On the scene of Whitey Bulger's arrest (sort of)
I was born in Boston and moved away at the very end of 2001. Since then I've lived in Wisconsin, San Francisco, and now go to school back in New England. Over the course of the last 9.5 years, there have been a total of 9 championships won in those three places (Pats x3, Sox x 2, Celtics, SF Giants, Packers, and now the Bruins) and I have yet to actually be in the city of the champion when they won.
Well today I finally got my home-town win when Whitey Bulger was caught in Santa Monica by the FBI. Who cares about the Super Bowl? I literally jogged right by the most wanted man in America's house on the day he was caught. Seriously, I was right there.
Like I said, I grew up in Massachusetts so the legend of Whitey Bulger was a big thing, and a lot of my friends and family were texting or emailing me about it because they know I'm in Santa Monica. But everyone I worked with could not have cared less. I was talking about it all day at work and everybody just told me to be quiet. Even if you don't have any ties to Boston, the #1 guy on the FBI's most wanted list was just caught down the street. Only in LA.
Anyway, in case you missed it or haven't been paying too much attention to it, I rounded up a few of my favorite news stories on the capture. YouTube clip of people from South Boston's reaction:
100% exactly what you would expect. Still entertaining.
I also found this interview with Bulger's baby mama. I was very impressed that she knew the extradition laws in Lichtenstein, although I guess that's the type of stuff you learn when you sleep with a mobster. My favorite comment of hers, though, was when she said, "I worried about him possibly deciding to go out for something strange once in a while...that was the way I'd always though he'd get caught." I won't get explicit here, but the comment opened up Pandora's box of ideas as to what qualifies as "strange" for Whitey Bulger and what kind of presumably illegal things he does with his spare time.
I also can't let slide this story I found from the Washington Post about how the FBI used social media to catch Bulger. If you actually read the article there's like 2 lines about Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. I don't know exactly how the FBI got the tip, but I'd bet it wasn't from @SantaMonicaSoccerMom. I guess when everybody's writing about something you have to differentiate yourself somehow. Try again, Washington Post.