Michael Burggren, 53, a 20-year resident of South Boston is said to be handing out a flier that reads: “No to Bulger Library! … No! Bill Bulger used his office to protect a mass murderer.” He is an example of how the people of Boston have been bamboozled.
I have no idea who Burggren is or where he was prior to his last 20 years in South Boston. I do know he knows not of what he speaks. It is libelous to suggest Bill Bulger used his office to protect his brother Whitey. It is a libel born out of ignorance by people who have been deliberately misinformed by the media and others.
That Burggren and those that associate with him in this dastardly cause have no personal knowledge of what they speak does not make it less of a libel. It is just an example of how ignorant people injure others based on rumors and innuendos. I’d like to ask Barggren and those who believe like he does, upon what basis do they make that lying assertion. Give me one, just one, example of Billy Bulger using his office to protect Whitey Bulger his brother. If you cannot, you ought to bow your heads in shame.
Had Billy Bulger used his office in such a way he would have to have been able to influence others to not do the jobs they took an oath to perform. Those others would have to be people in law enforcement. For the only way that Whitey Bulger could have been protected was to keep him from being pursued by law enforcement authorities.
I can say categorically that “Billy Bulger never used his office to protect his brother” because during the years Billy had the power to do such a thing and during such time as Whitey Bulger was actively involved in his criminal activities, I was actively involved in organized crime investigations overseeing and participating in more wiretaps and bugging operations of organized crime people than any other prosecutor in Massachusetts. I was there and can speak from personal knowledge; none of those who suggest Billy interfered have such knowledge.
I worked very closely with those in law enforcement at the state, city and town level who did this work. These men skilled in the ways of organized crime met with me on an almost daily basis. We discussed and planned investigations of Whitey Bulger.
Whitey lived in my county in the City of Quincy. He operated his criminal enterprise out of South Boston, a short drive over the Southeast Expressway and down Morrissey Boulevard from Quincy. The Town of Brookline which was part of Norfolk County penetrated Boston separating its sections of Jamaica Plain from Brighton. Where Whitey operated I worked with law enforcement officers. I also worked closely with the state police’s organize crime unit, the Special Services Unit, that had state-wide jurisdiction.
Never in any of my many investigations did the relationship between Billy and Whitey affect anything. Never was it a consideration in any decision I or the others made. In my thousands upon thousands of conversations with men skilled in investigating organized crime did I ever hear the connection even mentioned although we often discussed Whitey. The Quincy police detectives who were relentless in their pursuit of Whitey were in continual contact with me and never suggested anything relating to Billy and Whitey.
The suggestion that somehow we backed off of investigating Whitey because of Billy is insulting. It besmirches the reputation of those hard working dedicated detectives. It is a libel of not only Billy but of all the law enforcement officers in the state at all levels who I worked with for more than 20 years who attempted to gather evidence for us to prosecute Whitey.
And from where do these libels emanate? They came from people in the media and enemies of Billy seeking personal revenge on him such as Professor Dershowitz. These people have no knowledge of our investigations. They cannot point to anyone who can honestly say that because of Billy he or she backed off from getting Whitey.
Had Billy any power to affect law enforcement it was at the state level. He had direct control over the budgets of the DAs and state police and indirect over the cities and towns. Examine the records of the time. The Massachusetts State Police were zealous in their pursuit of Whitey. They almost got him in 1980 when he operated out of Lancaster Street; after that they continued after him without let up. Where’s Billy’s protection for his brother there? The DAs likewise followed the evidence that they had. My office turned over to the FBI a person who was extorted by Bulger. Bulger’s handler reported that Whitey hated my office saying we had a vendetta against him.
We, the organize crime investigators in this state and I, always considered Whitey a target. We never had a second thought about going after him. We never for a moment thought of Billy during those investigations. It’s time to listen to people who were there and know what went on and not those who live on libel and pass on scurrilous lies.
Matt, excellent comment, filled with irrefutable facts, based first hand experience over forty years in criminal law and law enforcement in the Boston area. Here’s what’s at play here:
1. Guilt by association; Twenty-years Southie resident Mr. Burggeron (sp?) says he doesn’t want the Bulger name on anything. A Mister Bulger is a chief fundraiser and organizer for Boston College High School; he organized BC’s Night at Symphony Hall last year; he’s a great patron of the ARTS. Should BC High strike the Bulger name from its Honor Rolls? Let’s ask Mister character assassin, mister mud-slinger, Mister moronic ignoramus, Mister Burggeron from out of state with a big mouth, what he thinks about the Bulger family and let him determine who’s name gets put on what. Maybe Mr, Burggeron would suggest we remove some of those nine (9) McDonough names from Southie’s World War II Memorial. After all, hasn’t a McDonough run afoul of the Grand Inquisitors at the Globe and the foul FEDs at the Moakley Courthouse. Let’s strike all the Southie names from memorials if any relatives have ever been involved in crime. Right, Mr. Burggeron? Hurts your hateful mind just to think about honoring a person you know nothing about, doesn’t it. Go back to Oskaloo, you bum!!!
