Last Tuesday’s gun arrest gave East Boston the dubious honor of leading the city in gun confiscations so far this year, and this has District A-7 Captain Kelly McCormack concerned.
Last Tuesday, District A-7 officers along with officers assigned to the Boston Police Fugitive Unit along with members of the U.S. Marshals High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Fugitive Task Force and the Massachusetts State Police arrested a 21-year-old male from Revere for two outstanding warrants in the area of 226 Princeton Street in East Boston.
At the time of his arrest, the suspect was wanted on a warrant issued out of Essex Superior Court on charges of Unlawful Possession of a Firearm, Unlawful Possession of Ammunition and Possession of a Large Capacity Feeding Device as well as a second warrant sought out of Chelsea District Court on charges of Receiving Stolen Motor Vehicle and other miscellaneous traffic offenses.
As the officers were performing a protective sweep, they located the male target of their investigation along with a 21-year-old female from Lynn standing in a bedroom with what appeared to be a firearm and several plastic bags containing blue pills in plain sight. Both parties then were placed in custody without incident.
The address was immediately frozen pending a search warrant out of East Boston District Court.
After executing the warrant police recovered a loaded Ruger-57 handgun containing 16 rounds of 5.7×28 ammunition as well as several other loose rounds of ammunition and approximately 200 prescription pills.
Both suspects were arraigned in East Boston District Court. In addition to the prior arrest warrant charges, the male suspect was charged with Unlawful Possession of a Firearm, Unlawful Possession of Ammunition. The female suspect was charged with Unlawful Possession of a Firearm, Unlawful Possession of Ammunition and Possession with Intent to Distribute Class B Drugs.
Last week’s arrest and subsequent recovery of the handgun brought the total number of firearms recovered in the past few weeks in Eastie to seven.
“We’ve seen an increase in guns in East Boston,” said Captain McCormack. “We have now recovered more guns than other neighborhoods in the city. We are working with outside agencies to get a handle on this. It is concerning to me as we come into the warmer months. The prevalence of guns, especially in East Boston, is to me at an all time high. So I’m focusing on that with some outside resources and with the assistance of Chelsea PD. Chelsea is seeing the same type of influx of firearms and these gangs are in conflict with each other. So, I’m going to be very sensitive to those types of issues this summer.”
McCormack said the gun police took off the street last week had the capability of shooting rifle rounds. “It’s a handgun that comes with the capability of shooting explosive rounds or armor piercing rounds,” said McCormack. “That’s a scary gun to anybody and I was glad to recover that firearm.”