These two iconic individuals approached their fatal encounter Colono was a high school drop-out with a three-year-old The facts of the case are interesting if not unusual. Colono Cambridgeport is a funky and somewhat seedy corner of Cambridge, Pring-Wilson was waltzing home, specifically, from a dark The basic facts are uncontested. Pring-Wilson, according The occupants of the car got out. Verbal abuse escalated The victim might have lived had he been taken directly Public opinion on the case was as sharply divided as the Supporters of Pring-Wilson, including most of the Harvard So it came as no surprise that both sides were outraged Now, despite its inherent drama and socio-cultural implications, Even then the Western Front was a shady crossroads of roots The laundromat on Western that is now Pizza Ring is actually Not being the quickest tick on the dog’s tail at the best Unlike Pring-Wilson thirty years later on virtually the The whole thing was over in seconds. As we lay, stunned, "Lookie, man! He got PEELS! He got LOTSA peels!" <\/p>\n "Shuddup, man, an’ get otta there!"<\/p>\n But he grabbed the blue-and-white capsules on his way out Following the mugging, we gathered up our laundry, dumped For a couple of weeks we kept a half-hearted eye on the So what are the morals of this little vignette? First, article on the verdict from the Boston Globe<\/a><\/p>\n article<\/a> about the case from the Harvard Crimson<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Seldom has a situation so dramatically exposed the centuries old Town vs Gown clash of cultures in Cambridge, Mass as the recently concluded trial of Harvard grad student Alexander Pring-Wilson for the murder of Michael Colono, an 18-year-old short order … Continue reading ![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/PringWilson.jpg\")
Seldom
\n has a situation so dramatically exposed the centuries old Town vs Gown
\n clash of cultures in Cambridge, Mass as the recently
\n concluded trial<\/a> of Harvard grad student Alexander Pring-Wilson for the murder of Michael
\n Colono, an 18-year-old short order cook who lived in the area.<\/p>\n
\n outside the Pizza Ring restaurant in Cambridgeport from opposite sides
\n of the track. Pring-Wilson was finishing a Master’s Degree in Russian
\n and Slavic Languages, he spoke Greek, Russian, Portuguese, and Croatian,
\n was writing his master’s dissertation on the governments of the former
\n Yugoslavia. He played football and rugby in prep school and was decided
\n on a career in law. He had been accepted by several top law schools.<\/p>\n
\n son and a criminal record. At the time of his death we was on parole
\n for a 2001 conviction for selling crack cocaine.<\/p>\n
\n was sitting in a car with his girlfriend and a cousin, waiting for a
\n pizza. It
\n was after midnight, near closing time for the bars nearby when Pring-Wilson
\n came walking by on a wet April night last year.<\/p>\n
\n nestled in a bend in the Charles River near the BU Bridge, one of the
\n few areas of affordable housing left in the city, which is why it is
\n popular with students, working class families pizzerias and down-scale
\n bars.<\/p>\n
\n dive called the Western Front, with which the Dowbrigade is intimately
\n familiar (more on that later). The Western Front, a Reggae Boyz dive
\n with ties to the local underworld, and neighborhood grease joint Pizza
\n Ring are within a few blocks of each other across Putnam Avenue.<\/p>\n
\n to reports at the time, was wearing a shiny yellow rain slicker and flip-flops.
\n The homeboy yelled something from the backseat of the car in reference
\n to the grad student’s unusual garb. The student responded with some variation
\n of "You talkin’ to me?" A confrontation ensued.<\/p>\n
\n into physical conflict. Aided by his cousin, the eventual victim was
\n getting the better of the contest when the beleaguered grad student whipped
\n out a three-inch folding knife he carried in his right front pocket.
