They got Whitey

[Mack27]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110623/ap_on_re_us/us_whitey_bulger_arrested

It seems like anyone with any connection to South Boston has a Whitey Bulger story. I was going to share a couple of my own, but it feels like I'm not supposed to tell that stuff to outsiders, like someone I love could disappear in the night if I say one cross word about the fearsome "Prince of Southie." I'm amazed how normal everyday people in South Boston still defend him like he was one of their own, but somehow I understand it at the same time.

http://bostonherald.com.nyud.net/news/regional/view/2011_0623southie_stunned_hometown_mobster_bagged/

And some longtime Southie inhabitants expressed a touch of sympathy of for the accused serial-killing gangster, willing to overlook some of his crimes.

“I don’t think he’s nearly as bad as he was made out to be. I know he was a crook but I don’t know if he was the crook they made him out to be. I’m sure he killed some or had them killed. I believe he was corrupt, but I believe he knew so much,” said a 76-year-old man who said he was a friend of Billy’s. “I don’t think they ever wanted him caught. He’ll be tried, but what can happen to him at his age. Life (in prison) is nothing.”

Added another 65-year-old man who didn’t want to give his name: “He did some good things for old people, for people behind in their rent. He bought groceries for people but he did some bad things too.”

The guy is a ruthless killer, charged with 19 murders that we know about, but the consensus is that there are dozens more. Yet when then Governor Mitt Romney was putting the screws to former state Senate president and then University of Massachusetts President Billy Bulger I was on Billy's side. Romney's thing was you couldn't hold a public service job when you refused to testify about your wanted brother's whereabouts. My attitude was that I'd never rat out one of my brothers no matter what he did. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/06/23/bulger%E2%80%99s-arrest-romney/

I'm curious how this story is viewed in the rest of the country?

 

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