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Yahoo
3 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
ICE agents ‘doxed' on social media, wear masks after receiving death threats, director says
Why do the agents wear masks? Monday's press conference in Boston had essentially ended. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons had walked off the stage with other federal law enforcement officials, just as a reporter asked the question. They had just announced the arrest of nearly 1,500 people in Massachusetts, in the month of May alone, who are living in the U.S. illegally. More than half of those arrests, Lyons said, were of people with 'significant' criminal backgrounds -- convicted murderers sought by Interpol, child rapists, drug traffickers. Moments later, Lyons, a native of South Boston and a graduate of Boston College High School in Dorchester, walked back onto the stage. 'Hang on. I'm going to answer the mask question," he said. Federal officers have been 'doxed' on social media, and often wear masks while on duty and making immigration arrests after officers, and their families, have received death threats, Lyons said. 'A lot of agencies were invited to come out two weeks ago in Los Angeles where we ran our operation where ICE officers were doxed,' Lyons said. 'So let's just say that again. People are out there taking photos of the names, their faces and posting them online with death threats to their family and themselves,' Lyons said. 'So I'm sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I'm not gonna let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line and their family on the line because people don't like what immigration enforcement is,' Lyons said. In press releases released by ICE, when the agency publicly releases photographs of the arrests of foreign nationals who are in the United States illegally, federal agents are typically shown not facing the camera, or they wear masks covering their face. 'They are wearing those masks because we ran an operation with the Secret Service where we arrested someone that was going online, taking their photos, posting their families', their kids' Instagram, their kids Facebooks' and targeting them,' Lyons said Monday. In late May, Lyons said assaults against ICE officers are up 400 percent since this time period last year. Lyons' comments about the masks came weeks after reported assaults on law enforcement officers in a Worcester neighborhood on May 8. On May 16, the city of Worcester released body camera footage after chaos erupted when a crowd surrounded and assaulted law enforcement officers. A link to the full body camera video can be found here. ICE agents at the time were trying to detain Brazilian national Rosane Ferreira de Oliveira, 40, who is in the country illegally and faces previous criminal assault charges, federal authorities said. Several people, including City Councilor Etel Haxhiaj and Worcester School Committee candidate Ashley Spring, are seen in the videos shouting angrily at the officers and pushing and shoving the officers. Spring, 38, was later arrested, accused of throwing an unknown substance at an officer. During Monday's press conference, U.S. Attorney Leah Foley denounced anyone who threatens, assaults or interferes with law enforcement officers doing their job. 'We will not tolerate anyone who impedes or obstructs ICE operations,' Foley said. 'What I have seen on the news and in social media is concerning, to say the least.' 'Agent safety is paramount and it is a felony to threaten or assault a federal agent. I want to be clear about that,' Foley said Monday. 'No one is above the law. This is non-negotiable. The law in this area is clear and I will not sit idly by and watch federal agents being threatened.' Lyons, in talking about the masks, echoed Foley's comments. He also posed a few questions to reporters. 'So let me ask: Is that the issue here? That we're just upset about the masks? Or is anyone upset with the fact that ICE officers' families were labeled terrorist?' Lyons said. And Lyons walked off the stage. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Boston Globe
Convicted former Catholic priest exposed by Spotlight investigation dies at 87
Talbot was one of the subjects of The Boston Globe's investigation into priest sexual abuse that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 and was adapted into the 2015 movie 'Spotlight.' The investigation revealed widespread sexual abuse, and coverup of that abuse, within the Catholic Church. Jesuits USA East did not offer a comment about Talbot's death. Related : Advertisement He pleaded guilty in 2018 to gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual for sexually abusing a 9-year-old boy at a Maine church in the 1990s. He was sentenced to three years in prison. Prior to the Maine conviction, Talbot spent six years in prison after pleading guilty to raping and sexually assaulting two students in Boston. He has settled lawsuits with more than a dozen victims in addition to the convictions. Talbot was a former teacher and athletic coach at Boston College High School from 1972 to 1980 before he was transferred to Maine, where he worked at Cheverus High School in Portland until 1998. Former Boston College High School student Jim Scanlan, 63, reported Talbot's abuse in Massachusetts. The Associated Press doesn't typically use the names of sexual assault victims without their consent, which Scanlan provided. His reports led to charges against Talbot. Advertisement Scanlan said he has reached out to others who were abused by Talbot. He said he holds people in positions of power within the church accountable for allowing Talbot to continue abusing children over many years. Scanlan said he has tried to deal with his anger at Talbot, but it's a long process. 'The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference,' Scanlan said. 'Maybe I just parked him away a long time ago, resolved I couldn't change what happened.' Jesuits USA East said Talbot had been residing at the Vianney Renewal Center in Dittmer, Missouri, prior to entering hospice care. The center cares for sexually abusive priests and provides other health care services. Talbot's case was emblematic of a pattern of behavior in the Catholic church about how it dealt with sexual abuse and priests. Accusations against him went back decades, and in that time he was transferred to new jurisdictions. Allegations of a cover-up went all the way up to Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston. The Globe investigation revealed Law and his predecessors had transferred abusive priests from parish to parish without alerting authorities, or parents. Law died in 2017. The investigation into the Catholic church opened up wider queries into sex abuse in other religious institutions that uncovered abuse in other faiths and the Boy Scouts.
