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July
1994
CHARLESTOWN
"CODE OF SILENCE"
Members of the Charlestown
task force investigate.
"Irish Mob" member John
Houlihan II is identified.
Boston Police and DEA
special agents arrest John
Houlihan II.
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On a summer night
in 1992, George Sargent, 43, was shot to death outside a pizza parlor
in Charlestown, Massachusetts. A few days earlier, he had provided information
to police concerning criminal dealings in the neighborhood. As he lay
dead on the sidewalk, no one called the police, and no one admitted to
seeing the shooting. This startling response to the murder had become
typical in Charlestown, a small community in North Boston. Members of
the community were unwilling to share information that would facilitate
homicide investigations because of their reliance on vigilante justice,
fear of retaliation by criminals, and anti-police sentiment.
This unspoken code
of silence made homicide investigations extremely difficult. Between
1975 and 1992, Charlestown experienced 49 murders, 33 of which were not
solved. The community was being overrun by the Irish Mob,
a group of violent career criminals who ran a major PCP and cocaine distribution
center. Because intimidated citizens upheld the code of silence, these
drug traffickers were able to operate with virtual impunity.
When it became clear
that drugs were a large part of Charlestowns crime problem, the
DEA got involved and joined forces with the Massachusetts State Police,
Boston Police Department, and the Boston Housing Police Department. DEA
agents and local officers worked together to gather intelligence and establish
a comprehensive case against the criminals in the neighborhood. In order
to find informants critical to solving both drug and murder cases, agents
arranged to protect any witnesses who agreed to testify against the Charlestown
criminals. As a result of three years of extensive investigations in Charlestown,
by July 1994, 40 defendants were indicted on charges that included racketeering,
murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to distribute cocaine, and armed
robbery. One indictment charged that two of the defendants paid hired
killers $5,000 to murder those they believed were encroaching on their
turf. Once violent criminals such as these were removed from the Charlestown
community, the threat of retaliation disappeared and the code of silence
was broken. A hotline set up by the DEA yielded hundreds of calls from
community residents that resulted in valuable leads and more significant
arrests.
One reason for the
success of the Charlestown investigation is that it was a collaborative
effort that used the resources and talents of many law enforcement agencies.
In addition to aligning with the state and local police, the DEA Boston
Division also worked on the Charlestown investigation with the U.S. Attorneys
Office; the Suffolk County District Attorneys Office; the FBI; the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the Special Investigations Unit
of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections; and the U.S. Marshals
Service.
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