BOSTON, Mass. — The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office is investigating after a Boston police officer shot a man on Selkirk Road in the Brighton neighborhood early Friday, and the man later died at a hospital.
Officers were sent to the street shortly before 7 a.m. on a report that a man had a large knife and was threatening to hurt himself, Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox told reporters. Officers knew going in that they were dealing with a mental health crisis, Cox said.
For close to 20 minutes, officers talked with the man outside the home and tried to calm things down. Cox said the man at first posed a danger only to himself, but he then turned the knife toward officers and rushed at them on the porch area while threatening them. Officers backed away as far as they could before one fired a single shot, striking him in the stomach as he chased that officer.
Officers and emergency medical crews gave first aid, and the man was taken to a hospital in critical condition. He died Friday afternoon, police said shortly after 2 p.m. Two officers were checked at a hospital, and Cox said neither was seriously hurt. The man’s name has not been released.
Cox said the review will look at every officer at the scene and the gear each carried, noting some officers had less-lethal tools with them. Kevin Hayden, the county’s top prosecutor, said his office will lead the inquiry alongside the Boston Police Department, including a review of body-camera video, and called such encounters fluid and never easy. Hayden said he hoped the officers would recover and promised a full look at all the facts. Mayor Michelle Wu offered sympathy to the man’s family and to the officers involved.
Investigators kept the block taped off for hours Friday as detectives collected evidence and a police dog searched the area. Neighbors on the quiet residential street watched as emergency vehicles lined the road through much of the morning.
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Filed under: Boston MA Crime News
