The Daily Free Press
Year xliv. Volume lxxxvi. Issue XL
TO BE FRANK Fenway facelift offers healthier food options, page 3.
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Monday, April 7, 2014 The Independent Student Newspaper at Boston University
SPEED DEMONS
Get your startup off the ground with BU club, page 5.
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www.dailyfreepress.com
FALLING SHORT
Men’s lacrosse loses to Army in comeback attempt, page 8.
WEATHER
Today: Cloudy/High 59 Tonight: Showers late/Low 44 Tomorrow: 63/41 Data Courtesy of weather.com
BUPD, BPD Bomb Squad investigate phoned-in threat Concert to honor marathon bombing victim Lu Lingzi
PHOTO COURTESY OF KATIE DALLY
In a university-wide emergency text message alert, Boston University Police Department maintained that the area around 233 Bay State Rd. was clear after administrators received a suspicious phone call involving a bomb threat. By Adrian Baker Daily Free Press Staff
The Boston University Police Department and Boston Police Bomb Squad determined there was no threat after responding to a phone call placed Thursday morning claiming there was a bomb somewhere on BU’s campus.
An unidentified individual called a BU building located at 881 Commonwealth Ave. between 10:30 and 11 a.m. and said there was a bomb in an admissions building, said BUPD Deputy Director of Public Safety Scott Paré. The situation was cleared by 11:50 a.m., but a BU Security Alert was not issued to students until all areas were deemed safe.
Paré said it is standard protocol for BUPD to investigate suspicious situations and determine if a threat exists before notifying students. “You want to check out the scene before you send out any kind of alert,” he said. “If there was a suspicious package or something of suspicious nature that enabled it to be a threat, then we would obviously notify students right away to let them know to stay away from that building. But nothing was found. There was never a direct threat to any student.” Responders evacuated and searched 881 Comm. Ave., 233 Bay State Rd. and 121 to 125 Bay State R., all of which are either current or former admissions offices, said BUPD Captain Robert Molloy. The BU security alert was sent out because of concerns about the increased police presence at the locations being searched, Paré said. “We wanted to put the students and community at ease,” he said. “If there was any threat or we thought anybody’s safety was in any type of jeopardy, we would have put that information out immediately.” Spokesman for BU Colin Riley said BUPD’s response is common procedure. “[In these situations], police get on the scene quickly and are able to determine that there is nothing suspicious in short order,” Riley said. “Rather than getting everyone worked up, the most important thing is to get to the scene
the other 38 districts, their request was denied. “We would have gotten it back to the original 10 blank votes if we had continued,” he said. “Why allow it in 2 districts and not in the other ones? It’s obvious they saw where this was headed, and they stopped, and I hope the judge will side with us on that.” Kirsten Hughes, chairman of MassGOP, sent an email to the state’s committee members on Tuesday to tell them that she has spoken to several attorneys about the issues regarding the convention and has begun to create a legal defense fund for the protection of the party and its interests. “While my office focuses on resolving this issue in a manner consistent with the law and the rules of the Party, we must also not take our eyes off the important work of electing Republicans at every level of state and federal government,” she said. “Many of you have labored far
The Boston University Symphony Orchestra and Symphonic Chorus will perform at a concert Monday in Symphony Hall to commemorate the Boston Marathon bombing victims and first responders. The concert is dedicated to BU student Lu Lingzi, who was killed in the April 15 marathon blasts last year. “The spring concert is typically held in early April,” said College of Fine Arts Director of Communications Laurel Homer. “This year, with it being scheduled just two weeks before the 2014 Marathon, the concert takes on a special meaning. Homer said CFA Dean Benjamin Juarez and professor Richard Cornell, director ad interim of BU’s School of Music, organized the concert to appreciate efforts to heal the city through art. “The dean and professor Cornell recognized the opportunity to bring the BU community together to honor the many ties the University has to the tragedy that occurred in Boston last April, applaud the remarkable efforts to heal the city and celebrate the spirit of determination that unites Boston,” Homer said. Professor of music Ann Howard Jones will conduct the concert, which features tenor vocalist Christopher Hutchinson, a student at the Opera Institute of BU. “They will be performing Hector Berlioz’s Grande Messe des Morts, Op. 5, a piece known for its complex, large-scale, and often grandiose instrumentations and its ties to Boston’s Symphony Hall, recorded notably in Boston’s Symphony Hall in 1959,” Homer said. School of Music Assistant Director of Production & Performance Casey Soward said Lingzi exemplified the right kind of member of the BU community. “Lu was the embodiment of a modernday Boston University student,” Soward said. “She was an excellent student, friend to many, and while working hard toward her chosen career path, maintained a genuine love and passion for the arts, which in her case was piano performance.” Soward said though Lingzi did not major within CFA, she still took part in many of the
