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Ex-con to license cops: Don't boot the
messenger
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Letters to the Editor
Re: Ex-con to license
cops: Don't boot the messenger
Michele McPhee's article about Boston's bike messenger law missed an
important point regarding the law.
Boston's bike messenger license does not prevent "guys like" John
McCambridge and other ex-cons from gaining "access to secure buildings"
and delivering packages. It merely prevents them from using a bicycle
to do it.
They can walk or use a car, skateboard, roller skates, pogo stick or
any other mode of transportation just not a bike.
Messenger Institute for Media Accuracy
More
on Boston's law
Ex-con to license
cops: Don't boot the messenger
Boston Herald, December 21, 2004
By Michele McPhee
A 67-year-old ex-con who served time for shooting his best friend in
the heart and head before dumping his body on the Southeast Expressway
in 1993 is battling Boston police after the city denied him a bike
messenger license.
John McCambridge, who confessed to squeezing off two bullets from a
derringer at fellow homeless advocate Richard Doyle, 62, and tossing
his body on the highway before crashing near the Granite Avenue exit in
Milton during a booze-fueled fury on Nov. 11, 1993, will appear in
front of the Boston Police License Unit this morning to argue his case.
McCambridge - who was the first defendant in Suffolk County to
represent himself at his 1994 murder trial - had applied for the
license within the past month but was denied on the basis of his
lengthy criminal rap sheet, police said. Bike messengers working in
Boston must have a license issued by city police.
McCambridge was released from prison shortly after a federal appeals
court overturned his manslaughterconviction in September 2001, ruling
he did not receive a fair trial.
``A bike messenger has access to secure buildings. Who wants a guy like
this delivering their packages?'' said one police official who asked
not to be named.
Before killing Doyle, McCambridge had also served time on a 1966
manslaughter charge and for bank robbery.
McCambridge could not be reached for comment yesterday.
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