City councilors criticize ‘lack of action’ from the district
This past week saw two different incidents that brought police responses to the Condon K-8 School in South Boston after a live round turned up in a toilet and someone distributed flyers with a swastika on them — leading the area’s city councilors to call for an investigation over a perceived “lack of action” from the district, which called their claims “inflammatory.”
The bullet ended up “submerged” in a boys’ toilet at the Condon at 200 D St. on Friday morning, where Principal Robby Chisholm had to fish it out after a kid found it there shortly before 10 a.m., per police.
The school called cops, per the police report from the incident, who noted that this was a “live round” .45caliber Winchester bullet. Officers investigated the bathroom at the time and didn’t find anything else, and then a K-9 sweep later in the day after school let out — which police say was delayed because an administrator told police he “did not think that option was necessary at the time to shut the school down for a K-9 sweep and was not in fear of other potential bullets in the building” — similarly turned up nothing “suspicious,” per the police.
City Council President Ed Flynn, who represents Southie, and At-Large City Councilor Michael Flaherty, who similarly lives in the
neighborhood, said they were worried about the handling of the incident, particularly in light of how the principal didn’t call for an
immediate K-9 sweep.
They also said they had issues with the handling of how flyers with a swastika on them appeared at the school the previous day.
“When school leadership fails to take potential incidents of violence and hate seriously, it creates an environment that is indifferent to violence and inappropriate behavior,” the councilors said in a Saturday statement.
Regarding the flyers, the city councilors wrote, “This disturbing discovery and lack of action underscores the principal’s failure to ensure public safety” in the Friday bullet incident.
They wrote that they “are respectfully requesting a complete and thorough investigation into both of these incidents” and “a full and transparent accounting of the facts, wherever they may lead, to the students, parents, faculty, and South Boston community.”
In a statement Saturday in response to Flaherty and Flynn, BPS pushed back
forcefully, saying, “the safety of our students and staff is always our top priority at BPS.”
“Contrary to inflammatory statements from public officials, within minutes of both incidents school leadership immediately reported these incidents, and BPS safety services and Boston Police were on site to ensure the appropriate steps were taken and there was no immediate threat to the school,” the district said. “BPS and the Condon School leadership and staff are cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities to investigate these troubling incidents to prevent them from occurring in the future.”
Regarding the swastika incident, police were called to the Condon around 9:30 a.m. for reports that someone had been circulating a flyer with a big swastika on it, surrounded by the faces of several staff members, according to a police report.
The report, which is written
in a particularly jumbled and difficult-to-parse way even aside from the redactions, says someone at the school told cops that four letters had been disseminated this school year that “progressively alleged inappropriate sexual behaviors, racial and varies assaults.”
The latest missive “contains seven (7) past and current staff members of these acts along with a ‘Swastika’ symbol in the middle of the letter with the staff ’s photographs on it. The letter also includes their personal information, i.e. names and addresses.”
SEIU 888 President Tom McKeever, whose union that includes administrative staff represents some of the people pictured on the flyer, said, “there are certainly worries about their wellbeing,” given the issues with both the flyers and the bullet.
The union local has clashed repeatedly with Condon leadership over the past couple of years.