An adult male suffered life-threatening injuries Sunday after being shot in the leg on the corner of Saratoga and Wordsworth Streets.
The incident occurred just before 8:30 pm Sunday night when officers from East Boston’s District A-7 police station responded to a report of shots fired at 808 Saratoga St. When police arrived they found the adult male victim suffering from a gunshot wound to his lower extremity.
The victim was stabilized at the scene by EMTs and transported to a local trauma center for further treatment. As of Tuesday his injuries were believed to be critically life threatening.
By 9 pm the taped off corner where the shooting occurred was a beehive of activity with Homicide Unit detectives, Crime Scene Response Unit officers and officers from District A-7.
Detectives could be seen marking shell casing and photographing a pool of blood that was left by the victim before he was transported to the hospital.
Witnesses said a red Nissan sedan was seen speeding away down Addison Street and heading northbound on Route 1A immediately following the shooting.
At this time no further information is available. Anyone with information that could be helpful in this investigation is strongly encouraged to contact the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1-800-494-TIPS, or text the word “TIP” to CRIME (27463). Your tip is 100 percent anonymous.
The scene of violence shocked many in the relatively quiet Orient Heights Neighborhood with some pontificating that the streets are becoming more dangerous in the neighborhood.
However, this could not be further from the truth according to Eastie’s latest crime stats and the neighborhood has become far safer than it was in the 1970s and 1980s.
In fact, an East Boston Times and East Boston Community News article from March 1982 depicts an out-of-hand crime wave in the neighborhood that forced the local business community in Maverick Square to beg then Gov. Ed King to send in the National Guard.
The emergency meeting called by the East Boston Chamber of Commerce at the time and attended by the Boston Police is in direct conflict with many longtime residents’ idealistic view of how the neighborhood ‘used to be’.
The 1982 article quotes Boston Police at the meeting who reported there were 583 Part One crimes in the first two months of 1982. Part One crimes are the most serious crimes reported by BPD. Eastie was on pace for a total of 3,498 Part One crimes for that year.
When compared to the 1982 Eastie crime wave, current crime in the neighborhood pales in comparison.
There were 754 Part One crimes in Eastie throughout all of 2021–down 20.5 percent from the previous year.
So, over a 12-month period in 2021 there were only 171 more total Part One crimes than in the first two months of 1982.