BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY OCT. 4, 2017) — The only silence you hear in the bedraggled city of Pittsfield comes from when the mayor, police chief, council president, and school committee chairwoman in that rank refuse to officially speak to the public through the press following yet another shooting and murder.

Indeed, if the Las Vegas mass murder had happened in the “dynamic, vibrant” city in the valley with the new $6000 cheeseball garbage cans, citizens begging for information would have discovered The Lovely Linda Tyer suddenly vacationing in Montreal, interim police chief Mike Wynn having rushed to an important charity golf tournament in Worcester, city council president Peter Marchetti playing with himself in a broom closet at the Pittsfield Co-op Bank, and school committee chief Kathy Yon having her body lowered after doctors determined the hopelessness of a facelift.

And so it happened again, a short Par 3 from Hotel on North and Trashcan Tyer’s “vibrant, dynamic” downtown, that a bystander met a piece of lead with her name not on it. That didn’t stop the bullet, however. Errant shots from a “hail of gunfire” do not have GPS.  A day after the shooting, morally bankrupt city “leaders” still had not uttered a word on the matter except for a lame statement from the D.A’s office, leaving the streets to begin their buzz. That’s not the best way to get information, but when the Knowers won’t spill what they know, the guessers will begin to guess.

THE PLANET wasn’t even looking for this story, but it found us. We were the first media outlet reporting the incident through our vast network of correspondents, spies, gum shoes, and Z-agents in the Secret Squadron, who got to us faster than Shot Spotter though not “faster than a speeding bullet.” PLANET commentators got word here first. From there, it spread like wildfire (yeah, “no one reads us!”). They couldn’t go to The Boring Broadsheet because that site’s new management long ago blocked access and shut down readers’ ability to comment on stories, something this site has never done and will never do.

THE PLANET gladly credits an assist from our colleagues at iBerkshires, with that website coming in shortly after with more details and at least the semblance of a news story. Under the circumstances, it did a great job.. In fact, through iBerkshires’ initial reports, we learned that the police department wouldn’t talk to the press. We put that in italics for emphasis. Dutifully, in its first story, iBerkshires reported that upsetting fact. In its update to the story, however, the website removed that juicy tidbit of information.

Here it is, a news organization calling the police on a murder, with a million questions outstanding, and the police refuse to talk. That, my friends, is spectacularly unacceptable. In any other city with the kind of responsible leadership Pittsfield does NOT have, that would have led to an immediate phone call from the corner office rectifying the situation, even if heads had to roll.

We also credit Masslive for being first in to publish a picture of the victim.

Here are the facts are we know them:

• Just before 11 p.m. Monday night, a “hail of gunfire” broke out at and near the intersection of Dewey Avenue and Linden Street.
• Asiyanna Jones, 22, was hit with a bullet.
• Jones was a passenger in the front seat of a car. It appears the car was parked near there and not in motion, although that hasn’t been officially confirmed.
• The driver of the car took the wounded woman to BMC (bad timing with the nurses on strike).
• From there she was airlifted to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield.
• She died at 4 a.m.

Because neither the mayor nor police will officially answer reporters questions, THE PLANET went through the back door. In a “lockdown” city, neither press nor citizens are deemed worthy enough to receive the information they need to respectively report the facts thereby receiving the information they need to adequately self govern.

From police sources and our eyes and ears on the street, here’s what we’ve been told. Keep in mind that none of this is confirmed. Your clammed-up city officials would have it no other way:

• Jones was in a parked car.
• She wasn’t the intended victim.
• She may have known one of the shooters.
• The gunfire involved multiple shooters
• There was a shootout, that is, shots fired and shots returned.
• The shootout came from a gang turf dispute.
• There also may have been a drug deal gone bad.
• The police’s refusal to speak with iBerkshires came on direction.

Police sources, speaking strictly on condition of anonymity and on the further understanding that no actual quotes be used, say that after the shooting, a directive came from on high (Tyer? Wynn? They wouldn’t say.) not to speak with any press people calling about the incident, including THE PLANET. Here’s the worst part. They tell us further that the move was done while Jones was still alive.

Apparently, the city’s “leadership” were pinning their hopes on the shooting not being fatal, that the woman would recover. This would allow them to downplay the incident and even keep it from the public’s knowledge altogether, in a similar manner that you haven’t heard a further peep from Tyer, Wynn, or anybody else on the recent shooting-by-cop.

If that information is correct, the cynical move makes the sleaze of Pittsfield’s typical, everyday barroom politics look like they had just passed Mr. Clean‘s white-glove inspection. It would call for an independent and highly public probe. It would also be in line to demand the mayor’s immediate resignation.

That’s fantasy, we realize, because this is Pittsfield, where the nefarious, larded “taken care of” Elements own all of the city’s primary governmental, social, and cultural institutions: mayor’s office, city council, police and school departments, courts, local daily newspaper, museum, you name it: All, bought by The Suits, who will never sell back to citizens, at any price.

They only way Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski will ever get back their government is to take it by force.

That, too, will never happen. Unless …

Pittsfield is dead, thank you.

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“It don’t really matter to me, baby. Everybody’s got to fight to be free. See, you don’t have to live like a refugee” — Tom Petty and the Heatbreakers.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

The Usual Disclaimer.