Do Governor Maura Healey, Senate President Karen Spilka and Speaker of the House Ron Mariano bear any responsibility, at all, for the all too predictable Nov. 15, 2025, stabbing death in Mattapan?
Put another way, were their politically-adrift elitism and gross negligence contributing factors in the Nov. 15 stabbing death in Boston? Was the death of Mr. Pooler, a tragic, but all too predictable event?
It’s all yesterday’s news. Did anyone in power ever really care about a man named Tyquan Pooler? Pooler, 45, of Boston, is alleged to have been stabbed to death on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025, in the area of 30 Fremont Street, in Mattapan, by a 29-year-old named Javonte Robinson.
It has been reported that the “Mattapan man,” Javonte Robinson, had criminal charges that were filed against him in a previous case dropped, less than one month before his alleged involvement in the Saturday night murder of Mr. Pooler. Robinson’s charges — possession of a dangerous weapon (a knife) and possession of a Class A drug in a case from last August — were reportedly dropped under the “Lavallee protocol.” See Lavallee v. Justices in Hampden Superior Court, SJC-09268 (MA 7/28/2004), 442 Mass. 228, 812 N.E.2d
This means Robinson was let out of jail because he didn’t have a lawyer, while North Andover Police Officer Kelsey Fitzsimmons, who has spent 73 days in jail, is required to stay in jail, because she is paying for a lawyer to represent her.
Massachusetts reportedly pays more than any other state in the country to house prisoners, about $310,000 per year. So far, about $125,000 of Massachusetts taxpayers’ money, some of it hard earned money, has been expended to keep Officer Kelsey Fitzsimmons, a 29-year-old female recently diagnosed with postpartum depression, in solitary confinement. Some people don’t think this is a good idea. Never mind that every day, the bill to keep Officer Fitzsimmons in prison goes up a bit more. Of course, the real cost of ripping a four-month-old baby out of his mother’s arms is incalculable.
Never mind that the 29-year-old new mother, who has been shot in the chest, and who has endured four operations, and who weighs about a hundred pounds, soaking wet, has been denied the right to see her infant son for the pasts five months — all based upon representations of a group of males, never subjected to cross examination. Never mind any of that.
Last spring, a number of Massachusetts lawyers formerly referred to as “court appointed attorneys,” now referred to as “bar advocates,” announced that while they would be finishing the cases they were working on, at that time, they would not be accepting new cases. No one questions the right of a well-paid corporate attorney or a house painter, or an electrician, to stop taking work, for a while, if he wants to go on vacation, or if he wants to pursue some other line of work. One supposes that Massachusetts Bar Advocates have the same Constitutional rights that corporate lawyers, electricians and house painters have.
There are a lot of reasons why Bar Advocates in Massachusetts might want to pursue another line of work. In Massachusetts, the wealthiest state in New England, with the highest cost of living, Bar Advocates are paid less than what they are paid in any other New England state. Maine, the poorest New England state, pays its Bar Advocates about twice the hourly rate that Massachusetts pays them. One notes that some of the attorneys who do Bar Advocate work are carrying huge law school loans on their backs.
Governor Healey’s salary is about $250,000 per annum. The governor’s partner is reportedly making about $450,000 from a strange charitable entity of some sort. Is it possible that Governor Healey has simply forgotten how the other half lives?
Last summer, Governor Healey was actually quoted telling, not asking, Massachusetts Bar Advocates, to “Get back to work!” as if this provably industrious group of attorneys were a group of lazy goof-offs. Last summer, the creeps in the Massachusetts Legislature played it tough, held the line, and “gave” Bar Advocates a five dollar an hour increase.
While the crisis was brewing, Governor Healey and the legislative “leadership” were given a few tips in this publication (i.e., News Link Live). Nobody listened, of course.
More: Quick solutions to the bar advocate crisis, the other trash collectors’ strike
The first thing Governor Healey was advised to do in this publication was to stand on the steps of the Massachusetts State House and thank Massachusetts Bar Advocates for saving Massachusetts taxpayers millions and millions of dollars over the past 40 years. This would have been a gracious, Tip O’Neill-style move that would have acknowledged the idealism and commitment of these attorneys, without costing taxpayers one cent. This would have been an old fashioned, gracious, “Give when it doesn’t cost you to give” moment. Did the governor follow this advice? No, she did not.
The second thing the governor was advised to do in this publication was to rescind the 20% pay increase she was “giving” to the Massachusetts Legislature. That would have taken courage she simply doesn’t have.
That’s correct, in the midst of an alleged financial crisis, allegedly caused by the lowest paid Bar Advocates in New England, a crisis that has caused dangerous criminal defendants to be released on the streets of Massachusetts, Maura Healey gave the highest paid legislature in New England a twenty percent pay increase!
Now House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka make more than $200,000 per annum, thanks to Governor Healey’s generous, disingenuous use of taxpayer funds. Never mind that neither Mariano nor Spilka could make money of this kind in the private sector — even if their very lives depended on it! Expenditures in the legislature are really none of your business, just ask State Auditor Diana DiZoglio. Did the governor follow this second piece of advice? No, she did not.
The third thing the governor was advised to do, in this publication, was to rescind the pay increase she was “giving” to her managers. Did the governor follow this sensible third piece of advice? No, she did not.
One notes that if DiZoglio were permitted to audit the Massachusetts Legislature’s expenditures, the way 72% of the Massachusetts electorate wanted and VOTED her to be able to do, the redirection of many, many wasteful government expenditures could have been used to cover reasonable, “State of Maine-style” pay increases for the Bar Advocates, and Mr. Pooler might still be alive. Presently, of course, we’re kept in the dark.