Thursday, 4:30 PM
Boston Police make arrest in 12-year-old slaying
By Suzanne Smalley, Globe Staff
Boston Police this evening announced the arrest of a suspect in the 1995 stabbing death of Bobby Mendes, a killing that triggered a decade of violence in the city's Cape Verdean community.
Police said Arnold "Nardo" Lopes, 28, who authorities say stabbed Mendes, 23, in the chest after an argument at the corner of Wendover and Humphreys streets, was taken into custody at Baltimore-Washington International Airport today on a flight from Jamaica.
The arrest was announced at a press conference also attended by the Boston heads of the FBI and US Drug Enforcement Administration. Police said the arrest resulted from extensive cooperation among several agencies and more than a decade of work by Boston detectives.
"The efforts of the detectives and agents involved in this case left no stone unturned in their quest for Bobby's killer," Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis said in a statement. "This investigation led authorities from Boston to Cape Verde to Baltimore to Montego Bay and dozens of places in between. Those tenacious efforts paid off today....I hope today's arrest brings some sense of peace of Isaura Mendes and her family."
He and Mayor Thomas M. Menino went to the Uphams Corner home of Isaura Mendes, who became a prominent anti-crime activist after her son's slaying, to tell her about the arrest.
Mendes also lost her youngest son, Alex, to Boston's street violence. At age 24, he was shot to death a year ago just a few blocks from where his brother was killed. That crime remains unsolved.
