police

As a result of the strong nor’easter, Lincoln police handled numerous reports of power failures, downed wires and branches, and road closures in Lincoln on October 16–17 starting at 11:36 p.m. Locations included Concord Rd., 94 Conant Rd., Lincoln Road, South Great Road, Peirce Hill Road, Farrar Road, Tower Road, Old County Road, Trapelo Road, Winter Street, Bedford Road, 48 Mill St., 18 Baker Bridge Rd., and Hillside Road. Due to power disruptions, commercial alarms also went off at the Lincoln School, the Lincoln Public Library, the Pierce House, and Drumlin Farm.

A few of the log entries didn’t get recorded in the Police Department’s until the following day because of an internet outage. “Our records management system is cloud-based, so we had to go to the old pen and paper for a bit and then enter in the items after the fact,” said Lt. Sean Kennedy. 

October 11

125 Winter St. (9:40 a.m.)
A staff member at care Dimensions Hospice House called the station to report feeling threatened by someone during a meeting with a family member at Care Dimensions. The party was upset over a civil matter.

53 Wells Rd. (1:38 p.m.)
Call from Senior Services requested a well-being check on the resident. The resident was fine.

South Great Rd. (8:14 p.m.)
Report of a car driving without headlights on Rte 117. Area checked; nothing found.

October 12

South Great Road (4:47 p.m.)
Dog was running around in an intersection. Owner contacted and responded to get the dog.

October 13

169 Lincoln Rd. (11:34 a.m.)
Three parties who were having a verbal argument inside a vehicle pulled into the station. Officers spoke to the involved parties and it was decided that one party would head back to Boston on the train alone.

Pierce House, 17 Weston Rd. (8:55 p.m.)
A neighbor called reporting loud music at the Pierce House. Officer responded and spoke to the Pierce House staff.

October 14

34 Morningside Lane (1:41 p.m.)
A person was at the house to conduct a survey and the homeowner asked the person to leave. Officers followed up with the person and advised them not to come back to the residence.

Codman Road (2:00 p.m.)
Wallet found at Codman Community Farms.

Mt Misery parking lot, 60 South Great Rd. (1:46 p.m.)
Firearm magazine found in the woods.

155 Weston Rd. (5:52 p.m.)
Moped involved in a crash. No injuries; operator cited for motor vehicle offenses.

44 Page Rd. (9:57 p.m.)
Party knocked on door asking to use phone saying they had run out of gas. Officers responded to assist the party.

October 15

109 Page Rd. (5:08 a.m.)
Caller reports someone walking in the area, seemed out of the ordinary. Officers checked and it was a resident out for a walk.

67 Wells Rd. (7:33 a.m.)
Party called saying they noticed a student had missed the bus to Lincoln-Sudbury. Officer responded and assisted with a ride to the high school.

Hanscom Drive (4:16 p.m.)
Report of a man taking pictures of the Air Force base, which seemed suspicious. Officer checked the area; unable to locate the party.

October 16

Lincoln Road (1:02 a.m.)
Caller reported hearing a loud bang; could possibly be an electrical transformer.

Beaver Pond Road (3:12 a.m.)
Officer checked on a vehicle parked on the side of the road. Operator was checking his directions.

49 Wells Rd. (2:14 p.m.)
Party was having a civil dispute with her neighbor. Complainant was advised of her legal options.

51 Wells Rd. (5:05 p.m.)
Resident was having an ongoing civil dispute with a neighbor. Advised of their legal options.

October 17

220 Sandy Pond Rd. (1:13 a.m.)
Caller reported a burning smell at the residence. An electrical problem was the cause; Eversource was notified.

October 4

60 Baker Bridge Rd. (3:58 p.m.)
Report of a tree on wires.

34 Laurel Drive (4:11 p.m.)
Wellbeing check requested for a resident; everything was fine with the individual.

145 Lincoln Rd. (4:48 p.m.)
Parking complaint in the resident lot. Violators ticketed.

Lincoln Road (5:34 p.m.)
Reports of a person walking along the road yelling. Area checked; person was gone upon officers’ arrival.