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Convicted former Catholic priest exposed by Spotlight investigation dies at 87
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — James Talbot, a former Catholic priest convicted of sexually assaulting boys in Maine and Massachusetts after he was exposed by the investigation highlighted in the movie 'Spotlight,' has died. He was 87. Talbot, a former Jesuit, appeared on a list provided by the religious order of northeastern Jesuits who faced credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. Talbot died on Feb. 28 at a hospice center in St. Louis, said Mike Gabriele, a spokesperson for Jesuits USA East. Talbot was one of the subjects of The Boston Globe's investigation into priest sexual abuse that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 and was adapted into the 2015 movie 'Spotlight.' The investigation revealed widespread sexual abuse, and coverup of that abuse, within the Catholic Church. Jesuits USA East did not offer a comment about Talbot's death. He pleaded guilty in 2018 to gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual for sexually abusing a 9-year-old boy at a Maine church in the 1990s. He was sentenced to three years in prison. Prior to the Maine conviction, Talbot spent six years in prison after pleading guilty to raping and sexually assaulting two students in Boston. He has settled lawsuits with more than a dozen victims in addition to the convictions. Talbot was a former teacher and athletic coach at Boston College High School from 1972 to 1980 before he was transferred to Maine, where he worked at Cheverus High School in Portland until 1998. Former Boston College High School student Jim Scanlan, 63, reported Talbot's abuse in Massachusetts. The Associated Press doesn't typically use the names of sexual assault victims without their consent, which Scanlan provided. His reports led to charges against Talbot. Scanlan said he has reached out to others who were abused by Talbot. He said he holds people in positions of power within the church accountable for allowing Talbot to continue abusing children over many years. Scanlan said he has tried to deal with his anger at Talbot, but it's a long process. 'The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference,' Scanlan said. 'Maybe I just parked him away a long time ago, resolved I couldn't change what happened.' Jesuits USA East said Talbot had been residing at the Vianney Renewal Center in Dittmer, Missouri, prior to entering hospice care. The center cares for sexually abusive priests and provides other health care services. Talbot's case was emblematic of a pattern of behavior in the Catholic church about how it dealt with sexual abuse and priests. Accusations against him went back decades, and in that time he was transferred to new jurisdictions. Allegations of a cover-up went all the way up to Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston. The Globe investigation revealed Law and his predecessors had transferred abusive priests from parish to parish without alerting authorities, or parents. Law died in 2017.
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Boston Globe
When evil dies: Victims of disgraced priest James Talbot are indifferent to his death
James Talbot, who as a priest raped Scanlan and other boys when he taught at Boston College High School, then raped more boys after he was quietly shipped from Boston to Maine, was not worthy of an emotion so intense, so draining, so overwhelming, as hate; that Talbot simply is not deserving of Jim Scanlan's deepest feelings. 'There's an old saying, and I didn't know what it meant until now. 'The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference,' ' Scanlan said. Nonetheless that anger, that sense of enduring grievance, did eventually well up, and it was and is directed at Talbot's superiors, the Jesuit order and priests who knew, who covered up, who quietly moved Talbot out of BC High in Dorchester so he could rape more boys at a Jesuit high school in Portland, Maine, so he could sexually assault 'They were not just complicit,' Scanlan said. 'They facilitated it.' Advertisement James Talbot is shown in Suffolk Superior Court in January 2005, in Boston. Matt Stone/Associated Press Scanlan's anger was not assuaged by the fact the Jesuit order that produced Talbot didn't have the decency to inform the survivors of Talbot's horrific sexual abuse that he was dead. This from the superiors who for so long ignored the groundswell of evidence and even after Talbot pleaded guilty in two cases still took him and provided comfort at the Campion Center in Weston. Advertisement Scanlan heard it this week from a friend, who heard it from an old Jesuit, who heard it from someone else. There was no formal announcement, however, no formal obituary, from the Society of Jesus, as the Jesuits are known. When I called the Jesuits, looking for answers, they didn't offer much. Mike Gabriele, director of communications for the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus, kept it brief. 'All I can release about the death of James Talbot is that he died at the age of 87 on February 28, 2025. He had been residing at the Vianney Renewal Center in Dittmer, MO, for some years and died in hospice care in St. Louis,' Gabriele said. The Vianney Center is a behavioral health and addiction treatment facility for Catholic clergy and religious. Asked where Talbot was buried and whether the Jesuits should let Talbot's victims know he was dead, Gabriele added, 'The policy of the USA East Province is not to release a statement or obituary (including place of burial) for any Jesuit credibly accused of sexual abuse.' So, three months after Talbot died, armed with only hearsay because the Jesuits didn't tell anyone who deserved to know, Jim Scanlan took it upon himself to get the word out to as many of Talbot's victims as possible, through a network of survivors whose numbers are stored on his phone