NEW BEDFORD -- Just after Thanksgiving, when New Bedford police revealed that a group of students at the 3250-pupil New Bedford High School -- the second biggest in Massachusetts -- planned a violent rampage that "would surpass the Columbine tragedy," the national media descended in droves upon this old whaling city 30 or so miles east of Providence. The mayor's public-information officer found herself fielding 75 to 80 calls a day; media inquiries jammed phone lines at the police and school departments, creating near chaos. At a New Bedford District Court "dangerousness" hearing for the alleged ringleader, 17-year-old Eric McKeehan, representatives of national and regional media far outnumbered the locals.

The arrests of McKeehan and four other self-styled "freaks" -- including McKeehan's 15-year-old brother, Michael; their friend Stephen Jones, also 15; and 17-year-old Amylee Bowman, who told her favorite teacher about the plot -- was hardly the sort of attention that New Bedford officials, who've been working overtime to resurrect their city, want to attract. They worried that the sudden notoriety would put another "black mark" on New Bedford, just as the hard-luck South Coast city, with its architecturally distinguished Greek Revival buildings and handsome downtown historic district, was reawakening.

The city of 100,000 has been at the top of the world -- and at the bottom. In the mid 19th century it was the global whaling capital, a city so rich, wrote Herman Melville, that its men gave dowries of whales for their daughters and porpoises for their nieces. "Nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses, parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford," Melville wrote in Moby Dick (1851). In 1845, the city's whaling fleet brought home 158,000 barrels of sperm oil, 272,000 barrels of whale oil, and three million pounds of whalebone. But the discovery of petroleum in the late 1850s doomed the whaling industry; although textile mills replaced whaling as the mainstay of the city's economy, the mills literally went south in the 1920s and '30s. Soon after, New Bedford fell into decline, its downtown largely shuttered and empty, one of its finest Greek Revival buildings turned into a filling station. Perhaps nothing symbolized New Bedford's fall better than the infamous gang rape at Big Dan's tavern, an incident that formed the basis of the 1988 movie The Accused, starring Jody Foster and Kelly McGillis.

The hard times brought about a culture of "defeat and negativity," according to Ken Hartnett, editor of the city's daily Standard-Times. "In New Bedford there is a way of doing things without high expectations," he says.

In the last few years, however, New Bedford's fortunes have gradually begun to reverse. Although unemployment remains high, job growth in the New Bedford metropolitan area outpaced the Massachusetts average during most of 2001; real-estate prices are up, after skidding or stagnating through much of the '90s. The historic downtown area buzzes with activity, as streets are paved with cobblestones and abandoned banks are transformed into restaurants. As galleries open their doors, artists flee the high cost of Boston studio space for New Bedford's cheap ocean views. Bumper stickers laud NEW BEDFORD -- #1 FISHING PORT IN THE USA! This summer, 16 cruise ships, each bearing around 1000 passengers, will dock in the city's harbor. If, as expected, a proposed rail link to Boston becomes a reality, the city's economy could receive an additional boost.

Mayor Frederick M. Kalisz Jr. and City Solicitor George Leontire

"So many good things have happened here," says third-term mayor Frederick M. Kalisz Jr. "This is a new time."

This is the kind of message the city fathers wanted to get out. Suddenly, however, it wasn't the up-and-coming New Bedford but the remnants of the down-at-the-heels, disenfranchised New Bedford grabbing the headlines.

ERIC McKEEHAN had his own ideas about getting some attention for New Bedford. "Just to see the publicity. See how big it would get," he explained in a November 24 tape-recorded interview with a police officer, later played in New Bedford District Court. "I wanted to see how New Bedford would be if they were on top, because it's such a little P-town. . . . Just imagine another Columbine but at New Bedford High, you know what I mean." The New Bedford of defeat and disenfranchisement was very much on display in district court on December 3, when the Columbine wanna-be went before Judge Bernadette L. Sabra for a hearing to determine if he posed a threat to public safety.

