Gunfire, stabbings leave two injured

Downtown Crossing violence surprises some

Essdras M Suarez/Globe StaffBoston police officers investigated the scene of a shooting and stabbings at Downtown Crossing yesterday. (Essdras M Suarez/Globe Staff)

Two men were stabbed and someone opened fire yesterday during an altercation in Downtown Crossing that created chaos in the teeming district of narrow streets packed with shoppers, pushcart vendors, and tourists.

Police said the two men stabbed were in their 20s, and that they were taken to Massachusetts General Hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening. Both were refusing to cooperate with detectives, said Elaine Driscoll, a police spokeswoman.

Officers recovered ballistics evidence from the scene, near Bromfield Street, and were searching for the others involved.

Driscoll said investigators are trying to pinpoint where and when the stabbings occurred; a vendor and several passersby said it happened outside the State Street MBTA station a few blocks from Bromfield Street.

The T stopped service at the State Street and Downtown Crossing stations for 12 minutes while officers investigated.

Steve Centamore, the owner of Bromfield Camera Co. on Bromfield Street, said he was standing outside his shop about 3:15 p.m. when he noticed four young men and a young woman walking up the sidewalk from Downtown Crossing. Two or three other young men were standing in the middle of the street, he said.

When the two groups met, he said, they argued briefly. "Then I heard two quick reports from a gun - Bang! Bang!" Centamore said. Frank Giacolone, who was in the store, said he also heard the gunshots, adding that some customers believed the sound had come from firecrackers.

Police said no one was hit.

After the shooting, the two or three men who had been in the middle of the street ran up Province Street, while the other group of four or five regrouped in the doorway of a bar, Centamore said.

"It appeared they were going to go on their way, but one guy was furious," he said. "He was determined to go after them and up Province Street."

The woman in the group wrapped her arms around the man, imploring him not to go: "What are you doing?" she asked, according to Centamore.

But the man broke free, and ran up the street, where another man from his group grabbed him in a bear hug and slammed him against a wall, Centamore said.

Again, the man broke free, and ran up Province Street, chased by the others in his group.

Centamore said that in 38 years of his business, he had never heard gunfire outside his shop.

"I've never seen anything like this in the area," he said. "This is a safe street."

An employee of a nearby bar, who declined to give his name, agreed but said: "It also fills up with high school students looking to make trouble on a Friday afternoon"

Police cordoned off Bromfield Street, searching with dogs. "You can't close the street!" one young woman yelled at an officer, as shoppers crowded behind the yellow police tape. "People need to pass!" The officer said she would have to wait.

Police on bicycles and on foot searched several shops, racing at one point into a Wendy's, where they asked several teenagers about young men they had seen in the restaurant.

Several cruisers parked on nearby Winter Street, where a detective interviewed a young man holding a Foot Locker bag. Nearby, a street preacher shouted to an officer: "Give yourself to Christ and be saved!" The officer beseeched the preacher to leave: "We're trying to do police work here," he said.

Dozens of teenagers crowded around, as office workers hurried past, and tourists and shoppers asked what had happened.

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.