Amy Bishop in the NYT … Does the Times Bury the Lede?

The shootings on the university campus opened a window into the pressure-cooker world of biotechnology start-ups, where scientists often depend on their association with academia for a leg up. Ms. Bishop was part of a start-up that had won an early round of financing in a highly competitive environment, but people who knew her said she had learned shortly before the shooting that she had been denied tenure at the university.

If this is really the window that was opened, I’d say that this NY Times story buried the lede at graf 15 … is the open window really about the pressure cooker world of bio tech startups – or is it, instead, I don’t know, about cover ups and influence in Boston a couple of decades back?

On Saturday afternoon, the police in Braintree, Mass., announced that Ms. Bishop had fatally wounded her brother in their home 24 years ago, which The Boston Globe first reported on its Web site on Saturday. Ms. Bishop was not charged and the case records were no longer available, said Paul Frazier, the Braintree police chief.

“The release of Ms. Bishop did not sit well with the police officers,” Chief Frazier said in a statement, “and I can assure you that this would not happen in this day and age.”

He said that Ms. Bishop had fatally shot her brother, Seth Bishop, in an apparent argument, contradicting the police account at the time, which said it was an accident.

Chief Frazier said that he had spoken with Officer Ronald Solimini, who was on duty at the time of that shooting. At a news conference on Saturday, the chief said that the original account had been inaccurate. The Globe reported that while he was reluctant to use the word “cover-up,” Chief Frazier said it did not “look good” that the detailed records of the case have been missing since 1988.

In 1986, The Globe quoted John Polio, the Braintree police chief at the time, as saying that Ms. Bishop, then about 20, had asked her mother, Judith, how to unload a 12-gauge shotgun. While Ms. Bishop was handling the weapon, it fired, hitting her brother in the abdomen, according to the Globe’s account.

Chief Frazier said in his statement that Officer Solimini “remembers that Ms. Bishop fired a round from a pump-action shotgun into the wall of her bedroom. She had a fight with her brother and shot him, which caused his death. She fired a third round from the shotgun into the ceiling as she exited the home. She fled down the street with the shotgun in her hand. At one point she allegedly pointed the shotgun at a motor vehicle in an attempt to get the driver to stop.”

Another officer, Timothy Murphy, seized the shotgun, and Ms. Bishop was handcuffed and transported to the police station under arrest, Chief Frazier said.

He said that he had spoken with the person who had been the booking officer at the time, who recalled getting a phone call “he believes was from then Police Chief John Polio or possibly from a captain on Chief Polio’s behalf” to stop the booking process. Ms. Bishop was released into the custody of her mother, and the two left the police station via a rear exit, Chief Frazier said.

But Mr. Polio, 87, reached at home on Saturday, called even the suggestion of a cover-up laughable and said that the case had been handled lawfully. He said that he remembered there being a shooting and recalled that Ms. Bishop and her brother were “horsing around.”

“Everything was done that should have been done under the circumstances,” Mr. Polio said in a phone interview. “She was questioned, and then turned over to her mother. The determination was made that we were going to turn the inquiry over to the district attorney.”

The district attorney at the time was William Delahunt, a Democrat, who is now a Congressman.

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