In the corridor outside the courtroom, Isaac Hatchett, 18, a close friend of Stephen Jones, tried to cast doubt on the whole thing. "They wouldn't have gone through with it," he insisted. "Nothing major was going on. Things look real bad. You'd have to know them to understand."

But two young women waiting to go into another courtroom as witnesses in a DUI trial had a different view. "New Bedford High on MTV -- it must be big!" said Megan Sylvia, 18, a student at Bristol Community College. "I think it is real. There is wicked-big talk in New Bedford about this." According to Sylvia, the police devote too much time to harassing "gangster" kids on street corners. "They won't touch the quiet kids planning nasty stuff," she said. To her friend, Kelly Fauteaux, a 21-year-old waitress, the whole affair just proved the old stereotype. "Nothing good ever comes out of New Bedford," she said.

In the intimate, wood-paneled courtroom, Eric McKeehan, dressed in a gray suit and looking old for his 17 years, sat facing Judge Sabra. His divorced parents sat together in the midst of the reporters -- his father with a neatly clipped goatee, his mother dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. On the stand, Stephen A. Taylor, a New Bedford police officer assigned to the high school, was being grilled by McKeehan's lawyer, Alan Zwirblis. Taylor read from Eric's brother Michael's notebook, which included excerpts from The Anarchist Cookbook (Barricade Books, 1971) detailing how to build such weapons as a tennis-ball bomb ("Throw it at a geek -- he will have a blast") and a Hindenburg bomb ("Fill with helium, watch it go off").

"Not exactly Osama bin Laden stuff," observed defense attorney Zwirblis tartly.

New Bedford High School

But the earnest, blue-eyed police officer was undeterred. "These bomb-making directions are not complicated, but they are dangerous," he insisted.

"Maybe by a chemistry major," interjected the defense lawyer. "But you knew you weren't dealing with chemistry majors!"

The defense attempted to paint the whole affair as a fantasy of confused and frustrated adolescents. To do so, Zwirblis relied heavily on ridicule. He put Taylor in the pupil's chair, asking him to define the goth look favored by the New Bedford High freaks. "Painted fingers, black," he faltered. "A lot of blackness to it." When Taylor noted that the initials FTW (presumably for "fuck the world") and TCM (for "Trench Coat Mafia") were found on an otherwise blank piece of paper in Stephen Jones's room, Zwirblis scoffed, "TCM: known to the rest of us as Turner Classic Movies." Taylor remarked that he had never heard of the popular cable channel, and it wasn't clear whether Zwirblis actually wanted to convince the judge that Jones was a fan of Citizen Kane and Casablanca, or was merely trying to be funny.

The highlight of the day involved the playing of McKeehan's 29-minute audiotape. In the courtroom, the tape was played at such a high volume as to make it virtually impossible to discern much of what was said. However, the transcribed version -- published in full in the next day's Standard-Times -- has McKeehan saying, "I didn't give a shit if it was a teacher, cop, mother, whoever. You're in my way, you're getting a bullet. . . . Whoever's going with me is going with me."

Despite comments like these, it was hard to determine from the vocal intonation on the tape, much less the published transcript, whether McKeehan was just boasting -- as everyone who knew him claimed he was prone to do -- or whether he was serious about taking out anyone who stood in his way. After a break for lunch, attorney Zwirblis cross-examined Detective John Ribeiro III, the police officer who had interviewed McKeehan, suggesting that by focusing his questions on the early stages of the plot, the detective ignored evidence that McKeehan wasn't going to go through with it at all. That, Zwirblis implied, made the whole thing sound far worse than it actually was. Zwirblis quoted from McKeehan's words on the audiotape to buttress his argument: "Then again, it's like you think about the reality check and it's like them brakes come on and you're like no, because of the simple fact you have two choices, like I said before, spending life in jail or kill yourself and ruin your life."