2. Matt they get the garbage they spew from the biggest slime of them all, the chronic character assassin who delights in people’s suffering, none other than Dershowitz’s close buddy and crony, and another glib mouth (all mouth no action) Howie Carr: I call him Howard the Coward or Howard “the Corrupt Fatso” Carr; he’s a radio/media bully who chronically disparages persons of small stature as “corrupt midgets.”. Carr is a cur; a real lowlife. I can’t figure why Dershowitz ever stooped so low as to team up that smear artist, unless D was driven and blinded by his unjustifiable, inordinate hatred of Billy Bulger. Anyway, Carr’s the slime who mocks the dead and makes friends of serial killers like John Martorano. Carr is a real sleaze, a merchant of hate and bigotry, and he’s drummed up hatred in the small hateful minds and small resentment-filled hearts of his pathetic loyal radio listeners. A sorry lot. A sad state of affairs, indicting human nature’s worst side: it’s lynch mob mentality. Screw the facts; let’s nail someone to a cross!!! The mob salivates at the thought of ganging up one person, especially a relatively defenseless person, and especially when they have the corrupt Boston Globe and corrupt Howie Carr on their side. A sad situation.
William:
1, We once had a saying that “ignorance is bliss.” Perhaps it is for the person so endowed but for the rest of us it is destructive. Imagine how many people form their beliefs on what the newspapers tell them without giving it a second thought.
2. You mention two bed fellows who in the end will have added very little to the betterment of American life. As for Carr, all I can say is it seems his act is getting old. Without Whitey and Kennedy he is practically out of material. I’ve read some of his recent columns to see what he was doing and all I can say is he is not doing well.
Didn’t anyone tell Linehan that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. He should have asked Bill Bulger before he announced this project. No one knows more about the undeserved abuse of a good man than Bill Bulger. He was nurtured on Demosthenes and his On The Crown oration.
Very few have suffered the sticks and stones of the small minded and still walk tall with their head held high in the knowledge that they have lived a virtuous life and are still appreciated by many IN Bohemia.
He read everything worth reading at the library already.
Hopalong:
Can’t agree more, thanks.
Ignorance is rampant in our society. Bulger engages in no wrongdoing yet is vilified. The media uniformly denounces him. The Globe says he should be shunned. But the public seems to be shunning the Globe instead. The press wants us to cheer Netanyahu who just killed and maimed thousands of civilians in Gaza after unjustly imprisoning them for years ( along with Egypt and the U S ). Do his military tactics remind you more of Mussolini in Ethiopia or Kitcherner in Sudan? A modern mechanized army fighting spearmen. 2. What is your take on the Democrat D A in Austin? Is she copying Ortiz and Coakley in engaging in blatantly political prosecutions? Shouldn’t more of these prosecutors end up in jail?
NC:
1. All you state is very true. The dunces with no knowledge of the true situation mortgage their brains to the media. There are resemblances between Netanyahu and others who have operated with superior military forces suggesting somehow they are threatened by those with rocks or rockets that fly awry most times. Netanyahu needs to attack Gaza every couple of years to keep up his popularity by keeping the Israelis believing he is protecting them when the opposite is the case. It’s time Israel made peace with its enemies and that involves some concessions.
2. Outrageous properly describes the indictment of Rick Perry. It’s the Wyshak theme: using prosecutorial power to bring about anything but a just end. But as far as I can tell that is Texas politics: the Democratic DA is trying to get something on Perry or his fund raisers; Perry is trying to get the DA with a drunken driving conviction out of office.
Here’s how your girl friend Sarah Palin wrote about it: “Lehmberg was busted for drunk driving with an open bottle of vodka in her car after a 911 call reported her endangering others while swerving erratically on the road. The D.A. was smashed — three times over the legal limit.
She was a nut job while in custody, disgracefully threatening law enforcement officials and lashing out violently. The D.A. had to be physically restrained. It was all caught on tape. The extent of the D.A.’s serious drinking problem was uncovered, evidence included her purchase of 72 bottles of vodka in just one store alone, in just over a year. It’s reasonable to believe she imbibed elsewhere, too.”
The feds do it, the state prosecutors do it, but it’s one way to send America down the manure chute if they continue to violated their oaths of office which they are doing with abandon.
Excellent comments from NC and Matt, and others.
The Boston Globe spent a fortune trying to connect Billy to Whitey and couldn’t. The feds tried every trick in the book and couldn’t (or else Billy would be in prison today.)
Let’s see how this Burggren guy does should he get hit with a defamation lawsuit.
Henry:
Excellent points. Billy should hit some of these people with libel suits. It would make them a little more responsible. He can’t go after the media because it is practically immune from them. The only problem if Billy did is that guys like Dershowitz would volunteer to defend them and they’d unmercifully harass Billy demanding all his personal and financial records and then spreading them all to the public with the Globe’s help. Billy values his privacy too much so he has to take the hits from the morons.