Law enforcement agencies vow, ‘We’ve had enough’

In response to escalating violence in Boston, officials said yesterday that State Police and federal agents will be deployed throughout the city in a massive show of force, using the kind of cooperation between law enforcement agencies seen during the Democratic National Convention.

"We've had enough; we won't tolerate bold acts of violence," Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole said yesterday in announcing what police are calling Operation Neighborhood Shield.

With officers on motorcycles lined up behind her outside police headquarters, O'Toole said federal agents from the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; and the Drug Enforcement Administration will work with Boston police, Massachusetts Bay Transporation Authority police, and State Police to patrol troubled neighborhoods, in uniform and undercover.

She said that federal, state, and city law enforcement will combine undercover and uniformed forces, a more significant level of cooperation than was attained during the antiviolence campaigns of the late 1980s and early '90s, when the city saw a sharp rise in gang violence and homicides.

The additional law enforcement will focus on hot spots in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, and the South End, she said, and residents will "see more police presence in the city than they've ever seen," reminiscent of the law enforcement presence in some areas of the city during the convention.

While saying that the number of troopers and federal agents involved will be "very substantial," O'Toole would not specify how many will assist local police in the effort to stem the violence this week that resulted in two double-slayings, which raised the number of homicides this year to 42. That total is one more than were recorded all of last year.

However, a high-ranking officer in the department, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said an average of about 75 additional troopers and agents will be brought in each day.

Katie Ford, a spokeswoman for the state Executive Office of Public Safety, said 35 troopers will be sent to assist Boston police, including a motorcycle unit, detectives who investigate gang activities, and road traffic enforcement.

An FBI spokeswoman said about a dozen agents will be assigned to help, but pointed out that the bureau does not have arrest powers in Boston. "We will be there providing support and backup," said the spokeswoman, Gail Marcinkiewicz. "We can provide the eyes and ears."

Officials from those two agencies did not say how the agents and troopers would be deployed, on which shifts, or for how long.

The commissioner also did not specify how the city would pay for the additional outside staffing. "We're not as concerned about cost today than safety or security," she said, adding that the department would try to cover as much of the cost as possible with grant money.

O'Toole also would not predict how long the additional federal and state help would remain in place, except to say that the troopers and agents would stay until the city violence subsides. "We'll reassess each week," she said.

Prosecutors also have pledged to help, she said. US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan, state Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, and Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley have said they will speed arrests and prosecutions of suspects in more serious cases.

Whenever possible, police will press for prosecution by federal authorities, rather than their state counterparts, O'Toole said in an interview before the news conference.

"We know for a fact that some of these players are particularly fearful of being prosecuted in the federal system," she said. "It's one thing to do time in the House of Corrections down the streets. It's another thing to do time in a federal penitentiary away from Massachusetts."

The new antiviolence campaign will follow the "unified command model" used during the convention. Personnel from all of the agencies will meet daily for a briefing and roll call, and Boston police commanders will oversee the assignments each day.

Colonel Thomas Robbins, superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police, said his troopers will "work hand in hand" with Boston police "to rid the streets of criminals. The State Police is fully committed to this effort."

Yesterday's news conference took place less than 24 hours after the latest violent slayings in Boston.

Police have not released the names of the two people who were shot to death after 8 p.m. Thursday in an apartment house on Dyer Street in Dorchester. But the family of Yuri Hamilton, 17, of Somerville, said officials had told them he was probably one of the victims.

"He had his ups and downs, but he was a good kid," said Yuri's father, Stephen Hamilton.

One high-ranking police officer with knowledge of the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Hamilton was shot at the house.

Two high-ranking officers said the shootings were prompted in part by an attempt to steal a large amount of money one of the victims won gambling at the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut. One officer also said the person who fled the scene in a white BMW may have, acting in self-defense, shot the man who was attempting to steal the money. Police say they are seeking the driver for questioning.

The slayings Thursday night were in the Boston police District B-3, where about half the 42 murders in Boston have occurred this year. The district includes large parts of Mattapan and Dorchester.

Captain Timothy Murray, who heads the district, said in an interview yesterday that 17 homicides have been recorded in the district to date this year, four fewer than in all of last year.

Despite the dramatic spike in homicides, the district has less staffing than in some districts with less crime.

For example, Murray said, District A-1, which includes Beacon Hill and has recorded no homicides this year, has 123 police officers on its workforce, while about 100 are assigned to District B-3.

Murray blamed the surge in violence in Mattapan and Dorchester on the "mindset out there among young people that a beef, a feud is never over."

That atmosphere has led to an increase in gun possession and use, he said. Since January 2003, Murray said, officers in B-3 have made 137 firearm arrests and recovered 178 guns.

"My officers are making gun arrests every three days," Murray said. "In 3 square miles, every three days, that's incredible."

He said solving homicides has not come so easily, though, largely because witnesses and victims of gun crimes have been largely uncooperative.

Because so many killings are considered retaliatory, Murray said, some victims are afraid of self-incrimination, while many witnesses fear for their safety.

Globe correspondent Emily Anthes contributed to this report.