A 46-year-old Boston man is expected to face multiple charges after a gun was fired outside Massachusetts General Hospital Tuesday morning.
Elvis Haughton was identified by officials as the man suspected of stealing a Boston Police officer’s gun and fired it during a scuffle, injuring himself.
He is expected to be arraigned Wednesday in BMC Central and will be charged with assault and battery on a police officer, illegal possession of a firearm, possession of a class C substance and resisting arrest.
On Tuesday, officials said the man was suffering a mental health episode when he approached the officer, who was working a paid detail on Cambridge Street, and knocked the officer’s hat off.
A large police presence on Cambridge Street near Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on Tuesday morning, May 27, 2025.MGH
Haughton was injured but expected to survive, according to Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox. The officer, other officers also working the detail, and passing pedestrians together subdued the man and retrieved the gun, Cox said.
“We’re very thankful that no one was seriously injured, that our officer is doing OK,” he said.
Officers received a call to the area of 265 Cambridge St. just after 8:40 a.m., a Boston Police spokesperson said.
The shooting drew a swarm of police to the bustling downtown street in Boston’s West End, just outside the region’s largest hospitals, during morning rush hour.
Police cordoned off the street and were seen sweeping the ground for evidence an hour later.
Information on the incident was limited as police launched an investigation, Cox said in Dorchester, where he, Mayor Michelle Wu and other officials had gathered for a planned 10 a.m. press conference on the city’s public safety plan for the summer.
The person “attacked the officer in some way, shape or form, was able to get hold of the officer’s firearm, discharged at least one round, injuring himself,” Cox said. “The suspect took the officer’s gun and ended up hurting himself, shooting himself with it.”
Haughton appeared to have been minimally injured, according to James Borghesani, a spokesperson for Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden. No one else was injured.
A large police presence on Cambridge Street near Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on Tuesday morning, May 27, 2025.MGH
Authorities took the man to a local hospital for treatment.
The district attorney’s office pledged a “thorough investigation.” It investigates all instances in which a police officer’s weapon is fired, Borghesani said.
Wu thanked police for their vigilance “24 hours a day” and said the incident spoke to the unpredictable nature of their job.
“As you can see by how we started off today, there’s always something that pops up,” she said. “The job of officers, whether they’re officially on duty, or they’re working a detail, or they are even just sometimes off duty with their families, is a constant call.”
