A Cambridge community is grieving today after a pair of teen girls were shot, one fatally, while on a porch last night.
Authorities said Charlene Holmes, 16, was killed in the gunfire. The other girl, who friends identified as 17-year-old Thania-Lee Cotto, was in critical condition.
Police were called to 36 Willow Street just after 8 p.m. for reports of a shooting.
When officers arrived they found the two girls with gunshot wounds, according to the Middlesex district attorney’s office.
Authorities said the girls were sitting on a porch when the shots rang out.
A makeshift memorial consisting of candles and a pair of stuffed bears holding a heart was set up in front of the three-story home where the shooting took place.
Police were walking in and out of the house today.
Cotto was set to graduate from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School Thursday, friends said.
“She was a good girl. She was outgoing. She liked to dance,” Fernando Martins said of Cotto. Martins said he knew Cotto from school and Holmes from the neighborhood.
He said he was sad by Holmes’ death.
“She didn’t deserve nothing to happen to her,” he said.
Jaaron McKinney stopped by the scene this morning. He said he was there last night when the shooting took place and knew the girls from school.
McKinney said he say Holmes lying on the ground after the shooting.
“It was shocking just to see her body like that,” McKinney said. “I looked at her once and I couldn’t do it.”
McKinney said he believed the girls were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
No arrests have been made and police were still investigating this afternoon.
It was the first homicide in Cambridge this year.