45 Birchwood Lane (6:16 p.m.)
Person locked out of their house.

October 5

North Great Road (2:49 a.m.)
Tree fell and left debris in the roadway.

53 Wells Rd. (1:44 p.m.)
Wellbeing check of an elderly party. All is well.

99 Conant Rd. (9:26 p.m.)
Complaint of cars parked along the roadway, causing an issue with other cars being able to pass. Vehicles were moved along.

October 7

Concord Road (11:46 a.m.
Tree branch fell, striking a passing vehicle; report taken.

40 Windingwood Lane (12 p.m.)
Assisting a party who lost personal documents.

16 Deerhaven Rd. (11:29 p.m.)
Party reports a party possibly came to his door from a utility company. Area checked; unable to locate anyone.

October 8

Concord Road (8:12 a.m.)
One-car crash vs. tree; no injuries.

Cambridge Turnpike eastbound (6:06 p.m.)
Car crash. State Police on scene handling; no injuries.

October 9

138 Trapelo Rd. (1:45 p.m.)
Caller reports an odor of natural gas. Fire Department checked the area; gas readings were negative.

North Great Road at Bypass Road (4:52 p.m.)
Road rage incident occurred. Unable to locate vehicle.

October 10

Codman Road near Rt. 126 (12:37 p.m.)
Car fire.

179 Sandy Pond Rd. (4 p.m.)
Assisted a party with information on a civil matter.

September 27

Bypass Road (12:30 p.m.)
Three-car motor vehicle crash; one person transported to the Emerson Hospital.

83 Page Rd. (11:08 p.m.)
Resident had a civil matter with parties renting the property. Officers spoke with the resident to assist.

September 28

37 Lincoln Rd. (6:08 a.m.)
Resident reported a raccoon came into their house and left soon thereafter; officer response cancelled.

September 29

Cambridge Turnpike westbound (1:12 a.m.)
Saul Escobar-Barrera, 25, of Leominster was stopped and arrested for two outstanding warrants and also charged with driving on a suspended license. He was transported to Concord Court in the morning.

September 30

Silver Hill Road (9:28 a.m.)
Motor vehicle crash; no injuries.

Lexington Road at Bypass Road (3:36 p.m.)
Motor vehicle crash; no injuries.

Codman Community Farms (1:05 p.m.)
Customer left his wallet behind and another customer took it. It was found that the customer returned the wallet to its owner; no larceny.

Cambridge Turnpike eastbound (3:35 p.m.)
Caller reported car pulled over with driver slumped over the wheel. Officers checked the area; nothing found.

Mt. Misery parking lot, 60 South Great Rd. (7:48 p.m.)
Unattended vehicle parked in the lot. Vehicle later left the lot.

49 Round Hill Rd. (3:00 p.m.)
Family member unable to make contact with relative at the residence. Officers spoke to the resident and advised them to call the reporting party.

North Great Road (4:58 p.m.)
One-car crash Rte. 2A near Bedford Road where car drove into the woods. Sole occupant transported to Lahey Clinic with minor injuries.

4 Boyce Farm Road  (7:38 p.m.)
Officers spoke to the resident in regards to an ongoing civil matter.

October 1

Lincoln Police Dept. (9:25 p.m.),
Operator fell off his moped in front of police station. No injuries; driver cited for motor vehicle violations.

51 Wells Rd. (7:44 p.m.)
Caller reported finding a nail in her vehicle’s tire; not sure if it was intentional or not, requested extra patrol checks of the area.

263 Concord Rd. (10:38 p.m.)
Callers reported what sounds like a fight at the location. When officers arrived a party was ongoing, no fighting found. Officers spoke to the resident, who ended the party.

October 1

Lincoln Road in area of Wells Road (6:03 a.m.)
Caller reported an elderly female walking in the roadway. Officers and the caller assisted her back to her Wells Road residence.

145 Lincoln Road (12:38 p.m.)
Caller reports solicitors or protestors loitering around Donelan’s. The individuals were gone when the officer arrived.

69 Page Rd. (7:16 p.m.)
Resident reports their dog was missing. The dog was later found by a neighbor and the owner was notified.

