2 killed in separate Dorchester, Roxbury shootings; 'It's rough right now'
BOSTON – Boston community leaders are calling for city-wide action after two people were killed late Saturday night in separate shootings.
The first shooting happened in Dorchester just before 9 p.m. on Fermoy Heights Ave. Boston police found a woman with a gunshot wound. She was pronounced dead a short time later.
A few hours later, two men were shot outside of Slade's in Roxbury and one of them died. The bar has a rich history, welcoming Boston locals, basketball legends and their celebrity friends like Muhammad Ali.
"Bill Russell opened this place when he was a Celtic," says Rev. Kevin Peterson. "Slade's has a special place in the heart of people in the Black community."
But Rev. Peterson says the neighborhood has changed.
"95% of the violence that occurs in this city with regards to murders occurs. . . within a triangle of death between Roxbury Dorchester and Mattapan," he said.
The shootings were disturbing to neighborhood residents.
"That's a beautiful place right there but I can't look at it the same after that. It's rough right now," said a man named Darnell, who lives nearby.
So far in 2023 gun violence in Boston is outpacing the year before. Between January 1 and February 19 of 2022 the city reported 13 shootings. In 2023 during the same time period, the city has reported 15.
"The last three weeks have been heartbreaking for Boston, with gun and knife violence taking too many lives and leaving too many families and friends with eternal grief," Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement. "As always, we ask for the public's help in solving these crimes and in addressing the factors that lead to them."
WBZ reached out to Mayor Michelle Wu's office to ask about her administration's response to the violence, but did not immediately hear back.
