Three police departments are asking for the public’s help as they investigate a series of shootings that have hit three communities since June 10, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan’s office announced Monday.
Beginning on June 10 at around 11:23 p.m., Somerville police received a 911 call from a man who said he was shot twice in his home on Fennell Street, Ryan’s office said in a statement. The bullet came through a window in his living room while he was on the couch before a man approached the home and fired a gun loaded with 9 mm ammunition, the statement read.
The suspected shooter was arrested shortly after, with detectives finding that the gun had been stolen in Reading before the shooting, Ryan’s office said. The man, Sebastian LePage, 25, of Somerville, was arraigned and held without bail in Somerville District Court on June 14.
Then on June 26, three separate unrelated shootings took place. At around 12 a.m., Somerville police were notified of gunshots outside of Union Square on Summer Street. Officers found 33 shell casings from two different weapons, with bullets found lodged in a vehicle and in four nearby homes.
“The potential use of an automatic weapon is being investigated given the sound of gunshots in rapid succession captured on nearby video,” the statement read.
In a second shooting that day, a man inside his car on East Albion Street in Medford was shot and taken to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Ryan’s office said.
The third shooting that day occurred at around 10:37 p.m., when Cambridge police arrived at Newtowne Court. Six casings and one bullet fragment were found by police. During the shooting, two large groups of people were in the parking lots in the area. Early findings in the investigation suggest the guns were fired in the air, Ryan’s office said.
Then two more shootings were reported by Cambridge police on July 4, the statement read. At around 9:58 p.m., police found six casings after gunshots were reportedly heard on Clark Street. Moments later, police found 15 casings from a different caliber gun on Washington Street.
While these shootings are unrelated, the “possibility of these shootings being related is being investigated,” the statement read.
“As a result of these shootings multiple homes and vehicles were hit and one person was seriously injured,” Ryan said in her statement. “Every time a gun is illegally fired in our neighborhoods it creates the risk of death or serious injury for innocent people… [This] type of chaos creating violence simply cannot go unaddressed.”
To address these shootings and other acts of gun violence in the area, Ryan said she partnered with Rep. Marjorie Decker, D-25th Middlesex, on a bill to create a new felony offense intended for instances where a shooter acts “without regard for the risk of serious bodily injury to another” but shoots intentionally or recklessly and “hereby causes a substantial risk of serious bodily injury,” the statement read.
“This bill, currently pending before the legislature, addresses a shortfall in our law where one or more people fire a weapon without regard for the safety of those who are close by and who are put at risk by the reckless or highly dangerous use of deadly force,” Ryan’s office said.
Those with any information about these shootings are asked to call Cambridge Police at 617-349-3370, Somerville Police at 617-625-1600 ext. 7250 or Medford Police at 781-391-6767.