October 2

Old Bedford Road (7:26 a.m.)
Police and fire responded to reports of a bicyclist who fell off their bike, injuring themselves. Officers and fire personnel located the cyclist and found no injuries.

Lincoln Road (1:02 p.m.)
Child reportedly fell off their bike on the sidewalk of Lincoln Rod. Fire Dept. transported the child with minor injuries to Emerson Hospital.

60 Baker Bridge Rd. (5:07 p.m.)
Officer assisting a resident with a civil matter.

51 Wells Rd. (9:57 p.m.)
Resident called reporting they didn’t like their neighbor’s Halloween decorations. Officer responded and advised the reporting party it wasn’t a police matter.

October 3

39 Lexington Rd. (1:48 p.m.)
Resident turned in old ammunition and firearms to be destroyed.

Lincoln Road (4:31 p.m.)
Parking complaint about non-residents parking in the resident lot. Officer responded and issued a parking ticket.

Tower Road (5:46 p.m.)
Caller reports a teenager near the railroad tracks. Officer located the party who was taking videos of passing trains.

40 Beaver Pond Rd. (9:12 p.m.)
Resident reported being scammed out of money from an unknown party.

September 19

140 Concord Rd. (12:42 p.m.)
Suspicious person wearing a vest in the area of the caller’s residence. Person was a utility company contractor.

21 Deer Run Rd. (4:55 p.m.)
Caller received a suspicious phone call from an unknown person.

Donelan’s Supermarket (18:12)
Juveniles were reported on the roof. Police contacted the juveniles and their parents.

Lincoln Public Schools (4:09 p.m.)
Power failure at school; Eversource notified.

Lincoln Public Schools (4:18 p.m.)
Missing child under 12 — miscommunication between mother and daughter (daughter was at a play date). 

September 21

Sandy Pond Road at Five Corners (9:17 a.m.)
Bicycle violation — bicyclist was riding in and out of traffic.

September 22

57 Lincoln Rd. (12:07 a.m.)
Caller reported hearing loud music. Officers did not hear the music while checking the area.

342 Hemlock Circle (11:46 p.m.)
Caller reported receiving a suspicious e-mail and package. 

Trapelo Road (5:30 p.m.)
Waltham police reported multiple juveniles fishing at the reservoir; two juveniles moved along.

Airport Road (8:43 p.m.)
FedEx truck parked at the end of the road unoccupied. 

6 Short Hill Rd. (9:21 p.m.)
Caller thought she heard someone trying to open her door (she was awaiting the arrival of a family member).

53 Stonehedge Rd. (6:20 p.m.)
Resident spoke to an officer at the station about a civil matter. 

September 23

Lincoln Road (12:10 a.m.)
Officer checked on suspicious vehicle parked in the 3-S parking lot; party checked out OK. 

Concord Road at railroad crossing (12:35 a.m.)
Caller said workers on the tracks had a loud radio. Officer made contact and workers were advised of the complaint; they were cooperative.

Lincoln Police Station (5:03 p.m.)
Resident spoke to an officer about getting assistance for a family member.

Concord Road at S curve  (8:41 p.m.)
Jeiby Castro, 38, of 95 Calvary St. in Waltham was arrested on an outstanding warrant for motor vehicle offenses.

September 25

South Great Road near Weston town line (5:16 p.m.)
Motor vehicle crash — driver crossed center line and struck vehicle heading eastbound. Driver was cited; minor injuries.

September 26

32 Indian Camp Lane (3:51 p.m.)
Report of overdue child — child is home and all is well. 

15 Wells Rd. (8:40 p.m.)
Officer assisted person with information regarding a civil matter.

September 18

145 Lincoln Rd. (7:49 a.m.) — Man with a Boston address (name withheld for medical privacy reasons) tripped and fell near the train tracks and the resident lot. Police were not sure if he was just wandering around or was awaiting the arrival of the train when he fell. After being seen by the Fire Department, he left via the train. 

145 Lincoln Rd. (2:06 p.m.) — Party reported her vehicle was struck sometime over the past few days (unknown where; possibly in Lincoln). Officer documented the damage.

Codman Community Farms (4:44 p.m.) — Resident reported that she believes her cane was taken from her car while parked in the lot at the corner of Codman and Lincoln Roads.