\n Colono was stabbed five time, once in the heart, <\/p>\n
\n to a hospital (there are at least 3 in Cambridge), but he died while
\n his friends drove him across the river and around in circles, lost in
\n the streets of Boston. Pring-Wilson called the police and reported he
\n had
\n witnessed
\n a fight,
\n but hadn’t been involved.<\/p>\n
\n contrast between these two young men. Colono’s family and community lauded
\n him as a promising young man with a troubled past who was finally getting
\n it together. They feared the system would naturally favor the scion
\n of wealth and privilege, to the point of letting him get away with murder.<\/p>\n
\n community, saw a clear cut case of self-defense. Many, in fact, said
\n privately that Pring-Wilson had done the community a service by removing
\n a dangerous
\n thug and drug dealer from the mean streets of Cambridge.<\/p>\n
\n at the verdict last week – guilty of manslaughter, 8 to 10 years in prison.
\n The townies say it was cold-blooded murder and the kid got off light
\n because of Harvard connections. Pring-Wilson’s parents (both lawyers
\n and, one would suppose, one Pring and the other Wilson) vow to appeal
\n the verdict, although on what grounds is far from clear.<\/p>\n
\n this story has a more personal significance to the Dowbrigade, as at
\n one point during our long-ago undergraduate career we live right across
\n the street from the Western Front, and around the corner from Pizza
\n Ring, which at that time was the Western Ave Laundromat.<\/p>\n
\n rock reggae and underground distribution of all sorts of Caribbean products. We
\n weren’t regulars, but would often stop by for a quiet drink at the bar,
\n if they were still open at the hour we returned to our apartment at 172
\n Putnam Ave. We were usually the only white folk in the place.<\/p>\n
\n where we washed our clothes that long-ago season, until one warm summer
\n night when we were collecting our last dryer load shortly before 11 pm
\n closing time. Other than the Dowbrigade, the place was deserted. Just
\n as we were folding our psychedelic wood-grain corduroy pants, seven
\n large
\n and lively
\n local teenagers
\n burst
\n into the laundry.<\/p>\n
\n of times, the first inkling we had that these individuals were not there
\n to check their dryer sheets was when three of them grabbed me from each
\n side and forced me to the floor of the laundry. We felt frantic hands
\n going through our pockets and removing the $17 plus change we happened
\n to be carrying at the time.<\/p>\n
\n same spot, we knew enough not to fight back. Survival instinct combined
\n naturally with our innate cowardice and we almost smiled at our assailants
\n in an attempt to appear cooperative.<\/p>\n
\n on the laundry floor and the gang headed out the door with their booty,
\n one of the youths noticed the plastic baggie that had half fallen from
\n our Hawaiian shirt’s breast pocket.<\/p>\n
\n the door, which if memory serves were something called "Soapers", a sort
\n of chemical martini-in-a-capsule, guaranteed to loosen up the inhibited
\n school marm
\n and chase the inhibitions away from the most paranoid compulsive. We
\n gave them up later that same summer, after waking up and finding a set
\n of fishnet stockings and a dead kitten in our apartment, with no memory
\n of how either had gotten there.<\/p>\n
\n it on our bed, and borrowed ten bucks form Big Jim our roommate, and
\n headed across the street for a couple of shots of whiskey to calm the
\n nerves.
\n When the bartender asked about the torn brest pocket on our Hawaiian
\n shirt, we told him our pet chimpanzee had ripped it grabbing for a banana
\n life saver.<\/p>\n
\n neighborhood street-dealing scene, half expecting the blue-and-white
\n capsules to show up, or for one of the punks to show the obvious effects
\n of powerful
\n muscle relaxant intoxication, but the way those kids staggered around
\n on a regular basis it was impossible to tell.<\/p>\n
\n that for all of its intellectual veneer, Cambridge has always had a
\n tough, gritty underbelly that can eat up a grad student and spit out
\n pits so tiny no one will ever know what happened, and so one must be
\n aware at all times of exactly where one is. In addition, if attacked,
\n run away. Should
\n this prove impossible, go limp, roll up into a ball, or piss your pants,
\n but DON’T
\n FIGHT BACK. Finally, if you are determined to go to a dangerous, hard-core
\n roots Reggae roadhouse, don’t dress like a dork.<\/p>\n