WATCH NOW: Vigil For Mikayla Miller In Hopkinton | Patch PM

MASSACHUSETTS — It's Thursday, May 6. Here's what you should know this afternoon:

• A vigil is under way in Hopkinton for Mikayla Miller, the 16-year-old who was found dead in a wooded area near her home last month. You can watch Patch's coverage of the event on Facebook live below.
• Wegmans, which has six Massachusetts locations, may not reopen its popular buffet bars when the pandemic ends and restrictions are lifted.
• Police are asking for help in figuring out who decapitated a statue of Jesus at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Waltham.

Scroll down for more on those and other stories Patch has been covering in Massachusetts today.

Today's Top Story

Activists held a vigil and rally in Hopkinton Thursday for Mikayla Miller, the 16-year-old who was found dead in a wooded area near her home last month. You can watch Patch's coverage of the event on Facebook live below:

The Middlesex District Attorney's office is awaiting an autopsy report as it continues to investigate. Organizers of the vigil claim Miller, who was Black, was beaten by white teenagers. They have called for an independent investigation and have asked for Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan to be removed from the case.

Read Patch's complete coverage of Thursday's vigil.

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Thursday's Other Top Stories

End of the buffet? Wegmans, which has six Massachusetts locations, may not reopen its popular buffet bars when the pandemic ends and restrictions are lifted. Instead, the grocer will focus on prepackaged, to-go food as the pandemic winds down. "Prior to the pandemic, we had a number of self-serve bars in our stores that were very popular with our customers," Wegmans said in a statement. "When those were no longer an option, our restaurant foods team had to rethink how to offer the same delicious food in a different way, so we began putting a larger focus on prepackaged meals."

Extra-dark roast: Mystic Coffee Roaster in Medford will be closed for the rest of the week as it assesses the damage from a "wee fire" in its roaster. The fire was contained to the roasting equipment and quickly brought under control Wednesday afternoon. No injuries were reported.

Learn more about getting a COVID-19 vaccine in Massachusetts at Patch's information hub.

Picture This

Vandals behead Jesus: A statue of Jesus was decapitated this weekend at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Waltham. The church reported the vandalism to police on May 2, and now police are asking for the public's help in finding who is responsible. (Photo: Jenna Fisher/Patch)

They Said It

"It's a situation you have to call in a specialist. There's no way a police officer can have the training of a psychologist, a psychiatrist or a social worker."

• Howard Friedman, an attorney for the family of Robert Miller, 63, who died in 2019 while in Barnstable police custody. The family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the police department, saying the responding officers failed to call psychiatric assessment team and instead forced Miller, who was unarmed, to the ground.

The Follow Through

The latest developments on recent stories that have appeared on Massachusetts Patch.

Hundreds of teachers rally in Falmouth: The Massachusetts Teachers Association accused Superintendent Lori Duerr of suspending Lori Andrade, the president of the Falmouth Educators' Association for filing contractual grievances on behalf of teachers. That led to Tuesday's rally, which drew hundreds of teachers from across the state. Duerr denied Andrade's placement on paid leave had anything to do with union activities.

Town ditches mask mandate: Brookline will join most other Massachusetts communities in dropping a mandate that requires people to wear masks outside. The town decided to drop the mandate on May 21 at a meeting last night. Most other towns dropped the mandates when the state said it would no longer enforce its outside-mask requirement earlier this month.

In Case You Missed It

Look up tomorrow night: NASA is scheduled to launch a Black Brant XII sounding rocket from their Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 7:58 p.m. Friday, and there's a chance residents along the eastern Seaboard — including those in Massachusetts — will be able to watch it streak by. So far, the local forecast is not cooperating, with mostly cloudy skies expected during the window when the rocket could be seen locally.