52 Stonehedge (4:59 p.m.) — Caller reported seeing a bobcat earlier in the area.

10 Garland Rd. (9:12 p.m.) — Caller reported seeing someone in the woods with a flashlight; it was found to be a neighbor.

September 17

90 Codman Rd. (10:24 a.m.) — Caller reported furniture had been moved from a storage pod into the house by someone unknown.

53 Wells Rd. (3:07 p.m.) — Person wanted to speak to a police officer in regards to ongoing family issue.

1 Harvest Circle  (3:47 p.m.) — Resident received a scam call claiming to be police with a arrest warrant if they didn’t pay money. No money was exchanged; resident was advised of ongoing scams.

South Great Road at Route 126 (6:16 p.m.) — Caller saw a deer near the roadway and was concerned for its wellbeing.

September 16

157 Bedford Rd (1:17 a.m.) — An area hospital notified Lincoln police of a dog bite. The information was passed along to the Animal Control Officer to handle.

Bruce Kirkcaldy, 66, of 75 Harrington Rd. in Waltham was stopped and arrested on Route 117  for OUI/liquor (second offense) and speeding.

82 Virginia Rd. (4:54 p.m.) — Caller reported a small brush fire in front of the residence.

September 15

Cambridge Turnpike eastbound (4:31 p.m.) — Samantha Bradford, 25, of 5 Roseville Square in Lynn was arrested as a passenger in a car for an outstanding warrant for larceny under $1,200.

September 14

Old Sudbury Road (3:18 p.m.) — Minor car crash, no injuries. Seventeen-year-old male was issued a citation for a passing violation and a marked-lane violation. 

September 13 

30 Silver Hill Rd. (2:45 p.m.) — Resident reported someone applied for a loan in his name and the loan application was denied.

(Editor’s note: The Lincoln Squirrel will start publishing a selection from the daily logs of the Lincoln Police Department roughly once a week.)

September 12

Motor vehicle accident — Cambridge Turnpike eastbound (9 a.m.)
No injuries; one vehicle towed.

Road rage – Cambridge Turnpike eastbound (10:10 a.m.)
Incident involving two vehicles traveling eastbound when one driver threw their iced coffee at the other. The call was transferred to the State Police. 

September 11

Aid to public – 231 Aspen Circle (5:49 p.m.)
Police assisted a resident who wanted to report a missing family member who lives elsewhere. They were referred to the department where the person lives.  

Suspicious circumstances – Wells Road (12:26 a.m.)
A resident complained about teenagers in the Lincoln Woods community room after it closed. 

September 9

Noise complaint – 49 Wells Rd. (11:56 a.m)
Person was playing loud music; police told then to turn it down.

Suspicious circumstances – 168 Lincoln Rd. (1:33 a.m.)
Person reported an odd light flashing in the back of the house. It ended up being a vehicle from SavaTree that had its hazard lights flashing.

September 7

Suspicious circumstances – 241 Old Concord Rd. (1:52 p.m.)
Resident wanted a storage container off his property. He allowed an individual to store stuff in it but he now wants it gone. 

Suspicious person – Trapelo Road. (6:06 p.m.)
People were fishing.

September 6

Missing person over 21 – deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (2:56 p.m.)
A woman got lost on the trails while hiking and police helped her get her back to the deCordova. She wasn’t injured and walked out of the woods on her own.

Warrant arrest – Hanscom law enforcement, 3 Robbins Rd., Bedford (9:03 am.)
Minaie Mohsen, 67, of 95 Webster St. in Needham was arrested on an outstanding warrant.

 

Old Winter Street northbound is now closed to traffic on weekdays from 4–7 p.m. after the Board of Selectmen acceded to requests from residents concerned about backed-up rush hour traffic.

Several homeowners on the road appeared at the September 25 selectmen’s meeting to support the recommendation of the Roadway and Traffic Committee to put the restriction in place on a six-month trial basis. But board members were reluctant to overturn the decision of their predecessors, who voted in 2015 not to restrict access to the road.

“If nothing has changed and we’re getting the same request again, it’s almost akin to judge-shopping or forum-shopping,” Selectman James Craig said when the board first heard the renewed request in June.