and computer. But as he texted and left messages, Scanlan realized he would only reach a fraction of those raped and wounded and hurt so grievously by Talbot. He remembers Talbot's hearing before the Massachusetts Parole Board, seeking release after serving six years for raping Scanlan and two other boys at BC High. The parole board members were questioning Talbot about the sex offender program he was enrolled in at prison, that Talbot was at a stage in the program where he admits to the number of victims he abused. And Talbot, in his own words, acknowledged it was 89. Advertisement 'I can't get to all of the 88 others,' Scanlan said, 'but they deserve to know. Maybe it will bring closure for some of them. Maybe it won't. But they deserve to know.' One victim Scanlan reached is Mike Doherty, who in 1998 was the first to publicly accuse Talbot of sexual abuse Doherty effectively blew the whistle on The civil lawsuit Doherty filed Given the malevolence of Dawber and others vouching for Talbot when they knew he was a rampant sex offender, it is ironic they inadvertently exposed him to criminal charges when they cleared his transfer to Portland. Of the thousands of priests who raped and molested minors, Talbot was among the few to face justice in a courtroom and years in a cell. Advertisement When Talbot moved from Massachusetts to Maine in 1980, the clock on the statute of limitations froze. That allowed then-Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley to f Using the premise that it would toughen them up, Talbot, a soccer and hockey coach at BC High, would wrestle his charges, sometimes when they were clad only in jockstraps, sometimes after plying them with beer. In that compromised position, he sexually assaulted the boys. Doherty was the victim of another ploy; Talbot ingratiated himself to Doherty's family to the point where he had his own room in the Doherty home in Freeport. Talbot used that trust and access to molest Doherty. He did the same to another family in Freeport, sexually assaulting the 9-year-old son of a couple whose marriage he had presided over. After Talbot offered to hear the boy's first confession, the grateful mother waited outside as Talbot assaulted the boy inside a church. Jim Scanlan and Mike Doherty were in the courtroom in Maine in 2018, showing support for that boy, now a man, and seeing off Talbot to prison for three years. Doherty told me he has a different take on the Jesuits taking Talbot at the Weston center and the treatment facility in Missouri. 'If they hadn't taken care of him, he would have been out there in the wind, with no one keeping an eye on him,' Doherty said. Advertisement But, like Scanlan, Doherty feels the Jesuits had an obligation to inform Talbot's victims of his death. 'I stopped wanting 10 minutes with a baseball bat in a room with Talbot a long time ago,' Doherty said. 'I pitied him more than anything. A man of such talent and intellect, squandered all that to further his proclivity. He ended up being a sad individual.' Doherty has been working on a book about Talbot and the lies, the coverup and life-altering harm done to him, Jim Scanlan and at least 87 other boys. He already has a working title, a play on words from the Jesuit motto of 'Men for Others.' Doherty's book will be called, 'Men for Others, Boys for Us.' Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at
3 days ago
Convicted former Catholic priest exposed by Spotlight investigation dies at 87
PORTLAND, Maine -- James Talbot, a former Catholic priest convicted of sexually assaulting boys in Maine and Massachusetts after he was exposed by the investigation that led to the movie 'Spotlight,' has died. He was 87. Talbot, a former Jesuit, appeared on a list provided by the religious order of northeastern Jesuits who faced credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. Talbot died on Feb. 28 at a hospice center in St. Louis, said Mike Gabriele, a spokesperson for Jesuits USA East. Talbot was one of the subjects of an investigation into priest sex abuse by The Boston Globe that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 and was adapted into the 2015 movie 'Spotlight.' The investigation revealed widespread sexual abuse, and coverup of that abuse, within the Catholic Church. Jesuits USA East did not offer a comment about Talbot's death. He pleaded guilty in 2018 to gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual contact after charges that he sexually abused a 9-year-old boy at a Maine church in the 1990s. He was ordered to serve three years in prison for that conviction. Prior to the Maine conviction, Talbot spent six years in prison after pleading guilty to raping and sexually assaulting two students in Boston. He has settled lawsuits with more than a dozen victims in addition to the convictions. Talbot was a former teacher and athletic coach at Boston College High School from 1972 to 1980 who then transferred to Maine. He was at Cheverus High School in Portland, Maine, until 1998. Former Boston College High School student Jim Scanlan, 63, reported Talbot's abuse in Massachusetts. The Associated Press does not typically use the names of sexual assault victims without their consent, which Scanlan provided. His reports led to criminal charges against Talbot. Scanlan said he has reached out to other survivors of Talbot's abuse. He said he holds people in positions of power within the church accountable for allowing Talbot to continue committing abuse over many years. Scanlan said he has tried to move on from his own anger at Talbot, but it's a long process. 'The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference,' Scanlan said. 'Maybe I just parked him away a long time ago, resolved I couldn't change what happened.' Jesuits USA East said Talbot had been residing at the Vianney Renewal Center in Dittmer, Missouri, prior to entering hospice care. The center cares for sexually abusive priests as well as providing other health care services.
