Quincy News: At vigil, a plea for answers on what happened

The victim and his three sons
A family photo
– News covered by Quincy Quarry News with commentary added.

At vigil, a plea for answers on what happened.

Several hundred people gathered in Squantum Friday night at a vigil held in the wake of 44-year-old Bridgewater resident and Squantum native Christopher McCallum.

Mr. McCallum died three weeks ago today from injuries suffered while trying to apprently attempting to break up a fight outside of the Nickerson American Legion Post on Moon Road on Squantum in the wee of hours of the start of the day before.

As for those who spoke at the vigil, the deceased’s widow was the most impressive as she is surely living an unimaginable nightmare.

Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch, who spoke first, however, not so much. Then again, Mayor Koch often is less than aces when not reading from prepared text, especially that which is not also ghosted for him.

While multiple reports have it that Christopher died after he was sucker punched while trying to break up fight, there have yet to be any arrest(s) made in connection with this homicide.

As such, the widow and the minister who spoke at the vigil encouraged that any witnesses come forward as well as that the sucker puncher also do so if for no other reason than his own conscious and immortal soul.

The reason for their suggestions: the investigation appears to have been a problematic one.

For example, the Quincy Police Department announced that it had pulled out of the investigation to avoid a potential conflict of interest over two weeks ago.

A Quincy Police Department senior officer announced that the department decided to pull Quincy police detectives off the investigation and turn over all related materials to the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office.

Said the police official, “a lot of our investigators know people involved in the investigation and as a result of that, we made the decision to turn it over to the district attorney to avoid any potential conflicts.”

As there is no compelling reason for the Quincy Police Department to have to recuse itself from a homicide investigation given its investigators knowing the deceased, his family, friends, any possible innocent victims or witnesses, the only plausible reason would appear to be that word on the street for three weeks that the purported sucker puncher has various and close ties to the department has merit.

And as for not yet making an arrest, one would like to hope that the District Attorney and State Police homicide investigators are developing an ironclad case as opposed to perhaps facing problems with omerta sorts of impediments or possibly irreparable problems with the preliminary investigation.

Alternatively, given comparable but lesser appearance of possible familiarity, perhaps the Norfolk District Attorney is in the process of turning over the prosecution of this homicide case to another district attorney’s office.

No arrest, no justice
A file photo c/o Flickr
Regardless, given that a name of the suspected sucker puncher has been widely and consistently rumored since Mr. McCallum’s death, three weeks without an arrest baits all manner of perfectly legitimate questions.

That and how rumblings of all manner of collateral issues would appear to suggest that additional outside reviews may be in order.

For but starters, why the Nickerson Legion Post’s liquor license has not been at least temporarily suspended given Mr. McCallum’s wholly undeserved death.