Fisher, see page 2
Lu, see page 2
Bomb Threat, see page 2
Gubernatorial candidate Fisher files lawsuit against MassGOP By Felicia Gans Daily Free Press Staff
After barely missing the 15 percent mark to make it to the September primary election, Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Fisher filed a lawsuit against the Massachusetts Republican Party for a series of alleged mistakes made when tallying the delegate votes. Fisher, who received 14.765 percent of the votes at the state convention on March 22, sought legal representation against MassGOP on March 23, after hearing from a variety of people who contacted the campaign and shared their stories about what transpired on the convention floor. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday, Fisher told The Daily Free Press. “It didn’t appear that there were any options left open to us other than legal and we thought we’d sleep on it and see what transpired,” he said. “We hate to do this, but that’s the only recourse that the MassGOP had left open to us.” Four days after the convention, Fisher’s
campaign sent out an email with the link to a video, referred to as “the smoking gun.” The video was a record of the convention’s roll call, where all delegate votes were read aloud. According to the spreadsheet, which Fisher sent as an attachment to the email, Republican frontrunner Charlie Baker received 2,095 votes, Fisher received 376 votes and ten votes were blank. Without counting blank votes in the final percentages, Fisher received 15.22 percent of the votes. If blank votes are counted, he received 15.16 percent. However, when MassGOP announced the final votes on the evening of the convention, Fisher had received 374 votes, and there were a total of 64 blank votes, keeping him short of the 15 percent vote he needed. Fisher said MassGOP allowed him to challenge the votes in two of the 40 districts on the day of the convention, disallowing all blank votes from those districts. When the Fisher campaign asked to disallow the blank votes in
By Jaime Bennis Daily Free Press Staff
Photo exhibition celebrates life, work of late BU student Diego Fernandez Montes By Sebastian Alamo Daily Free Press Staff
To honor the life of Boston University student Diego Fernandez Montes, who passed away over Spring Break, over one hundred people attended the “I Am Not An Ostrich” photo exhibition held at BU’s 808 Gallery on Friday. The exhibition, which was organized by BU’s Mexican Students Association Mexas at BU, featured 25 photos taken by Fernandez, a College of Arts and Sciences freshman who passed away in March, said Lorraine Ziegler, Fernandez’s friend who organized the gallery. “Diego started to become really passionate about taking pictures,” Ziegler, a CAS sophomore, said. “The day before spring break, he went out into the city for two-and-a-half hours and just took pictures of everything. He came over to my dorm later that night and shows me like 250 pictures he took just from that night ... I remembered that I had the pictures so I told his friends and his roommate and the Mexas, and they all came up with the idea of displaying his work.”
Photos at the exhibition included photos taken from the memory card as well as pictures from Fernandez’s blog. The pictures were chosen regardless of theme and with the goal of showing Fernandez’s perspective of the world, Ziegler said. “We were going to pick a city theme but we decided against it just because there are some beautiful pictures about nature,” she said. “Diego loved the city and living in the city, but he also loved nature, so we decided to show both. I think they both represent him and what he believed in. These pictures are the way he sees the world. It is his perspective.” Ziegler said she and the other organizers wanted to give people the opportunity to understand what kind of person Fernandez was and showcase his perspective of the world. “I wanted to do it personally to show his talent, especially to those who did not know him or did not have the fortune to really know Diego,” she said. “I just wanted to show the world what an amazing and talented student
Fernandez, see page 2
KATHRYN NEUHARDT/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
Boston University featured the photographs of Diego Fernandez Montes at the 808 Gallery on Friday evening. Fernandez, a College of Arts and Sciences freshman, died over Spring Break in his home country of Mexico.