Search for The Westfield News
WEATHER TONIGHT Mainly clear. Low of 50.
The Westfield News Serving Westfield, Southwick, and the surrounding Hilltowns
“To win without risk is to triumph without glory.” — Pierre Corneille
www.thewestfieldnews.com
VOL. 83 NO.132
FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 2014
DeLeo makes case for gun bill By Peter Francis Staff Writer SPRINGFIELD – Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Robert DeLeo (D-Winthrop) took questions yesterday about new gun control legislation proposed this week, while at Springfield Technical Community College to tout new economic development legislation. The bill, praised by two Democratic Gubernatorial candidates – Attorney General Martha Coakley and Treasurer Steve Grossman – has also drawn considerable heat from legislators on both sides of the aisle, who say some of the provisions in it curb the rights of lawful gun owners. “It addresses mental health, but does nothing to keep guns off the street,” said Representative Nick Boldyga (R-Southwick) Wednesday. Boldyga also expressed concern over what he perceived as a lack of evidence to warrant further regulation. Boldyga, the ranking Republican on the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, said that he was concerned with the bill’s tightening of a regulation banning Bay Staters who’ve been convicted of non-violent misdemeanors from seeking a license to purchase firearms. “It was if you’ve been arrested and convicted of a misdemeanor for up to two years, you could lose your license forever. Now it’s one year,” he said of the proposed bill. “You can get an OUI and still be able to vote, but vandalize a library book and you’ll never be able to buy a gun.” Westfield Representative John Velis is among a handful of Democrats who also feel the bill would further hinder law-abiding gun owners in Massachusetts, already home to some of the nation’s most stringent gun laws. “Individual police chiefs have so much authority and discretion whether or not to issue someone a firearm,” he said Wednesday of
Westfield Voc-Tech Graduation
Westfield Vocational-Technical High School senior Yelena Levkha holds an armful of flowers and a giant balloon after graduating last night. See additional photos Page 5. (Photo by Frederick Gore/www.thewestfieldnews.smugmug.com)
See Gun Bill, Page 5
Speaker pushes economic development bill By Peter Francis Staff Writer SPRINGFIELD – On the seventh floor of Springfield Technical Community College’s Scibelli Hall yesterday, members of the western Mass. delegation of the House of Representatives assembled to join Speaker Robert DeLeo in introducing an $80 million new economic and jobs legislation. DeLeo, a Winthrop Democrat, was joined by Rep. Joseph Wagner (D-Chicopee), the chair of the House’s Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies,
who spearheaded the legislation. Wagner said the bill builds upon the $53 million economic development proposal made Gov. Deval L. Patrick in April. Deemed by the Speaker as “multifaceted and comprehensive”, the bill seeks to revitalize western Massachusetts on the industrial and housing fronts. “The most important thing to me is the creating and retaining of jobs,” said DeLeo, who has held the Speakership since 2009. “It is vital that we work to make sure that the area beyond 495 is thriving.”
