A community debrief about a May 11 gun battle on Memorial Drive drew a few dozen residents Tuesday with questions about how to prevent future attacks and why Cambridge officials didn’t do a better job alerting the community or checking in with residents during and after the violence.
Eight days after an attack is too long to wait for such a meeting, Lawrence Adkins said to officials in two tirades from the audience at the Cambridge Community Center event, and he scored a long private conversation with acting police commissioner Pauline Wells as the meeting broke up.
A call came from another area resident, Denise Haynes, for more immediate, direct check-ins with residents directly at risk of flying bullets and who could look out their windows and see the violence unfold.
“It would have taken just a little bit of effort to meet with them, because they were on the front line,” Haynes said, seeking “just a checking-in.”
In that gun battle, a parolee in emotional distress brought an illegally obtained AK-47 assault rifle to the heavily populated area of 808 and 812 Memorial Drive in the Riverside neighborhood. He fired 50 to 60 rounds before being felled by a State Police trooper and an armed ex-Marine caught in the attack. Two people were wounded before the shooter was taken down; the suspect is now recovering from gunshot wounds of his own.
There were answers from officials who led the meeting, including city manager Yi-An Huang, mayor Sumbul Siddiqui, councillor E. Denise Simmons, Middlesex district attorney Marian Ryan and Wells. State representatives Mike Connolly and Marjorie Decker attended and spoke, and there were various police and health staff on hand, as well as several other city councillors in the audience.
“That feedback is heard,” Huang said, though he asked the audience to recall that the entire situation May 11 played out over the course of minutes and the attack within seconds, and explained that meetings such as this are timed so officials can offer meaningful information.
“For all traumatized, a week later is unacceptable. I totally feel that, and I empathize with it,” Huang said. “In the immediate aftermath of an event, there’s often not very much to share.”
There are also several ways to get alerts from the city and police – and all were used May 11 – but people need to sign up for them or seek them out. “We’re assuming people are signed up for the text alerts, right? We’re assuming people are going to get the daily emails,” Siddiqui said, acknowledging she had the same questions as residents about why there couldn’t be push notifications to phones in an emergency. She alluded to doing “a follow-up on if that is feasible.”
A comprehensive timeline of what happened May 11 and since was given by Wells:
1:11 p.m. Boston police notified Cambridge emergency communications of a parolee with a history of violence who was acting suicidal and may be in possession of a firearm.
1:17 p.m. The parolee’s phone is pinged by Boston police, and it is determined that he is within 1,000 meters of Kelly Road, which is 0.62 miles from where the gun battle took place.
1:24 p.m. A parole officer reports that the suspect, who has a rifle, video called from inside an unknown building. The parole officer shares a description of the suspect’s clothing and the weapon.
1:25 p.m. Several patrol units are in the area looking for the parolee to check to see if he’s okay and actually has a rifle with him.
1:32 p.m. The first 911 call reporting gunfire comes in from 808 Memorial Drive.
1:33 p.m. More 911 calls come in saying a man is walking down the middle of the road shooting a rifle.
1:34 p.m. Cambridge police, fire and ProEMS ambulances respond to the scene.
1:35 p.m. Cambridge police arrive as the suspect is shot by the State Police trooper and ex-Marine. The suspect is subdued by Cambridge police, who give first aid.
1:37 p.m. Officers find a victim in a vehicle and begin to render medical aid.
1:38 p.m. Schools are confirmed to be in lockdown. Youth resource offices were in every school in the area.
1:49 p.m. Officers check inside 808 and 812 Memorial Drive for additional victims after seeing bullet holes in windows.
2:01 p.m. A victim arrives at the Cambridge Hospital emergency room. He drove himself. Both victims’ injuries have been described as “grievous.”
2:04 p.m. Cambridge police find a mail truck with bullet holes at the intersection of Blackstone and River streets.
7 p.m. A press conference is held at Cambridge Police Headquarters
10:23 p.m. Memorial Drive reopens to car traffic.
Thursday The suspect, Tyler Brown, is arraigned in his hospital bed.
Saturday Massachusetts State Police and Cambridge police detectives search a home on Kelly Road. Evidence is taken for processing.
An audience question Tuesday referred to the house on Kelly Road as an unlicensed halfway house for formerly incarcerated people that has been linked to criminal activity; Ryan described a question she has been hearing “from so many people, is how is it that someone who did not have a license, who has a record that would certainly disqualify him from having a gun, that he has a big, expensive gun.”
At the same time, residents at the meeting were concerned with why the suspect was free on parole at all, given his history of violence.
Huang, who said he lives 1,000 feet from the Kelly Road house that was searched, linked the threads. “There are similar questions that we need to ask about how people coming out of incarceration are supported. It is public information that this individual was actually in a very high-quality reentry program, then fell out of it,” Huang said. “As recently as Nov. 5, he was on stage in a button-down shirt in front of a room of people and speaking about his journey reentering society and doing well. I don’t know what happened between Nov. 5 and what we saw last week.”
Connolly added that “on multiple occasions” the suspect has reached out for mental health care, and found it “impossible to access at different points in time.” Funding mental health care is vital, and Cambridge is in a better position than many communities – various mental health resources were mentioned and offering during the meeting – but it is increasingly under threat in federal budgeting, he said.
The Massachusetts Legislature is already scrambling to replace millions of dollars in federal health monies ended by the U.S. Congress, and “cuts that are coming down right now are deep,” said Decker, House chair for the Joint Committee on Public Health. “We are getting less funds, we have more work to do, and greater needs because of the fear and the hate that they are placing on our community.”
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