Later that afternoon, the prosecutors hauled in 11 boxes and brown paper bags containing some vivid evidence, mostly culled from Michael McKeehan's bedroom. Among his possessions: a black-handled knife, a brass-knuckle dagger, a hatchet, a meat cleaver, a gas mask, live ammunition, a photo of Hitler, and a doll hanging from a noose. It was a teenage boy's life, New Bedford-style.

The following day, Judge Sabra found Eric McKeehan to be dangerous but allowed him to leave jail and stay under house arrest at his mother's apartment until his trial. The next week, another judge ordered Michael and friend Stephen Jones to remain in jail until their trials.

library

THE WING PINSKE gallery on William Street is just a few blocks from Judge Sabra's courtroom, but it could be a million miles away. The storefront gallery features abstract paintings by co-owner Barre Pinske, a large lacquered bowl made entirely of twigs, various examples of wood sculpture, and the pièce de résistance -- a love seat made of painted, compacted Stop & Shop grocery bags. There is a snapshot of artist Pinske with Aerosmith lead vocalist Steven Tyler.

The gallery, which opened last summer, sees itself as setting the pace in New Bedford. "The artists are here," says co-owner Barry Wing. "We saw the same thing in Jamaica Plain and the South End [of Boston]." Wing, who grew up in nearby South Dartmouth, moved back to New Bedford after working as a realtor in Jamaica Plain. His local pedigree is impeccable: his great-grandfather founded C.F. Wing Company, a department store that reigned on nearby Purchase Street for almost 100 years until it closed in 1966. Wing pays a fraction of the rent he would in Boston, he says. The block of William Street where the storefront is located will soon be paved with cobblestones and renamed "Art Walk." To him, New Bedford is the future.

It's also the future for Jody Burr, a third-year graduate student at the University of Massachusetts College of Visual and Performing Arts, which opened in September around the corner at the previously vacant Star department store. After a stint living and working in Boston's Fort Point Channel, Burr is looking at studio space in New Bedford for next year. "Coming from Boston, I am a big advocate of New Bedford as a place for displaced artists from the city," she says.

Barry Wing

Just across the street from Wing's gallery is the old Merchants Bank building, home since mid November to New Bedford's newest eatery, the OceAnna restaurant and grill. The restaurant features a main dining area that resembles nothing so much as a grand ballroom, with two-story-high windows and ornate gilt work. (The former bank vaults now hold bottles of wine). The building had been decaying until the city -- fearing it would be turned into a flea market -- bought it for $100,000. Now owner George Karousos, the founder of the International Institute of Culinary Arts in Fall River and proprietor of four other restaurants, compares New Bedford favorably to Newport, where he also owns a restaurant. "New Bedford is beautiful and there is a real feeling for the old city here," he says.

These fledgling businesses do not seem to have suffered any negative effects from the goings-on at the high school. A week and a half after the arrests, OceAnna boasted 400 customers on a Thursday night; the restaurant barely had enough staff to handle the crowds, according to Karousos. And at Wing's gallery, all the sudden attention focused on New Bedford actually turned out to be a plus for business. "There were a lot of reporters who came through to look at the art," he notes.

WHEN THE ALLEGED school plot hit the headlines, City Solicitor George Leontire moved into damage-control mode. The son of a local druggist, Leontire spent 20 years practicing law in Boston. He returned home five years ago, when his childhood friend Frederick Kalisz Jr. was elected mayor. There are a lot of people in New Bedford who think Leontire actually runs the place. "Power behind the throne" might be a more accurate depiction. That's the way the Standard-Times described him in a February 2000 front-page profile that hangs on the wall behind his office desk. "A tough-talking, brash, and dogged alter ego to the mayor, Mr. Leontire is seen by many as the power behind the throne, the bad cop to Mr. Kalisz's good cop," says the article.

