Two stabbed, shots fired in busy downtown shopping district

(Essdras M. Suarez/Globe Staff)

Investigators scrutinized the shooting scene.

By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff

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

Police said the two men who were stabbed were in their 20s and were taken to Massachusetts General Hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Both were refusing to cooperate with detectives, said Elaine Driscoll, a police spokeswoman. Officers recovered ballistics evidence from the shooting 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 at about 3:15 p.m. when he noticed 4 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: “Pop! pop!’” he said, 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 took off, running up Province Street, while the other group of 4 or 5 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 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.”

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