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Updated 21:02, November the 9th, 2008
One dead, four left injured in shooting
A teenage girl was killed and her younger sister among four others that were injured in a rash of gunfire early yesterday morning in Dorchester.
All five victims were shot just before 2:30 a.m. on Elder Street and rushed to hospitals before police arrived, according to authorities. At Boston Medical Center the two sisters —ages 18 and 19 — and a 30-year-old male were located, each suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
Identified by a neighbor as Alexandra Gomes, the older sister was pronounced dead at BMC. The other four victims were treated for non-life threatening injuries, police said.
Published reports said Gomes was the mother to a 15-month-old child.
The family of the sisters grieved at a home on nearby Humphrey Street in the hours after the shooting.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on,” said the girl’s grandmother, Marie Emilia Gomes.Noted peace activist Isaura Mendes, whose two sons were killed 11 years apart in this neighborhood, walked over from her Groom Street home to comfort the family.
“It’s been sad. Another whole life has been taken,” Mendes said later. “I’ve lived it for a long time ... All we have to do is be there for each other.”
The shots woke several neighbors in this Cape Verdean community. One resident said she saw a man crawling along the sidewalk before police arrived. Another said she saw an individual run down the street away from Columbia Road.
No arrests have been made.