Stevens couldn’t discuss the trades on Wednesday, but said the team has been focused on regaining flexibility and maximizing their assets and trade returns.

Now that the Celtics are out of the second apron and have some wiggle room to sign players, Stevens is making his priority for the rest of the offseason clear. It includes bringing back a pair of fan favorites to the Boston frontcourt in veteran Al Horford and reserve big man Luke Kornet.

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“As you look at the rest of the team and what we’re trying to do, there’s no question our priorities would be to bring Al and Luke back. Those guys are huge parts of this organization,” said Stevens.

Both are free agents, and would likely have to take a team-friendly deal to return to Boston.

“They’re going to have, I’m sure, plenty of options all over the place, and that’s well deserved,” said Stevens. “But that would be a priority. At the same time, I don’t want to put pressure on them. It would be their call, ultimately, but we would love to have those guys back.”

The Celtics are scheduled to make the second pick in Thursday night’s second round of the NBA Draft — No. 32 overall — and a pair of promising big men remain on the board in Stanford’s Maxime Raynaud and Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner.

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Boston, MA

Boston Caribbean Carnival shooting suspect arrested in Georgia after months on the lam

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Boston Caribbean Carnival shooting suspect arrested in Georgia after months on the lam


A fugitive wanted in connection with the 2023 Boston Caribbean Carnival shooting who fled ahead of his trial in December 2024 was arrested in Georgia on Wednesday, Boston police announced.

Dorchester resident Gerald Vick, 31, faces eight counts of assault and battery with a firearm and three gun charges in connection with the August 2023 shooting, during which eight people were shot. Three other men have been indicted on assault and gun charges in connection with the shooting, and one other was indicted on firearms charges alone.

Boston police originally arrested Vick shortly after the shooting, the police department said previously. He was later released on bail with conditions including that he wear an electronic monitoring bracelet.

On Dec. 1, 2024 — the night before his trial was set to begin — Vick removed the bracelet shortly after 1 a.m., police said. He then didn’t appear in court for his trial that morning and has been on the run from police ever since.

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On Wednesday, U.S. Marshals arrested Vick without incident in Lithia Springs, Georgia, police said. It is unclear when he will appear in court in Massachusetts again.

The carnival shooting happened on Aug. 26, 2023 around 7:45 a.m. during the annual J’ouvert Parade in Dorchester. A Boston police report indicated that the violence was the result of two rival gangs targeting each other after members taunted one another earlier that morning.

Six men and two women were found to have non-fatal gunshot wounds following the shooting. Five men and one woman were taken to the hospital, while the other two victims were grazed by bullets and declined treatment.



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