A Millennium Park regular (no, not Mary Ellen), forwarded this photo she took this morning after she looked over from a parking lot at the old West Roxbury High School and got a bit worried: 

Yesterday morning and also this morning, there is a large contingent of folks seemingly training for some big deal. Notably this morning’s cohort is wearing helmets and carrying batons.

BPD Sgt. Det. John Boyle says it was just cadets up from the police academy in Hyde Park, going through normal training, nothing reason for concern:

We usually don’t comment about training. Since it’s in public, it’s our academy recruits standard training while they complete their required classes in the academy. 

Police have used the closed school and its grounds for training since BPS closed it in 2018 after declaring it was about to collapse, which it has yet to do.

A federal judge in Boston yesterday refused a regime request to let it slash the hell out of a Department of Education office that oversees civil-rights complaints while  a lawsuit over its cuts wends through the courts.

But having issued the ruling, one question becomes whether the regime will obey his preliminary injunction ordering it not to close 7 of its 12 regional civil-rights office, since regime lawyers told him they were basically ignoring his earlier order and shutting offices anyway.

In their request to stop requiring it to shut the offices, regime lawyers cited one of those we-don't-have-to-tell-you-why Supreme Court rulings that lets the Department of Education fire employees even as US District Court Judge Myong Joun is overseeing lawsuits by, among others, Somerville and Massachusetts, that seek to block the regime from completely dismantling the Department of Education.

In their appeal to Joun for a stay in a separate case related specifically to the department's Office of Civil Rights, regime lawyers cited that mum's-the-word ruling, saying the cases involved the same federal department and similar arguments, so the stay that applies in the broader cases should also apply.

But in his ruling yesterday, Joun rejected the request and once again ordered the regime to keep the civil-rights offices open and functioning as he oversees a suit by a national non-profit that works with victims of gender-based violence and the families of two students who say their school districts violated their children's rights (one of the two families has since resolved its differences, but Joun said that does not affect his rulings on the case). In originally granting a preliminary injunction, Joun said the plaintiffs had shown convincing evidence they would win, that the cuts violated federal law and  that keeping the regional offices open was in the public interest.

Joun's order essentially shows why courts normally detail their reasoning for their rulings:  By not saying a word in the broader case, the high court did not block him from issuing an injunction in a different case requiring Education to keep funding investigations into possible civil-rights violations.

First, contrary to Defendants' assertions, the Supreme Court did not make any explicit findings as to whether Defendants were likely to succeed on the merits or that "other equitable considerations also militated against preliminary relief," or provide any other reasoning or explanation as to the basis for granting the stay. ... [H]ere, the Supreme Court's unreasoned stay order issued on its emergency docket "does not make or signal any change" in controlling law warranting the relief that Defendants request. ... Second, the two cases are not identical merely because Defendants raised the same defenses in both cases or because Plaintiffs brought similar causes of action. As I explained in the preliminary injunction decision, Plaintiffs have detailed - through declarations and affidavits - the unique harms that they have suffered due to the closure of the OCR. The two student plaintiffs faced severe discrimination and harassment in school and were depending on the OCR to resolve their complaints so that they could attend public school. The Victim Rights Law Center similarly depends on the OCR's expertise to assist its clients who are victims of gender-based violence. The distinct factual circumstances presented here go to issues such as standing and irreparable harm as well as Defendants' defenses thereto, which cannot be lumped in with [the other cases] to justify relief from the Preliminary Injunction Order issued here.

For the same reasons explained in the Preliminary Injunction Order, Defendants have not demonstrated that the equities cut in their favor or that they will be harmed absent a stay, especially given that they have not substantially complied with the Preliminary Injunction Order.