For the second time in two weeks, a boy has been shot while riding his bike in Dorchester.
This time, the shooting was fatal.
Once again police say they need the community’s help to solve this crime… so why do people hesitate to share what they know with police?
The shooting death of sixteen-year-old Jonathon Dos Santos has hit Dorchester’s Codman Square neighborhood hard. Friends and family crowded into the home where he lived with his parents, nine year old sister and aunt. A few blocks away—where he was gunned down on Fuller Street—candles line the sidewalk.
The day after Dos Santos’ death, 15 year old Breanna Boyce was at this makeshift memorial, wiping away tears.
“He had texted me at 7:58, he said hello – I said yes at 7:59 and he never replied”
Dos Santos was shot about eight pm as he was riding his bike. It wasn’t even yet dark yet.
Boyce says “He’s very outgoing, he likes to speak his mind, he doesn’t let no one put him down, he’s always like happy. He loves his family, out of everyone, he wants to protect them.”
Police say the shooting was not random and they have two suspects. But Commissioner Bill Evans says police need residents to speak up. “This hits home. A lot of us have young children. I have a 16 year old son at home. We take this real personal— and we need the public to step up here.”
The commissioner issued a similar call when just a few blocks away, a seven-year-old boy —also riding a bike—was hit by gunfire. That boy recovered, but police have not made any arrests.
Elizabeth Monteiro grew up in this neighborhood and she is urging everyone she knows to cooperate with police.
“That could have been my child, been your child, been me could have been you,“ Monteiro says. “A lot of times instead of turning to police for help, you turn the other way, because you’re thinking they don’t understand – There’s a lot of stigma, there’s a lot of judgment, especially if you’re Cape Verdean…if you’re a person of color – if you’re a minority in the community…”
But Monteiro’s daughter —also standing next to the spot where Dos Santos was shot— says it’s risky to point a finger. So how does it get back to the people police are targeting, how do they know who gave police information?
Monteiro’s daughter says “It’s the streets. You find out everything everywhere…it doesn’t matter,” she says. “Everyone hears everything— whether it’s good, whether it’s bad – whether the police think nobody’s going to find out—it’s the streets and that’s what happens in the streets.”
It’s worth noting that Fuller Street looks like many other streets in Boston. It’s lined with triple deckers. Gardens are in full bloom. Families walk by, doing their best to avoid TV cameras. Around the corner, once abandoned buildings on Washington Street now house a post office and a health center.
Mark Scott is a local minister and has lived near Codman Square since the 1980s and says “The people in this community worked long and hard to bring a real revival…” He is on the city’s youth violence reduction task force. And says just as the neighborhood has improved, so has the way police interact with residents.
“They’ve done a lot to transform the way they go about policing the community. So it is possible to engage with police…it is possible to have conversations with them.”
Scott believes those conversations are vital. Dos Santos is the city’s 11th murder victim of the year… but this time last year there were twice as many murders. Still, Scotts sees an alarming trend. “I’m worried… the number of homicides is way down compared to this time last year … but the number of shootings is up.”
And while he says he knows it’s a crazy idea, Scott says he hopes that people who killed Jonathon Dos Santos just might turn themselves in.
