Hyde Park teen is charged with shooting boy, 7, at play near home
A Hyde Park teenager has been charged with last week's shooting that hospitalized a 7-year-old playing kickball with his friends near his Roxbury home, in what police called another incident of gang violence with no regard for the neighborhood.
Richard Penha, who police said is an 18-year-old gang member, was charged with assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon. He is expected to be arraigned today in Roxbury District Court. Penha had also been hit with gunfire, but did not suffer life-threatening injuries.
Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis called the shooting, in which police believe Penha and a rival gang member were exchanging gunfire, the type of indiscriminate violence that has rocked the city's neighborhoods in recent weeks.
Davis said that such crimes warrant sentences of life in prison because of the blatant disregard for the public, and he vowed to introduce legislation providing for stiffer penalties.
"The bottom line is he lit this neighborhood up with wanton disregard for anyone who was in the area," Davis said. "If somebody picks up a firearm in a neighborhood and sprays, they should have life in prison."
Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said in a statement that his office has already been in contact with Boston police since the shooting occurred.
"We have already begun our efforts to hold this defendant accountable before the law with the aggressive prosecution such a serious offense demands," Conley said.
The June 30 shooting, in Roxbury's Mission Hill neighborhood, was the first in a week of violence that included the killing of a mother of two in Mattapan. Two other people were killed, and five were injured in four shootings on the night of the Fourth of July.
Also, a homeless man was savagely beaten in front of Faneuil Hall Marketplace over the holiday weekend.
Two weeks earlier, an infant was shot while in her father's arms in what police called a gang shooting in Mattapan.
There have been 33 killings in Boston so far this year. Last year at this time there were 32.
Police said it was a bullet fired by Penha that struck the 7-year-old, whom police did not name, who was playing kickball with friends under the watch of his mother not far from their home.
Penha had been driving with a cousin in a Honda heading down Tremont Street toward Parker Street just before 7 p.m. when they were approached by a rival gang member riding a bicycle.
The person on the bicycle fired, hitting Penha in the torso, police said. Police said Penha fired back; the ensuing exchange sprayed bullets throughout the neighborhood.
The boy managed to run to nearby Smith Street, where he collapsed. He was taken to Boston Medical Center, where he was in stable condition, police said. Penha later turned up at Brigham and Women's Hospital suffering from a gunshot wound.
Initially, police arrested Kenny Francois, 18, of Hyde Park, who was in the car with Penha. He was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm. The firearm has not been recovered, police said. Police are searching for the man on the bicycle.
Davis yesterday said that Penha is a known player in the street violence that has rocked Boston and that police will continue to pursue other known gang members as the summer and the potential for more violence continues.
"There's no question that he was involved in a gang and that this was a shooting that resulted from gang activity," Davis said. "We are holding a hard line on anybody who is involved in gang activity in the city. They will not be able to act the way they have in the past." 