Nonetheless, the board agreed in September to a one-month delay on a decision on the new request while the town gathered new data on late-afternoon traffic volume on Old Winter Street, which commuters coming from Waltham sometimes use to “jump the queue” of cars stopped on Winter Street as it approaches Trapelo Road.

Traffic engineer John Vancor monitored traffic at the intersection and reported queues of anywhere from four to 35 cars backed up on Old Winter Street. Chief of Police Kevin Kennedy said the heaviest traffic on Old Winter Street northbound occurred on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, with a high of 174 cars from 5–6 p.m. on October 3 (the same afternoon as the 35-car queue was seen).

“When you have that significant a backup with the landscape of the road, it’s going to make it difficult for emergency vehicles to go down the road,” Kennedy said.

There are “significant impediments” to widening Old Winter Street, said Chris Bibbo, superintendent of the Department of Public Works. “As a whole, it would be very difficult.”

“Widening it would really change the character of that road for the sake of commuter traffic,” observed Town Administrator Tim Higgins.

Vancor was also asked to look at similar situations in town, such as the workaround from Peirce Hill Road to Towne Road to Lincoln Road, or westbound traffic heading up Trapelo Road toward the library using Old Lexington Road a sa shortcut to Bedford Road. As to the first example, “we didn’t consider it to be analogous,” Vancor said. The Old Lexington Road maneuver “is actually providing a traffic efficiency overall, or a transportation link,” since more than half the cars turn right onto Bedford Road northbound rather than turning left to Five Corners as a way of cutting the line on Trapeolo Road, he added.

But former Selectmen Peter Braun objected to the idea of restricting access even on a trial basis, noting that when he was on the board, “the town agreed in a general sense that we shouldn’t be doing this except under extraordinary circumstances… this is a public road, and I just find it really difficult to say we’re going to shut it off for some people.”

Commuter traffic has increased noticeably all over town in the past few years, Braun noted. “If you squeeze the balloon one place, you end up with a problem someplace else,” such as Winter Street itself, he added.

Braun also expressed concern about drawing more attention from Waltham and state officials to traffic bottlenecks near the Lincoln/Waltham line. Waltham has sought to have Lincoln put a police officer or traffic light at the intersection of Old County and Trapelo Roads, thus far without success, he said. Also, Old County Road (formerly a Middlesex County road) is classified as a state road running from Route 2 south across Trapelo Road and Winter Street, with the state retaining a right of way on the footpath portion to what is now Old Conant Road all the way to Conant Road. The state could theoretically take another look at the status of that road, or the one-way portion of Winter Street.

“I’m really concerned about the optics of this. Old County Road to me is a third rail,” Braun said.

“Inconvenience is not the main reason to do this — there’s a lot of traffic everywhere,” Selectman James Craig said. “But when it crosses the line from inconvenience to a legitimate matter of public safety, we’re obligated to examine this… I would be in favor of the six-month trial with the understanding that this is not the end of the discussion, but merely another step in the process and evaluating the impact this has on Winter Street and other neighborhoods.”

Between now and April, Vancor and Lincoln police will monitor traffic in Winter Street/Old Winter Street area and report their findings at a public hearing.

Lincoln is a safe, quiet town most of the time, but not always. In a packed Bemis Hall in late January, four former and current Lincoln Police Chiefs shared anecdotes about some of the more interesting—and tragic—situations they’ve encountered over the years.

Jim Arena, who was chief from 1976 to 1995, recalled an incident in the early 1980s when high-tech executives and Lincoln residents An Wang and Ken Olsen received threatening letters demanding money, and some time later, there was an explosion from a device on a utility pole that the threatener had planted “to show he meant business,” Arena said. The suspect turned out to be a soldier stationed at Fort Devens.

Before coming to Lincoln, Arena was police chief in Edgartown, Mass., at the time of the Ted Kennedy Chappaquiddick incident in 1969 (“we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he quipped).

Al Bowles, who succeeded Arena and served as chief from 1995 to 2003, described the time a flat-bed trailer got stuck on the hump of the railroad crossing on Tower Road. He was able to disconnect the cab, but an oncoming train hit the trailer, though another one coming from the opposite direction managed to stop. (The crossing now has a warning for low-bed trailers.)

