Mayor Setti Warren has received additional security in recent days because of concerns about his personal safety, the Globe reports.
Report: Extra security for Mayor Warren
by Village 14 | Dec 6, 2012 | Newton | 13 comments
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Very sad state of affairs.
Tom,
Before saying it’s a “very sad state of affairs”, it would be worth knowing what actually precipitated this action, wouldn’t it. I mean, any public figure is subject to some kinds of threats or risks, unfortunately, but it comes with the turf. The article doesn’t say what the issue is. This is being reported on the TAB blog also. Is this overkill, designed to elicit some kind of sympathy for the mayor?
Barry: By all accounts this is not something City Hall or the Newton Police announced. A reporter was doing her job, saw something and started asking questions.
That anyone might consider this is anything but a sad state of affairs is a sad state of affairs.
Seriously, is there any other way to interprete this other than a sad state of affairs? Yes, any public figure may be subject to this sort of thing but does that make it right, or anything BUT sad? Put your politics aside – he is a human being.
It’s not “politics” for me. It is for you. Everyone knows that there are idiots in the world who threaten celebrities of all kinds, even to the point of attempting to kill them, like Ford or Reagan. It’s not good. In this case, the article says there wasn’t even a threat to Setti. So, why is this particlular situation described by Tom, and seconded by others here, as a VERY sad state of affairs. It’s pales by comparison, unless there’s something we don’t know.
Barry: It’s pretty clear there’s something we don’t know and that the police have determined it is preferable not to discuss. My personal preference is to assume that they know better than me and leave it at that.
What Greg said.
Even if they’ve over reacted, what’s the downside? The mayor will have some extra protection, then it will go away, and things will return to normal.
It’s the right thing to do if there really is a threat, no biggie if there isn’t.
Jeff and Greg,
The issue isn’t whether or not the mayor needs protection. That’s not my call. I was really reacting only to Tom classifying it as a “very sad state of affairs”, and others jumping on the bandwagon, while the article suggested that there is no immediate threat. All the Setti sycophants also got bent out of shape, because I added a parenthetical and not so serious comment implying that, if this is nothing to worry about, then perhaps it’s PR for the mayor. My initial reaction to the article was that it’s an article about nothing, and wasn’t really newsworthy. Yet, for some reason it made the Globe at a time that another article slipped the hint that Setti may run for John Kerry’s seat. That’s all.
Barry, if I understand you correctly then, you are suggesting that the Globe was deliberately giving Mayor Warren positive — and possibly contrived — PR by running a small article stating that he’s getting beefed up security. Seems pretty far fetched that promoting Setti Warren would be on the Globe’s agenda right now. I would think you could find more appropriate focuses for your cynicism.
Gail,
During the early period of the last Senate election, the Globe ran a lot of articles about Setti dealing with what I thought were minutiae. I think he must have a friend at the Globe. So, I guess I’m a little cynical, or skeptical, perhaps. It kind of stopped after he made one blunder after another in personal appearances.
I also am confused about what is “sad”? Or does Tom Scheff know the actual reason for the measure and is commenting on that which the rest are ignorant of? I find it sad people are worked up over something trivial (it is trivial because we do not know the cause, not because mayoral security is not important). Or is it sad the the media focuses on something sensationalistic with absolutely no background detail to mention?
I’m always uncomfortable discussing security matters in public. I’ve commented here because this situation has already been in the Tab, Globe, etc.
When I was a young reporter it was the paper’s policy to not report on certain matters, such as bomb threats in schools or upcoming police actions. It just led to copycat incidents or warned those who were the police targets.
I don’t think we should be informing the bad guys about how we’re defending against them. That applies as much to Newton as it does to the withdrawal date in Afghanistan.