BOSTON (AP) – Police pledged to find a brazen gunman who killed a teenager in a bustling neighborhood commercial area as school buses dropped off students nearby.
The shooting at about 3:00 p.m. Friday in front of a pizza shop in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood killed Gerald Burgan, 17, who was shot several times in the back before he collapsed a short distance away.
Burgan was taken to Boston Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
The shooting was the city’s 53d homicide of the year. In 2003, 41 people were killed in Boston.
“We’ve had a number of brazen acts of violence this year,” Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O’Toole said in a statement. “Neither the police nor the community will tolerate it.”
Darnell L. Williams, president of the Urban League of Massachusetts, said he believes that Operation Neighborhood Shield, which was launched last month, is not enough to stop the continued killings involving young people.
“We really have to find more effective means of eradicating this threat to our young people,” he said.
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