Posted on 02/17/2010 5:52:10 AM PST by outpostinmass2
Amy Bishop was crouched behind a parked car, gripping a pump-action shotgun with one shell in the chamber and another in her pocket. Workers at a nearby business were yelling, “There’s a girl with a gun!’’ and running away.
A police officer approached cautiously, holding his pistol behind his leg as he tried to reason with the wild-eyed 21-year-old. But Bishop would not budge.
“Miss Bishop seemed frightened, disoriented, and confused, but she kept both her hands on the shotgun at all times,’’ the officer wrote in a police report. “She wouldn’t drop the gun.’’
It wasn’t until another officer sneaked up behind her that Bishop was finally handcuffed and taken to the Braintree police station that December day in 1986.
Bishop was not charged in the events of that day, which began with the shooting death of her brother and was followed by her attempt to hold up an auto dealership and her bid to resist arrest.
Now, she is a 45-year-old biology professor accused of gunning down three colleagues in Alabama last week, and prosecutors here in Massachusetts are taking another look at the incidents in Braintree in 1986.
They concluded yesterday that there had been probable cause to charge her in the decades-old case, if not in the death of her brother, which was deemed accidental, then for her actions afterward.
The reports prosecutors used to make the determination - which included statements that Bishop, her mother, and her father made to Braintree police - were released publicly for the first time yesterday and paint a vivid portrait of a harrowing series of events that chilly December day.
In some respects it seemed like a typical Saturday. Amy’s mother, Judy, left the house at about 7 a.m. to visit a nearby stable, while her husband and two
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Delahunt did divorce his wife in 1986. The same year that this incedent took place. Bishops mother was the town personell director. Delahunt is from Quincy and Braintree is right next door. In would not be a stretch if they knew each other. Maybe Bishops mom had some dirt on him that he did not want to get out into the press. As D.A. Delahunt use to drive around in a Porsche that was confiscated during a drug bust. The F.B.I has to remind him that the car did not belong to him. I know back around 1996 Delahunt was dating a 19 year old bank teller. He was elected to congress in 1996. Or maybe Delahunt was just doing a favor for a friend. This is not uncommon in these parts. The D.A. and state police investigate all homocides in the towns for Massachusetts for resource reasons. Cities like Boston ivestigate their own homocides since they have the man power. It would have been the D.A.’s call as to whether to charge or not in this case.
I was only surfing by his show. ICBW, but I think his exact words were, “...you can’t fire a shotgun twice without reloading, am I right?” to which the blond bimbo he was talking to replied in the affirmative. At that point I moved on.....assured in the knowledge that NOT watching BOR is a good thing.
Yep, I heard that to. I usually record it on TIVO, but the ignorance ORielly displays about guns is epic in it’s failure. He should get out more.
There are so many versions of ‘the facts’ about the brother’s shooting going around now that I think the sensible thing to do is disbelieve all of them until something coherent emerges.
BRAINTREE —
This story appeared on page 1 of the Patriot Ledger on Dec. 8, 1986.
Sister kills teenager in shotgun accident at home
BRAINTREE – An 18-year-old who won prizes in science and music was killed when his sister accidentally fired a shotgun she was trying to unload in the kitchen of their Braintree home Saturday afternoon.
Seth M. Bishop, a freshman at Northeastern University in Boston, was shot in his home at 46 Hollis Ave., at about 2:20 p.m. Saturday, police said.
Police said his sister, Amy Bishop, was trying to unload the pump-action, 12-gauge shotgun when it discharged.
The fatal shooting was witnessed by Bishop’s mother, Judith, according to authorities.
The shotgun was registered to Bishop’s father, Samuel S. Bishop, a professor at Northeastern University.
According to investigators, Amy Bishop had been taught how to use the shotgun by her father. On the day of the accident, she was handling the loaded weapon in the home, although investigators said it was not clear why.
She pumped a round from the magazine into the firing chamber of the shotgun, then went into the kitchen and asked her brother and mother for help when she couldn’t eject the shell from the chamber, investigators said.
Her mother instructed Amy Bishop to pump the shotgun again, which ejected the first shell, according to an investigator. However, she apparently pumped the weapon again and unknowingly advanced a second shell from the magazine to the chamber.
Thinking the weapon was empty, she pulled the trigger, the investigator said. The blast struck her brother, who was standing three to four feet in front of her, authorities said.
Dr. William P. Ridder, an associate Norfolk County medical examiner, said Bishop was shot once in the lower right chest with bird-shot. He said Bishop showed faint signs of life when ambulance attendants arrived at the home, but attempts at reviving him were not successful. Bish was pronounced dead at 3:08 p.m. at Quincy City Hospital.
