CHEERS to Gavin Natti for coming to the rescue of a stranded school bus.
Natti, a junior at Essex Tech in Danvers, was driving along Route 128 Wednesday when he came upon the bus in the breakdown lane. While others might speed past, the 17-year-old Gloucester resident pulled over to see if he could help.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” Natti, a student in the school’s auto technology program, told reporter Paul Leighton. “I didn’t know if it was a medical issue. I figured I might as well stop to make sure he’s OK and see what else was going on.”
As it turns out, the bus was the one he used to take before he got his license, and he knew the driver. After rooting around under the hood, it became evident the vehicle needed a new serpentine belt. So Natti went off to three different auto parts stores in an unsuccessful search for a replacement. By the time he returned to the bus with his tools, an Essex Tech mechanic had arrived and they installed the replacement together.
Natti downplayed his act of service, but we feel it deserves praise. As his mother, Jess Roberts, said, “He went from riding the bus to fixing it.”
JEERS to vandals who hoped to throw a scare into Salem’s Satanic Temple and instead risked the safety of an entire neighborhood.
Thanks to its high profile and willingness to debate such issues as freedom of expression and freedom of religion across the region and across the country, the temple has been a magnet for protest since it was founded in 2013. Its staff regularly receives death threats, and it’s a regular target of bomb hoaxes and doxxing.
Early last Monday morning, however, someone threw an explosive device onto the porch of the Bridge Street temple. Luckily, the bomb quickly fizzled out after doing some limited damage to the front door.
“The device failed to cause as much damage as we believe the person who threw it intended, but it did cause damage and ignite,” Salem police Chief Lucas Miller said. “But it didn’t have nearly as powerful an effect as the perpetrator intended.”
It could have been far worse. The temple is in a mixed-residential neighborhood with an elementary school nearby. Now, the FBI is investigating.
“Salem is a welcoming place and violent attacks like this are utterly reprehensible,” Salem Mayor Dominick Pangallo said.
“On behalf of the city, I want to extend our support for the staff and members at the temple and the residents of the neighborhood who have been impacted by this crime. We’ll continue working to identify ways to improve the security of the area, to help ensure the safety of all our community members.”
It’s the right response. In reality, it’s the only response. The First Amendment belongs to everyone.
Finally, CHEERS to a new program aimed at avoiding calamity at routine traffic stops.
State police unveiled their Blue Envelope program at a Statehouse event last week.
Working in conjunction with the Department of Motor Vehicles, the voluntary program provides blue envelopes to drivers on the autism spectrum. The drivers can then place their license, registration and insurance cards inside the envelope, which signals to police and other public safety workers during stressful moments such as accidents and traffic stops that a driver is on the spectrum.
The envelope can also be used to provide first responders with guidance on how to handle specific behaviors, such as stimming, or repetitive body movements.
“It is incumbent on us, as law enforcement officers and compassionate community caretakers, to recognize and mitigate the stressful effects that interaction with a police officer can have on a person with autism,” state police Col. John Mawn said in a statement.
“The Blue Envelope Program is an important step toward that goal.”
The program was developed in cooperation with advocacy groups, and is elegant in its simplicity. The state police are stocking the envelopes in their barracks and expect them to be made available soon at local police departments.
