BOSTON (AP) – In the fight against violence on Boston’s streets, the Rev. Eugene Rivers has one of the most influential voices, calling on youths to get rid of their guns, joining in a campaign to pull the “Stop Snitchin”‘ witness-intimidation T-shirts off store shelves, and pushing for more minorities in the police department’s top ranks.

But the massacre of four young men in the house next door to Rivers’ Dorchester home have shown Rivers and other community activists that no one is safe from the violence that has pushed Boston’s murder rate to its highest in a decade.

“When it happens so close to somebody who is out there in the trenches, it kind of makes you feel mortal, lets you know that just because you’re out there doing good work doesn’t mean you won’t see violence,” said Ted Campbell, coordinator of Studio 450, a youth arts and culture program in Dorchester, located about six blocks from where the shootings took place.

“With all the good and hard work we have going on in this city – in terms of trying to curb and stem this violence, it’s disheartening to know … this nonsense still takes place,” Campbell said.

Rivers is a Pentecostal minister and community activist who co-founded the Ten Point Coalition, a group that helped stem Boston’s gang violence in the 1990s. He told reporters just after the shootings that his young daughter, who heard the gunshots next door while she was doing her homework, was shaken by the killings.

“This is insane,” Rivers said.

Late Wednesday afternoon, police confirmed that two of the victims were Edwin Duncan, 21, who lived in the house, and Jihad Chankhour, 22, described as a Syrian who lives in Wakefield. They declined to identify the other two since their families were still being notified.

At a news conference, Deputy Superintendent Daniel Coleman, commander of the homicide unit, would not discuss a motive for the killings, but said police do not believe any of the victims had gang affiliations. He said early police reports that witnesses saw a heavyset man was seen fleeing from the scene were not accurate.

Coleman said police were looking for the public’s help in finding a 1998 black Ford Escort hatchback with tinted windows that was driven before the incident by one of victims, that may have been taken by the suspect.

“This vehicle would be an important step in this investigation,” he said.

Tia Duncan told reporters that her brother, Edwin, was a member of a rap group called “Graveside” and lived in the house where the shootings took place. Police said the basement was a living space that contained some recording equipment, but was not a recording studio.

Tia Duncan said her brother was waiting in the basement with another member of the group for their bandmates to arrive when the shootings took place.

Edwin Duncan was a 2003 graduate of Wakefield High School. He attended the school through Metco, a voluntary state program that buses inner-city children to suburban schools, Metco officials confirmed.

The deaths pushed the number of murders in Boston this year to 71, the highest in a decade, and frustrated efforts by city officials to stem the wave of violence that has swept Dorchester and neighboring Roxbury in recent months.

Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole extended sympathy to families of the victims. “My heart goes out to them,” she said, vowing to bring the killer or killers to justice.

“It’s much too early to speculate on a motive in this incident,” O’Toole said earlier. “But generally speaking, homicides occurring inside residences are seldom random acts of violence.”

The house on Bourneside Street is a triple-decker typical of the multifamily homes that dot Boston’s working-class neighborhoods. The house is located near Fields Corner, a mostly gentrified neighborhood of stately Victorians.

Campbell said he was shocked when he heard where the shootings took place because the neighborhood is considered quiet and safe. The house itself, he said, had a reputation as a “safe haven” for young people to hang out and work on music collaborations.

The city’s struggle with an increasing number of killings had prompted a recent sweep by dozens of Boston police officers working overtime in search of suspects wanted on charges involving violence and guns. U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said last week that his office will increase prosecutions of suspects involved in gun and gang violence in Boston.

Tuesday’s killings were among the worst in Boston’s recent history.

In 1995, four people were gunned down at a crowded restaurant in the city’s Charlestown neighborhood. Prosecutors said the killings stemmed from a longtime feud between two families over drugs that had previously erupted into fistfights. A fifth man was shot, but survived.

In 1991, five men were shot execution-style in a social club in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood by two men who burst in and ordered the men to kneel before shooting them.