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Boston License Law
If this law is about protecting the public then why allow others with
the same access as bike messenges to work without a police check?
Why allow car and foot messengers to do the same job without the same
restrictions?
More on the Boston Law
and for background check the
Boston
Crash Controversey
Convict appeals denial of
license as bike messenger
By Mac Daniel and John Ellement,
Boston Globe December 22, 2004
Jack McCambridge's run-ins with the law started early and often.
He stole a car when he was 17, has twice been convicted of manslaughter
and armed robbery, and served time for kidnapping.
Now, at 68, he wants to be a bike messenger in Boston -- and he's
trying to raise the issue of how government officials treat ex-convicts
trying to get back on track.
But the Boston Police Department licensing bureau will not give him a
permit to be a bicycle messenger due to his criminal past.
Yesterday, he lost an appeal hearing, though he and his supporters
argued that the license was meant for traffic safety, not to punish
people who have served time.
"If the Boston Police Department won't allow me at the age of 68 to
earn a living, what are they going to do to some 22-year-old kid just
out of prison?" said McCambridge, who rides his mountain bike while
working with programs that help newly-released inmates and the homeless.
Beverly Ford, a police spokeswoman, said McCambridge's criminal history
justifies the department's decision.
However, some officials are backing McCambridge's cause, including City
Councilor Chuck Turner and Somerville state Representative Patricia
Jehlen, who wrote to Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole on
McCambridge's behalf.
Jehlen said she was unaware of the extent of McCambridge's criminal
past, although she stands by the sentiment of her letter to O'Toole.
"I think that the licensing policies need to protect the public, but
they also need to be careful not to exclude people from any method of
getting a living," she said. "I wasn't writing a character reference
for an individual."
McCambridge's first manslaughter conviction was in 1964, when Robert S.
Charlebois reportedly used his last breath to tell police that
McCambridge shot him in McCambridge's car after they had been drinking
at a Roxbury bar and got into an argument. McCambridge said he shot in
self-defense, but was sentenced to prison.
He got out in 1972, but was convicted that year for armed robbery. He
escaped from prison in 1975 and was arrested in 1976 for robbing a bank
in Peabody. Shortly afterward, he was one of six Walpole inmates who
held a prison guard hostage.
He was released from prison in 1982. In 1993, McCambridge was again
drinking with an acquaintance. Troopers spotted a van weaving wildly on
the Southeast Expressway, but before they could stop it, the van
crashed and rolled over.
At first, police thought Richard A. Doyle's death was an accident, but
discovered at the hospital that he had been shot once in the head and
once in the chest.
McCambridge again told police he shot in self-defense. But he was
convicted of manslaughter again.
McCambridge, who was released from state prison Sept. 11, blames his
past crimes on alcoholism, and says he has been sober for his entire
time in prison of nearly 11 years.
"I had bought into the culture," he said. "I was brought up in reform
school, graduated from there to prison, and was surrounded by a
criminal cult."
McCambridge applied for a job at USA Couriers, a downtown bicycle
messenger service that sent his name to the Boston police, which has
been licensing bike couriers for the past nine years after a public
outcry over traffic safety.
Kris L. Wiegman, president of USA Couriers in Boston, said McCambridge
filled out an application in September but he did not mention his
criminal record.
"Bike messengers have access to a lot of things that can be stolen,"
she said. "They also have access to secured buildings, so they have to
be careful. I would doubt he'd be approved, and without the approval,
no one's going to hire him. It's illegal."
Hannah Chotiner-Gardner, 22, who works with McCambridge at the American
Friends Service Committee's prisoner reentry program in Cambridge, said
the courier job is important for McCambridge "because that's all he
has."
"That's the only chance he has at survival. He needs to feel like a
whole person, that he makes a contribution. How giving a man a bicycle
to deliver papers would somehow put other people at harm is beyond my
comprehension."
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