I Hate Fire!

UMass is a safe campus.  But you can never be too safe with fire

And you should too. 

But that doesn't mean you should not prepare for it. 

Click to enlarge/read

Please join the Amherst Fire Department, UMass Environmental Health & Safety, Dunn & Phillips Law firm and two victims who survived a devastating fire to learn simply strategies to survive should the Beast come calling.

Ninja #Fail Police Report

Patrick Bemben, only one of four home invaders arrested (so far)

 Click to enlarge/read

Amherstworks Gets To Work

The main open space is big enough to fly a drone

The new shared co-worker space where entrepreneurs will huddle opened for business today in the former First National Bank building, a downtown icon for almost 100 years.

Back in the day bricks and mortar banks like First National were drivers of the economy.

These days it's the Internet, and with one gigabit WiFi at Amherstworks and coffee from Amherst Coffee, building a better mousetrap has never been easier.

The vault conference room

 Meetings will certainly be secure

Halloween Hangover

AFD on scene Townehouse for college aged woman with face laceration from headbutt

I kind of figured Halloween weekend would not be the time to see an improvement in the drunk meter index and sure enough it was not.

In fact, even with the "impact shift" on duty we ran out of ambulances as all five were out (mostly for intoxicated college students) and Belchertown FD had to respond via mutual aid.

Amherst College was one for three with ETOH EMS runs, Hampshire College three of seven and our proud flagship of higher education UMass/AMHERST a whopping 13 of 22.

AFD Halloween Runs by Larry Kelley on Scribd

Drug Rip Off Gone Bad

Patrick Bemben was knocked out by the residents of the house he invaded

Patrick Bemben intake photo courtesy APD

So not overly surprising but no less shocking, the home invasion hatchet incident from late Saturday night on South East Street turned out to be a drug raid gone wrong.  And no, not a planned police drug raid but four would be Ninjas who wanted to rip off the alleged drug dealers.

In Eastern Hamsphire District Court today Judge Thomas Estes upheld the Commonwealth's request Patrick Bemben, age 25, be designated too dangerous to release on bail.

Even though his parents and girlfriend were in attendance the Judge agreed with ADA Bob Opsitnik and Mr. Bemben will be held in jail until his trial.

Play Ball!

Potwine Lane Fields Saturday:  No soccer for you!

Saturday was a local sports lovers delight as UMass and Amherst College played home football games and amazingly UMass won while Amherst College lost (probably due to bad karma from "taking a knee" during the national anthem a while back),

Amherst College lost

The premier town soccer fields at Potwine Lane in South Amherst however, were all dressed up with nowhere to go as the Saturday games were rescheduled to other fields because neighbors continue to have problems with traffic on game day.

UMass won (must have been the flag)

Considering the town spent $500,000 in Community Preservation Funds to develop the "soccer fields" ten years ago you have to wonder if the CPA committee might ask for our tax money back if the utilization is cut back to keep the NIMBYs happy.

Scary Saturday

Townehouse Apartments East Quad 4:30 PM Saturday

Townehouse Quad Sunday morning

In addition to dealing with the usual large exuberant crowd gathered at Townhouse Apartments quad area, drunk drivers, noise complaints and fist fights Amherst police and Massachusetts State Police also investigated a hatchet assault on South East Street that required AFD transport to Baystate critical care unit in Springfield.

 Very large police presence on S. East Street since 1:00 AM

Chief Livingstone confirms an arrest was made (Patrick Bemben) and that eerily similar to the shooting death two weeks ago at Southpoint Apartments this was not a random act of violence, so the neighborhood need net be concerned about their security.

DA statement (Click to enlarge/read)

The rented house seemed to be specifically targeted by the four perps who were dressed in all black, used walkie talkies to communicate with one another and were armed with a hatchet and knife.  

Police spent hours looking for the other attackers using the MSP Air Wing and a K9 unit.  AFD also  used one of their thermal imaging cameras to search the wooded area.

MSP Air 1