A more serious incident took place in 1961, when police discovered a murder/suicide in a cottage on Lincoln Road. According to a July 3, 1961 article in the Boston Globe, Agnes Whitlock, who had been under psychiatric care, shot her 12-year-old son as he slept and then turned the gun on herself. The bodies “were in a hot house for a significant amount of time,” Bowles said. About 40 years later, the new owner of the house (which has since been demolished) was also found dead inside, he added.

Bowles also recalled the “great Lincoln drug bust” in the early 1980s when police served warrants to arrest tenants living in the Beaver Pond Road home of the d’Autremont family. “There was a significant amount of illegal whatever in the house,” including $20,000 in cash, several pounds of heroin and cocaine and sawed-off shotguns, Bowles said. The renter turned out to be hiding between floor joists in the basement, “and the only thing that gave him up was his bladder,” he said. The suspect later skipped bail and went back to his native Peru.

One of Lincoln’s biggest mysteries is what happened to Joan Risch, who disappeared in 1961 form her Bedford Road home and was never found. Her husband came home to find the telephone ripped out and blood on the floor, but no one knows her fate; it was later discovered that she had borrowed several library books about murders and disappearances. Then-Police Chief Leo Algeo “said it would always be a stone around his neck,” recalled Mooney, who was on the Lincoln police force at the time.

Lincoln police were also involved in the investigation into the 1985 disappearance of 9-year-old Sarah Pryor of Wayland (a skull fragment matching her DNA was later found), and the stabbing death in a Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School bathroom of Sudbury student James Alenson by fellow student John Odgren in 2007. Odgren, a special-needs student from Princeton, Mass., pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but was convicted and sentenced in 2010 to life without the possibility of parole.

Other deaths that Lincoln police have investigated:

• Robert McDonald, a Chelsea resident whose body was found in 1998 in Minute Man National Historical Park in Lincoln, had been stabbed more than 80 times. Two Newton men who had been drinking earlier with the victim were later arrested and convicted in the murder case.
• A hiker came across the partially decomposed body of a woman off Baker Bridge Road. The victim, who had worked at the Naked i Cabaret (a strip club in Boston’s infamous Combat Zone) had been murdered, Bowles said.
• A suicide victim found in the woods off Route 117 was unidentified for many years until his fingerprints were finally matched to those of a man who had been arrested at a Vietnam protest in California.
• Steven Rakes was found dead on the side of the road in Mill Street in 2013. He was an alleged extortion victim of mobster Whitey Bulger and had attended Bulger’s murder trial on the day of his death. Police charged Sudbury resident William Camuti (who allegedly owed Rakes money) with putting poison in Rakes’s iced coffee, then driving around until Rakes died and dumping the body in Lincoln. Camuti is set to go on trial soon.

Arena recalled two traffic stops in Lincoln that turned out to be anything but routine. In 1991, a car flagged for speeding wouldn’t stop; police chased it to the corner of Sandy Pond and Baker Bridge Roads, where it crashed. The driver, who had a knife in the car, had murdered his mother in Florida and was driving to Maine when he passed through town. In 1996, police pulled over a van late at night and saw a sawed-off shotgun under the seat; the driver was later convicted of a double homicide in Boston using that gun, Arena said.

Then there are the less serious but equally memorable calls, such as the time when the elderly priest at St. Joseph’s Church called police to say he had fallen and couldn’t get up. Police broke down the door of the church and rectory but couldn’t find him—because it turned out he was actually at the home of a family member in Bedford. Another time, a woman called police in the middle of the night saying a burglar was rattling her back door; it turned out a horse had escaped and was doing the rattling.

One day, a woman whose house had been broken into came into the police station with an envelope she said might be related to the burglary. “I had to keep a very straight face when I opened the envelope and there was a picture of the lady, shall we say, al fresco. I told her I would certainly keep it just in case,” Arena said. “All I can say is, she would never be a candidate for Playboy.”

He kept his word about hanging on to the photo, though. Mooney said he found it in the same desk when he himself was cleaning it out for his own retirement years later.