DeLeo said that he knew an economic development bill would be in the works at the start of this session. “I was determined and stated in my remarks that we broaden the circle of success throughout all of Massachusetts,” he said. “We are only a stone’s throw from four of the Commonwealth’s 20 gateway cities. This is a region replete with possibility, and I’m excited about how this bill will unlock that potential.” See Development Bill, Page 3
Local students prepare for HCM By Robby Veronesi WNG Intern WESTFIELD – Hypertrophic Cardio Myopathy (HCM) is synonymous with cases of “sudden cardiac arrest”, and impacts about 5,000 people between the ages of 15-34, according to the Center for Disease Control. Symptoms range from shortness of breath, headaches, fatigue and blacking out. As a part of National CPR Awareness Week, students from 12 schools across Westfield and other parts of western Massachusetts participated in an educational day of awareness yesterday, with a goal of demonstrating proper cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, techniques. “Our mission is to raise awareness of sudden cardiac arrest,” said Susan Canning, director of Kevs Foundation and mother of Kevin Major, a Westfield teen who died on July 11, 2011 from HCM after suffering cardiac arrest. Autopsies showed that Major, 19, had an abnormally enlarged ventricle, which had gone unnoticed. “We know through awareness and doing different programs, we can see predictors that we would not have seen earlier,” she said. “If we have bystanders that know how to do CPR, that know the chain of command, survival rate is tenfold. That is the key.” CPR compressions early and often until medical personnel arrive on the scene correlates with a higher survival rate. Students at St. Mary’s, Westfield High School and Westfield Middle School North learned proper CPR techniques from certified paramedics of American Medical Response and KEVS Foundation staff in order to be prepared for a scenario like Major’s. See HMC, Page 3
75 cents
Scam keeps working By Carl E. Hartdegen Staff Writer WESTFIELD – Even persons who know better can be victim of scammers who are experts at playing on the emotions of their victims and making their common sense temporarily disappear. A city woman was panicked Wednesday by a caller who told her a tale which sent her to empty her back account so she could ransom her husband – without calling her husband at work to ensure that he was really in peril. City police were notified when a bank employee called police to report that a woman had given another customer a note asking that police be called because her husband had been kidnapped. According to police, the woman then emptied her account, despite warnings by the bank teller that she was responding to a scam, and took $1,300 to a supermarket to make a wire transfer to the putative kidnapper. Officer Matthew Schultze found the woman attempting to make the money transfer and found that she was still on the phone with the kidnapper. Police eventually learned that the caller, ‘Victor’ had said that her husband had been involved in an accident with him but ‘Victor’, who said he has been eluding police for five years, told her that he had stabbed her husband because he had attempted to call police. The man agreed to take the woman’s husband to Noble Hospital, but only after she sent him $1,500. While Schultze was speaking with the victim, Det. Roxanne Bradley went to the woman’s home where she spoke with her young adult daughter. Bradley reports that the younger woman also panicked but she was able to call him at work. Bradley found a language barrier when she spoke with the man who was cautious and not completely cooperative until his daughter got on the phone and convinced him that Bradley was a police officer. She also called the man’s supervisor to ensure that he was actually physically present at his workplace and was not speaking under duress from some other location. Once the man was convinced to speak freely, Bradley reports, he excitedly said that he and his wife had recently seen and discussed earlier reports of a similar scam. Because the woman was still on her phone with ‘Victor” her husband had difficulty reaching his wife who was still focused on paying the money to get him help and was not paying attention to what Schultze and others were telling her – that she was speaking with a scammer. The woman, eventually convinced that her See Scam, Page 3
Man convicted at 17 granted parole
Westfield High School students practice with the assistance of AMR paramedics. (Photo by Robby Veronesi)
Westfield High School faculty practice proper CPR techniques as part of the Kevs Foundation day to spread awareness of sudden cardiac arrest. Westfield High School, Westfield Middle School North and St. Mary’s High School all participated. (Photo by Robby Veronesi)
BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts man imprisoned since age 17 for his role in a 1994 deadly robbery was granted parole Thursday, the first inmate be granted such a ruling since the state’s highest court found that life imprisonment for juveniles is cruel and unusual. Frederick Christian is one of 63 Massachusetts inmates serving life without parole under a juvenile sentencing law that carried a mandatory life sentence for firstdegree murder. In December, the state Supreme Judicial Court found that law unconstitutional, following a landmark 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down such mandatory life sentencing laws. In its ruling, the Parole Board cited Christian’s age at the time of the crime, his clean prison record and his testimony at a hearing last week. Christian, now 37, told the board that he had completed various rehabilitation programs in prison, had earned his high school equivalency degree and become a devoted Muslim. “He has 15 years of pro-social conduct, cooperative behavior, and productive activity,” the board wrote in its decision. “Through See Parole, Page 3