Man fatally shot in Cambridge

(Maisie Crow for The Boston Globe)

Samrawit Efrem, 7, waited for the school bus on Rindge Avenue for more than an hour after police diverted traffic due to the shooting.

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

A 33-year-old man was apparently shot several times early this morning in Cambridge, dying in a driveway of an apartment building near the Fresh Pond shopping mall.

Police responded to a report of gunfire at 3:06 a.m. on Rindge Avenue.

"When they arrived they found the victim outside," said Corey Welford, spokesman for the Middlesex district attorney's office. "He was pronounced dead at the scene apparently from multiple gunshot wounds."

Relatives and neighbors identified the victim as Jason V. Ellcock. Ellcock has a last known address on Howard Street in Cambridge where he lived with his grandmother. Relatives said he was a father of three who lived for many years at the Jefferson Park housing development, which is walking distance from where he was shot.

Cambridge District Court records show that Ellcock was awaiting trial on drug distribution charges stemming from a May 8, 2008, arrest by Cambridge police. Ellcock has recently spent time in the Nashua Street Jail in Boston and had been free on bail.

Cambridge police identified Ellcock as a cocaine dealer in the Jefferson Park development, where he was living with his girlfriend, according to court records. Police searched the apartment last year and found a small amount of cocaine and several pills, including Oxycontin.