The swift removal of a “ghost bike” in memory of a bicyclist killed in an accident on Virginia Road came as a surprise to some residents as well as the man who put it there. For public safety reasons, Lincoln police removed the ghost bike that had been attached to a stop sign near the spot where Westford bicyclist Mark Himelfarb died on August 17—though they will briefly permit another ghost bike at a different location in September.

“Ghost bikes” are old bicycles that are stripped down, spray-painted white, and locked to a sign or parking meter close to the site of a fatal bike accident. The bikes are usually installed anonymously by a fellow cyclist, though members of the bicycling community sometimes hold ceremonies at ghost bike sites to commemorate the dead cyclist, as described in the Boston Globe on June 30. The first ghost bike appeared in St. Louis in 2003 and the movement has spread internationally as a way to raise awareness about bicycle safety and sharing the road.

The Virginia Road ghost bike was installed by Concord resident Erik Limpaecher, according to an August 23 Globe article. The bike was attached to the stop sign along with a placard reading “M. Himelfarb, father of 2, 8-17-2016, Come to Full Stop.”

“I didn’t expect it to be taken down within hours,” Limpaecher told the Globe. “It was really disappointing… I assume they [took it down] because of some interpretation of the town’s laws. But I would hope that they would have empathy for the family of the cyclist, and for the cycling community.”

The ghost bike was removed mainly because of its location, where it was a distraction to drivers and ironically might pose a safety hazard, according to Town Administrator Tim Higgins. When police remove the bike, they didn’t know who had put it there, but Limpaecher, who did not request guidance or permission from the town about his idea, subsequently came forward and requested return of the bike, Higgins said.

“We understand that well-intentioned people may want to pay tribute to the deceased and may want to call attention to the tragedy in the hope of raising awareness and urging greater caution,” Higgins said. In a case like this, “we work closely with the family and attempt to be as accommodating as possible while being mindful of the need not to permit roadside memorials that may distract drivers and cyclists, or obstruct sight distances in a manner that may inadvertently make conditions less safe. The stop sign chosen as the location for the ‘ghost bike’ is at the corner of a heavily traveled intersection where the roadways meet at a sharp angle; a more inappropriate location could not have been chosen.”

While there is no specific town regulation governing this sort of situation, “it’s a public right of way and it’s the town’s responsibility to maintain it clear of obstructions,” Higgins added. “Things are not as simple as they may first appear, and town officials are generally thoughtful in trying to balance the interests of all of the parties out of respect for the people involved, but this well-intentioned person preempted that.”

Ghost bike for earlier victim

Himelfarb, 59, was the second person to die while bicycling in Lincoln this summer. Wayland resident Eugene Thornberg, 61, was fatally struck by a vehicle at the intersection of Routes 117 and 126 on June 16. According to a news item posted by the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition (MassBike), a bicyclist advocacy group, a ghost bike memorial service hosted by Thornberg’s family is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 10 at 11 a.m. at the accident site. Lincoln police will close the roads in the immediate area for the service and allow the ghost bike to remain on site for the rest of that weekend, according to a web post by Richard Fries, executive director of MassBike.

Lincoln Police Chief Kevin Kennedy could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Ghost bikes are often removed after a period of time, including one in memory of 18-year-old cyclist Fritz Philogene, who was killed in Dorchester last year. “Rumor was that his family, who lives nearby, had it removed because it’s a harsh reminder for the family when they pass the intersection,” said Peter Cheung, a member of a group that helps others make ghost bikes and plan memorial events. Cheung, who also leads the monthly Boston Bike Party ride, said his group was not involved in either Lincoln ghost bike installation.

“I have an emotional reaction to [ghost bikes] as a cyclist and find them a very poignant memorial and an effective reminder to drive consciously. There is much misconception about the rights of cyclists on public roadways,” said Lincoln resident John Mendelson, a cyclist who posted the August 23 Globe article on the LincolnTalk email list, sparking a range of reactions from residents.

Now that Lincoln officials know Limpaecher’s identity, “we will attempt to come up with an approach [for a memorial] that respects the interests of all parties, including those of the family of the deceased and those of the traveling public,” Higgins said.