In his late 40s, Leontire has become well known as an aggressive proponent of extending ferry service from New Bedford to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket to further the city's economic development. The islanders oppose the idea, for reasons that many New Bedford residents believe smack of elitism, pure and simple. When you stroll with Leontire around downtown New Bedford, people come up to him and thank him for fighting for the city on the issue.

But when reports of the school plot hit, Leontire faced a new challenge. He and the mayor feared that all their work reviving the city and recasting its precarious image might vanish in a moment. Mayor Kalisz cut short a vacation with his wife and son at Disney World to tell New Bedford's story on the Today show and Good Morning America; Leontire squired a field producer from ABC's 20/20 around town. City Hall became a virtual nonstop spin zone. "The media interest was surreal," says Leontire. "There was no knowing which way the media would go. Ten million people were suddenly getting a glimpse of our community."

The city hired a Boston public-relations firm, Cone Communications, to burnish its image. A fact sheet on New Bedford was quickly put together, along with a videotape of the inside of the high school to emphasize what Leontire calls "positive visuals" -- the police resource office and the swimming pool. For good measure, Leontire distributed a six-page listing of cases of actual and threatened school violence nationwide. "The common characteristics in these situations are disenfranchised kids who come out of deeply troubled family situations," he says. "That is the common denominator -- not the community."

Soon enough, other events -- such as the murder of a school counselor at a high school in Springfield and a guilty plea by one of the two teenage suspects in the Dartmouth College murders -- began to push New Bedford off the front pages. In nearby Taunton, police are investigating three school incidents that took place last week: an alleged "hit list" of students and staff written on the walls of a boys' bathroom at the Catholic Coyle and Cassidy High School (the list noted that everyone named would be killed by December 21); the arrest of a student at Taunton High School for bringing a knife to school; and the arrest of students at two of the town's middle schools for assaulting their principals. Suddenly, New Bedford didn't look so bad. A Boston Globe editorial complimented New Bedford for "creativity in school safety" because, in contrast to Springfield, it assigned uniformed officers to specific schools on a permanent basis. Increasingly, the consensus was that -- hype or no hype -- the system worked: New Bedford had averted potential tragedy with quick action. "What happened here was a teacher listening to troubled kids and a follow-up of information," says editor Hartnett. "There is no sign of dysfunction in New Bedford on this thing."

Adds Mayor Kalisz, "From the person on the street to Diane Sawyer, there is a realization that people planned, and things worked out well. The city was prepared. Resources were in place. Look what could have happened. It didn't happen."

BUT NEW BEDFORD is not yet out of the woods. The trials of McKeehan and the other alleged Columbine wanna-bes are still to come. The whole affair served as a wake-up call in terms of school safety and offered a reminder of the city's unfinished business: a school dropout rate of more than 30 percent, unemployment that remains above the statewide average, economic development that may be transforming downtown but hasn't had the same impact on the neighborhoods.

Still, a week after the revelations, New Bedford was preparing to celebrate. The occasion was the annual Christmas-tree lighting on the steps of the library just across from City Hall. At 5 p.m. sharp on a Saturday evening, the high-school marching band, dressed in smart red-and-cream uniforms, headed up William Street playing "Joy to the World." Santa and Rudolph arrived on an old-fashioned fire truck. Kids stood on their fathers' shoulders for a glimpse of Miss New Bedford 2001, Miss New Bedford 2000, and Miss Taunton 1995 singing "Silent Night" and "O Come All Ye Faithful." From the platform, Mayor Kalisz wished the large crowd "a year of health and peace." Then came the dramatic countdown: "Ten, nine, eight . . . " Suddenly, the 35-foot Christmas tree between the library pillars shone with light. For a moment, at least, the future looked bright again.

Neil Miller is author of the forthcoming Sex-Crime Panic: A Journey to the Paranoid Heart of the 1950s (Alyson Books). He can be reached at mrneily@aol.com.

Issue Date: December 21 - 27, 2001