The accident is under investigation by Braintree police and the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office, but authorities said they don’t expect charges to be filed
Bishop graduated from Braintree High School this spring near the top of his class. He was a freshan at Northeastern University, studying electrical engineering.
Teachers say he was an accomplished violinist. He began studying music in elementary school and developed a broad repertoire. He was a member of the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Braintree High School Orchestra and other student orchestras.
He received fine arts awards from state groups and the high school, including the Arian Award for Music. He won the Science Fair at the high school, second prize in the district science fair and third prize in the state science fair at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
“He had great potential and he was interested in all aspects of science,” said Paul Hogan, head of the high school sciences department. “I know he would have been very successful in whatever he chose to do.”
Teachers recalled Bishop as a shy but friendly student who enjoyed school but kept to a small circle of friends who shared his interests in music and science.
“He was extremely gifted, so intelligent that I think many other students didn’t understand him,” said Dr. Katherine Dewey, head of the music department at the high school. “He was one of those genius kids who marched to the beat of his own drum.
“Once kids got to know him, they accepted him. They sort of looked after Seth, had him take part in whatever they were doing.”
Dewey said Amy Bishop, who graduated from the high school two years ago, was also a talented violing who had gone on to study at Northeastern.
“They were very much alike, shy and pretty much out of the mainstream,” she said.
This story appeared the next day, also starting on page 1:
Gun fired moments before teen’s death
BRAINTREE – The shotgun that accidentally killed an 18-year-old college student in the kitchen of his Braintree home Saturday had gone off moments before in an upstairs bedroom.
After she accidentally discharged the gun into her bedroom wall, the victim’s sister, Amy, carried the weapon downstairs and asked for help unloading it. It was then that the shotgun discharged a second time, fatally wounding Seth M. Bishop, police said.
“It all happened in a split-second in front of me,” Judith Bishop, their mother, said this morning. “I keep seeing it over and over in my mind.”
Mrs. Bishop said Amy was trying to teach herself how to use the 12-gauge shotgun in case burglars broke into the house.
The family purchased the gun after their Hollis Avenue home was burglarized a year ago, Mrs. Bishop said.
When the shotgun went off in her bedroom, Amy Bishop, 20, became frightened and “highly emotional” and went downstairs to her mother and brother to find out how to unload it, Braintree Police Capt. Theodore Buker said.
“She came downstairs to the kitchen seeking help on how to unload it,” Buker said. “Her mother said something like, ‘Be careful where you point that’ and as she turned around (toward her brother) the gun discharged.”
Seth Bishop, a 1986 Braintree High School graduate and an award-winning violinist, was struck in the lower chest by the shotgun blast.
His funeral was today at All Souls Church in Braintree and he was to be buried later today in Exeter, N.H. He was a student of electrical engineering at Northeastern University in Boston.
Mrs. Bishop said last year’s burglary was followed by an attempted housebreak just before Thanksgiving. Buker confirmed those incidents.
“I think she (Amy) thought she should know how to use it in case she was home alone,” Mrs. Bishop said. “She didn’t know anything about it.”
Buker said after the gun went off in her bedroom, Amy Bishop apparently pumped a second shell into the firing chamber, then went downstairs seeking help. He said she probably did not know she had advanced a second shell into the chamber.
“It is not an automatic weapon, so in order for the shell to be advanced, it would have to be pumped,” Buker said. “It isn’t particularly hard to do.”
Buker’s comments clarified a report in yesterday’s Patriot Ledger which said Amy Bishop tried to unload the shotgun by pumping it and had ejected a shell, but inadvertently loaded a second shell into the firing chamber and pulled the trigger.
Both Buker and Mrs. Bishop said Amy Bishop did not try to unload the weapon because she did not understand how it worked.
After the incident, Amy Bishop ran from the house with the weapon. Police officers found her a short time later near Braintree Square in a “highly emotional state.”
Samuel S. Bishop, the father of Amy and Seth, was not at home at the time of the accident, Buker said.
I disagree.
I lived in the belly of the beast for 22 years. I know how corrupt Massachusetts is, and I also know how "the system" works.
Getting routine government services depends on who you know. Getting a favor depends on who you're "with", and, depending how big the favor is, it depends on who you are with is with.
But murder and assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon?
THAT, "the system" can't take care of (unless you ARE a Kennedy). A favor that can get the favor giver in trouble is very, very expensive, even in Massachusetts.
Unless sex or money is involved, I would say what happened to Amy Bishop was not possible, even in 1986 Massachusetts.
Had she been stopped and jailed and convicted of murder the others would now be alive. Shame on every cop, Judge and DA that let her get away through the years in various offenses.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.