VIDEO: James Carver Released From Prison After 36 Years
James Carver was convicted of setting a deadly fire, but a judge set him free after reviewing new scientific evidence
On Sunday, I appeared on The Young Jurks to discuss my reporting about the James Carver case. Carver was convicted of killing 15 people by setting the 1984 Elliott Chambers fire in Beverly, Massachusetts. But after reviewing new scientific evidence, a judge overturned Carver’s convictions and set him free after he had spent 36 years in prison.
“They took my life away for nothing,” Carver told me in an interview. “I’ve always said that I’m not the person that was involved in [the fire], and I meant it.”
You can watch the show here:
I recently published a lengthy story about the case that discusses the impact Carver’s incarceration had on him and his family:
‘They took my life away for nothing.’
James Carver spent 36 years in prison after he was convicted of setting one of the deadliest fires in Massachusetts history. But after reviewing new scientific evidence, a judge set him free.
If you’re interested in learning more about the case, my first story about it discusses the evidence in greater depth. If you prefer to listen, I discussed many of the details from this story during a previous appearance on The Young Jurks.
Every Memorial Day, I share this documentary about Denis Reynoso.
A military veteran, Reynoso survived the Iraq War only to be killed by cops back home in Lynn, Massachusetts in September 2013.
Reynoso was experiencing a mental health crisis. He needed help. Instead, three Lynn cops entered his home and one of them shot him to death in front of his five-year-old son.
The Essex County District Attorney’s Office cleared the three cops of wrongdoing and they were later given medals for bravery by then-Governor Deval Patrick as if killing a man in crisis were something to celebrate.
According to the three officers, Reynoso grabbed an officer’s gun from its holster — where it should have been secured, but wasn’t — and fired it. The cops, fearing for their lives as cops are known to do, killed Reynoso.
It’s a story we hear again and again and again and again and again. Someone calls for help, the cops show up, and next thing you know someone’s dead from what newspapers call an “officer-involved shooting.”
Maybe Reynoso took the gun. Maybe he didn’t. Who’s to say for certain? There was no body camera video.
But I am certain that Resynoso wouldn’t have taken a cop’s gun or been killed if no cops had barged into his home on what was probably one of the worst days of his life.
Reynoso might still be alive if this country’s system for addressing mental health crises was sending unarmed people who are actually experts in dealing with mental health crises instead of just sending cops to kill the very people in need of help.
Just something to think about as the number of killings by police continues to increase every year and the Trump administration has decided to take a hands-off approach to police departments with documented patterns or practices of civil rights violations.
You can watch the Denis Reynoso documentary, which was made by NBC10 Boston’s Shira Stoll and uses some of my video, here:
On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Department of Correction said it agreed to pay more than $6 million to settle a class-action lawsuit by more than 150 men incarcerated at Souza-Baranowski prison who alleged that prison officers used excessive force and engaged in racial discrimination.
According to The Boston Globe:
Twenty inmates attacked several correctional officers at the prison and and seriously injured four of them on Jan. 10, 2020. Sixteen of the prisoners were criminally charged and transferred to other prisons.
Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts filed the federal lawsuit in Boston in 2022, alleging that the prison deployed SWAT officers, police dogs, and tasers in a campaign of collective punishment against inmates not involved in the assault.
US District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman ruled last fall that the suit could move forward, finding that corrections officers “used malicious and sadistic methods of force against prisoners, not to restore order but to punish prisoners for the actions of the few” who were involved in the assault.
Meanwhile, The Boston Herald reports that the DOC is lowering the minimum age for prison officers from 21 to 19:
“Reducing the minimum age to become a Correction Officer will allow us to recruit more dedicated, highly skilled workers to these important roles,” Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement on Thursday. “This change will help us build the next generation of corrections professionals to deliver on our goals of protecting public safety and supporting rehabilitation.”
DOC Commissioner Shawn Jenkins highlighted in a statement that the department is working “collaboratively” with the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union and that it appreciates the union’s “support” in trying to increase the workforce.
What could go wrong?
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Anyway, what’s all for now.