Corrections officer among 3 slain in Boston
Man is stabbed trying to stop fight
An off-duty Correction officer was stabbed to death at a Charlestown tavern yesterday morning, apparently while trying to stop a fight, police said. Elsewhere, a spasm of violence across the city left two other people dead from gunfire, in apparently unrelated incidents.
Sergeant Richard Dever, 35, who works in the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office, was stabbed shortly after midnight at Sullivan's Pub on Main Street in Charlestown, after trying to break up a fight, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.
Yesterday, police arrested Francis X. Lang, 31, of Charlestown. They said he would be arraigned tomorrow for Dever's murder.
A law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Lang had been previously banned from the bar and became belligerent when he couldn't get a drink.
''Francis was thrown out of the bar, started fighting, and Dever tried to stop it and got stabbed," the official said.
Lang is a former convict who pled guilty in 1993 to a federal charge of armed bank robbery in connection with the November 1992 armed robbery of South Shore Bank in Weymouth.
No arrests had been made in the other two homicides.
The murders brought the city's total for the year to 11, as compared to 13 at this time last year.
''It's been a very tough 24 hours in the city of Boston," Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole said.
The first shooting took place shortly before 10 p.m. on Friday, when two people were found wounded outside 21 Longfellow St. in Dorchester. One man was pronounced dead last night; the other victim, a woman, survived, according to police and a witness, David Tavares, who lives on the street.
Tavares said he had heard five gunshots, and came out of his house to see a car rushing from the scene. Inside another car, Tavares said, he found a young man in the back seat who had been shot repeatedly, a young woman behind the wheel who had been shot at least once in the shoulder, and a woman in the front passenger seat, apparently uninjured.
He said he held the wounded woman's hand as he waited for police to arrive, consoling her in her native tongue from Cape Verde. He said the three appeared to be in their 20s.
Like others who had witnessed the violence across Boston, Tavares was shaken.
''We've got to do something for our youth," he said. ''They have no hope and they get into these kind of situations where there's no escape."
A youth worker said yesterday that he feared the killing was the result of a long feud between Cape Verdeans in Dorchester. Joseph Lopes, 23, of Dorchester, was shot to death in January outside a Randolph nightclub, during a Cape Verdean celebration.
Gunfire erupted again at about 1:45 a.m. on Forest Street in Dorchester, police said, and an unidentified male was found shot in the street. He died early yesterday at Boston Medical Center, police said.
A landlord who lives across the street said a tenant had told him that the victim had been shot while sitting in a car. The landlord said his tenant, who knew the victim, had come down from her apartment and held the man as he bled to death.
Emmett Folgert, director of the Dorchester Youth Collaborative, said the violence demanded a public response, with schools set to let out for summer in a few months.
''We need some state initiative to fund activities and summer jobs in crime hot spots in this state," Folgert said. ''It has to happen now . . . Summer is coming. All the kids are worried."
After the Charlestown stabbing, Dever's family mourned the death of a man whom they described as bright and athletic, who entered corrections shortly after graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he played for four years on the rugby team.
''He had a great personality -- everyone liked him," William Dever said of his son. ''He had a lot of friends and we're all going to miss him a lot."
The elder Dever and his wife, Kathleen, spent most of yesterday accepting condolences from dozens of family members, friends, neighbors, and corrections officers at their home in Dorchester.
The Suffolk County sheriff, Andrea Cabral, called Dever ''an exemplary officer." A colleague said the department has been ''devastated" by the loss. ''You couldn't find a friendlier guy," the colleague said. ''He was mild-mannered and well-liked. It's a tragedy."
On the streets of Charlestown yesterday, residents expressed shock upon word of the stabbing
''We consider this a safe neighborhood, so I'm surprised," said Cathy Brown, a two-year Charlestown resident who was taking a stroll along Main Street with her husband and 5-month-old son. ''I feel completely safe walking around alone at night."
Bob Mollica, a sales and marketing director who has lived around the corner from Sullivan's for five years, said he has seen smashed car windows on the street, but never a brawl.
On recent days, community leaders have lamented the impact of budget cuts on community policing. O'Toole, the police commissioner, has pledged to hire 90 more officers this year, but the city would still be down 150 officers, or 11 percent, from five years ago.
At a press conference in January, Mayor Thomas M. Menino pledged to hire more youth workers to bolster the B-SMART program, a new initiative designed to fight youth violence.
As of yesterday, no new youth workers have been hired, though a new director for youth and family services, Selvin Chambers, has been brought in, according to Robert Lewis, head of the Boston Centers for Youth and Families.
Tracy Jan and Sean P. Murphy of the Globe staff contributed to this report. 