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Mentally ill or deliberate killer? Trial starts for man charged with killing Massachusetts officer

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Mentally ill or deliberate killer? Trial starts for man charged with killing Massachusetts officer


DEDHAM, Mass. — The prosecutor in the murder trial of a man charged with killing a Massachusetts police officer and an innocent bystander nearly five years ago told jurors in opening statements on Thursday that the suspect acted with deliberation when he used the officer’s own gun to shoot him multiple times.

The defense, however, described a defendant who has spent years struggling with mental illness made worse by frequent marijuana use, who wasn’t taking his medications, and who in the days before the killings was having a dispute with his longtime on-and-off girlfriend.

Emanuel Lopes, 25, faces 11 charges, including two counts of murder, in connection with the killings of Weymouth police Sgt. Michael Chesna, 42, a veteran and married father of two, and bystander Vera Adams, a 77-year-old widow, on July 15, 2018. He has pleaded not guilty.

“We will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lopes shot and killed Sgt. Michael Chesna, shot and killed Vera Adams, and shot at” two other officers who responded to the scene with the intent to kill them, prosecutor Greg Connor told the jurors in Norfolk Superior Court.

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Because of the intense media coverage the killings received in Weymouth, a suburb south of Boston, the jury was selected in Worcester County to ensure impartiality.

Lopes was fleeing the scene of a minor car crash and Chesna was investigating when their lives intersected, authorities have said.

Lopes threw a large rock that struck the officer in the head and knocked him to the ground unconscious. The suspect then grabbed the officer’s gun and shot him multiple times, Connor said.

As he fled, Lopes shot Adams, who was on her porch. He still had Chesna’s service weapon when he was caught minutes later, and it was out of ammunition, authorities said.

Defense attorney Larry Tipton said Lopes started experiencing mental health problems as a teenager, described him hearing voices, harming himself, and getting committed to the hospital multiple times.

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“Fifteen, 20 clinicians diagnosed a young man with major mental illness, sometimes not sure what the major mental illness was,” Tipton said.

Lopes’ friends described his behavior as “ranting, kind of like it’s Manny being Manny, talking about government conspiracies, people being Martians, monkeys, illuminati, talking about being in fear, danger,” the defense attorney said.

With dozens of potential witnesses, the trial could last weeks.

If convicted, Lopes faces life in prison. If found not guilty by reason of mental defect, he could be sent to a mental health facility for an indefinite period of time.



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Massachusetts

Mass. State Lottery: $100K lottery prize won off of $2 scratch ticket

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Mass. State Lottery: 0K lottery prize won off of  scratch ticket


A $100,000 lottery prize was won off of a $2 scratch ticket sold in Massachusetts.

The prize was claimed on Friday and it was from the game “$100,000 Snow Much Money.” The ticket was sold at Ronnie Shone General in Scituate.

The odds of winning the grand prize are one in 2,688,000. In total, 645,120 “$100,000 Snow Much Money” tickets have been distributed throughout the state with 115,615 still remaining, according to Massachusetts State Lottery.

Overall, there were 687 prizes worth $600 or more that were won or claimed in Massachusetts across all lottery games on Friday, including 19 in Springfield, 25 in Worcester and 42 in Boston.

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So far, the largest lottery prize won in Massachusetts this year was worth $15 million. The prize was from the lottery’s “300X” scratch ticket game and was claimed on June 13.



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Communities worried about care after Steward closes 2 Massachusetts hospitals

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Communities worried about care after Steward closes 2 Massachusetts hospitals


Communities worried about care after Steward closes 2 Massachusetts hospitals – CBS Boston

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Steward Health Care is closing two of its hospitals in Massachusetts. WBZ-TV’s Tammy Mutasa reports.

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Massachusetts State House working last minute to pass bills ahead of Wednesday deadline

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Massachusetts State House working last minute to pass bills ahead of Wednesday deadline


BOSTON – The Massachusetts State House is typically quiet on Fridays but not this week, as state lawmakers work to push major pieces of legislation to the governor’s desk, including a possible return of Happy Hour.

“This place is going to be buzzing”

“I think for the next five days, this place is going to be buzzing,” State Sen. Barry Finegold told WBZ-TV from his Statehouse office. Buzzing with fellow legislators, lobbyists and stressed-out staffers racing to beat the Wednesday deadline. “We’re very hopeful that it’s going to get done.”

Republican State Rep. Marc Lombardo is frustrated by the procrastination, pointing to the House, Senate and corner office being dominated by Democrats. “It’s a tornado of activity that really doesn’t have to wait until the last week of July,” he said.

The House and Senate have until Wednesday to hammer out their differences on key bills. Bills that don’t get voted out of conference committee essentially “die” on Beacon Hill.

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Finegold heads the Joint Economic Development Committee, working on a multi-billion-dollar package that could pave the way for a new soccer stadium in Everett for the New England Revolution.

Will Happy Hour come back to Massachusetts?

How about bringing Happy Hour back to Massachusetts?

“We’re hopeful to get that passed as well,” Finegold explained. “We do have a lot of younger people in our city and throughout Massachusetts and we want to do things that we think they’ll like.”

While Rep. Lombardo can see how this could help the economy, he’s not a fan of the last-minute rush to the finish line.

He said lawmakers are “expected to read bills very quickly as they come out of conference committee…hundreds of pages of documents and yet forced to get a vote because we’ve waited to the last moment to put things on the floor.”

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Complex legislation, packed with all sorts of line items.

The CEO of Boston Pads is watching the housing bill closely as lawmakers debate whether or not to ban broker’s fees for renters.

“These agents spend a lot of timing calling all day. It’s not uncommon for them to show an apartment at eight or even nine o’clock at night,” said Demetrios Salpoglou.

It’s a vote that he said could have crippling impacts on the real estate industry in Massachusetts.

This is just a glimpse of the mad rush and closed-door negotiations at the State House.

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“This is what it takes,” Finegold said. “We have to get things done.”



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