<story><title>Shots fired at MIT - report of an active shooter near Bldg. 32 (Stata)</title><url>http://emergency.mit.net/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ghc</author><text>Gun violence is a very uncommon thing in Boston or Cambridge...it&apos;s big news here every time it happens. Now outside the city, in the areas where poor people live, it&apos;s a different story...but MIT and Harvard are located in some of the wealthiest, safest areas of Cambridge.</text></item><item><author>untog</author><text>Don&apos;t wish to make light of this at all, but I do wonder- how often does this happen? After all, &quot;shots fired&quot; is not an uncommon thing in many cities in the US.&lt;p&gt;I just wonder whether we will look back in 12 months time at the &quot;week of hell&quot; and realise that it was actually just a week in which we found all the things that usually go on &lt;i&gt;every week&lt;/i&gt; that we don&apos;t hear about.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Anechoic</author><text>Just for the record, Roxbury and Dorchester are part of Boston proper, and gun violence is those neighborhoods are unfortunately too common:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.universalhub.com/crime/dorchester.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.universalhub.com/crime/dorchester.html&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.universalhub.com/crime/roxbury.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.universalhub.com/crime/roxbury.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;(I have family in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan)&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, the areas around MIT and Harvard are relatively safe, although muggings and petty theft aren&apos;t unheard of. Things have been a lot better since they cleaned up Central Square in the 1990&apos;s.</text></comment>
<story><title>Shots fired at MIT - report of an active shooter near Bldg. 32 (Stata)</title><url>http://emergency.mit.net/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ghc</author><text>Gun violence is a very uncommon thing in Boston or Cambridge...it&apos;s big news here every time it happens. Now outside the city, in the areas where poor people live, it&apos;s a different story...but MIT and Harvard are located in some of the wealthiest, safest areas of Cambridge.</text></item><item><author>untog</author><text>Don&apos;t wish to make light of this at all, but I do wonder- how often does this happen? After all, &quot;shots fired&quot; is not an uncommon thing in many cities in the US.&lt;p&gt;I just wonder whether we will look back in 12 months time at the &quot;week of hell&quot; and realise that it was actually just a week in which we found all the things that usually go on &lt;i&gt;every week&lt;/i&gt; that we don&apos;t hear about.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tibbon</author><text>Agreed. I generally feel incredibly safe around Cambridge in general- let alone on Boylston St near the library, or anywhere on MIT&apos;s campus. At most I&apos;d expect to have something stolen, car broken into or a common mugging around there- not a random shooter running around.</text></comment>