Drunk man armed with gun arrested at Boston St. Patrick’s Day parade, police say
By Riley Rourke
BOSTON – Police say a drunk man armed with a gun was arrested at the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in South Boston on Sunday.
A transit police officer noticed the armed 26-year-old man near the Andrew Red Line stop in South Boston and arrested him.
The MBTA Transit Police described the man as “highly intoxicated.”
The parade, which runs through 3.8 miles of South Boston, brought large crowds from all over the world to celebrate the Irish holiday.
The man’s name has not been released.
‘Y’all took all our weed.’ 62 jailed in St. Patrick’s ruse on Ga. highway
Annual holiday drug-and-DUI checkpoint ploy along freeway in rural Georgia continues to catch impaired motorists and others.
The scene on Friday, March 14, at Twiggs County’s annual Operation Wrong Exit, a drug and DUI checkpoint set up along the freeway southeast of Macon. (Joe Kovac Jr. / AJC)
March 18, 2025
DANVILLE — Here along I-16 over the weekend, 20 or so minutes southeast of Macon, the sheriff’s department’s annual Operation Wrong Exit reeled in scores of unsuspecting motorists who couldn’t resist the urge to elude the law.
Instead of evading detection, 62 drove themselves into handcuffs.
The setup was simple, and for more than a decade and a half it has worked like a St. Patrick’s Day charm.
Cops from across the state, led by Twiggs County sheriff’s deputies, place a pair of portable electronic message boards along the freeway’s eastbound lanes a quarter-mile before Exit 27.
They tried to give cops the slip and instead drove straight to them
“DUI & Drug Checkpoint Ahead,” the messages read.
As cars approach the signs, drivers can also see, just up the highway beneath an overpass, the flashing blue lights of two parked patrol cars.
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But the cars are empty. They’re decoys. And, invariably, motorists with something to hide — drugs, opened booze, weapons they shouldn’t have — choose to dart off the interstate and up what seems an opportune exit. But around a bend in the off-ramp, out of sight until it is too late, wait an army of police.
Sheriff’s deputies, police officers and Georgia State Patrol troopers, among other law enforcement officials, oversee the annual Operation Wrong Exit in Twiggs County. The I-16 checkpoint aims to curtail drunken driving, seatbelt violations and other infractions. (Joe Kovac Jr. / AJC)
Over the course of two days, Friday and Saturday, 24 of the 62 arrests were for alleged felonies, most involving drug charges. A couple of dozen were for DUIs. Eleven pounds of pot were confiscated.
The annual police ruse is timed to coincide with St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah, which drew big crowds again on the weekend ahead of Monday’s parade. Many revelers travel from Atlanta and elsewhere, taking I-16 to get there.
Everyone’s Irish for a day as Savannah celebrates St. Patrick’s Day
A mother and daughter from Paulding County were arrested Saturday for allegedly trafficking methamphetamine. Cops said they were caught smuggling six kilograms of the drug.
On Friday, three women in a Tesla, the driver from East Point, were bound for the festivities in Savannah. They claimed to have pulled off the freeway to use the restroom, but there are no facilities at the exit, which is bereft of gas marts or eateries. It is an off-ramp to nothing but Georgia countryside.
The Tesla driver was cited for allegedly having an open bottle of Tito’s vodka and some marijuana cigarettes. The charges were misdemeanors and the women were on their way in about an hour. The police seized their joints and poured out their Tito’s, but the women seemed to take the detour in stride.
“Now,” the driver told the cops, laughing, “we got to spend extra time with our therapists because y’all took all our weed.”
Some of the drugs, guns and other items confiscated by law enforcement officials on March 14 and 15 during Operation Wrong Exit along I-16 in Twiggs County. (Contributed photo)
