Radical 1970s Massachusetts Terrorist Was Captured in Fall River

Domestic terrorism is nothing new.

America experienced a period of upheaval in the 1960s and '70s, some of which played out in the streets and on college campuses nationwide. Massachusetts was not immune from the violence that emanated from opposition to the Vietnam War and distrust of political leadership.

This violence included a string of bombings in New England in 1976, the Bicentennial year, the year I graduated from New Bedford High School.

But that's not all.

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Medium.com recalls, "The Harvard Center for International Affairs in Cambridge was attacked in 1970, Tufts University in 1971. Cambridge police headquarters was bombed in December of 1972 when a group named Comrades in Arms declared in a letter to progressive rock radio station WBCN the 'people's winter offensive against the Nixon-Hoover-Mitchell junta.'"

The site says, "The same group would claim another explosion in Wellesley weeks later. There was even a detonation at the State House in 1975, orchestrated by the group that would become activist-famous as the Ohio 7."

A bomb exploded at Boston's Suffolk County Courthouse in April of 1976.

Boston.com recalls a series of three bomb explosions in Boston on July 2, 1976. The first explosion "severely damaged" two parked military trucks at the National Guard armory in Dorchester. Several hours later, a small Eastern Airline plane exploded at a terminal at Logan Airport.

The site reports, "Less than an hour later, another blast 35 miles north reportedly took out a ten-foot-by-ten-foot section of a brick wall at Essex County Superior Court in Newburyport."

Later that night, a fourth bomb "just seven miles away from the one in Newburyport - decimated the inside of the Route 1 post office in Seabrook (New Hampshire)."

The Fred Hampton's Peoples Force claimed responsibility for at least one of the July 2nd bombings. Weeks later, four men with ties to the group were charged with all four bombings that occurred that day.

Everett "Picky" Carlson, 38, and Joseph "Joey" Aceto, 23, of Portland, Maine, Edward Gullion, Jr. from Dorchester, Massachusetts, and Richard "Dicky" Picariello, 27, described by Medium.com as "the mastermind, a rich kid turned stickup kid from Middleton, Mass, who was well read in revolutionary literature."

All four had lengthy criminal backgrounds.

Boston.com says all four were convicted in 1979 and sentenced to prison time.

In the fall of 1976, police apprehended Picariello in Fall River, while Gullion was captured in Providence, Rhode Island.