Teen fatally shot at apartment building

An 18-year-old man was shot to death Saturday night in Roxbury, in the city's 58th homicide this year, two more than at this time a year ago, Boston police said yesterday.

Police said they had not arrested anyone or identified any suspects in the shooting. The victim, whose name they did not release, was shot outside 80 Bragdon St., near Columbus Avenue, about 10:45 p.m. and was pronounced dead at Boston Medical Center, said Officer John Boyle, a police spokesman.

A neighbor, who did not give her name, said the victim's first name was Kevin and that he was known as Li'l Kev. She said she did not know his last name. She said he did not live on Bragdon Street and had only occasionally come there to visit friends.

The neighbor said she had heard from other neighbors that a gunman had followed several of Kevin's friends from a nearby liquor store and opened fire as they tried to enter 80 Bragdon St., a brick apartment building. She said neighbors had told her that Kevin had been caught in the crossfire as he tried to let his friends into the entryway at the address.

''Wrong place, wrong time," she said. ''He didn't have nothing to do with what's going on."

From inside her apartment, across Bragdon Street, the neighbor said she had heard multiple shots, dropped to the floor, and then came out onto Bragdon Street to find the victim lying on the sidewalk, bleeding heavily from his head. She said it appeared he had been shot in the temple. Neighbors were screaming, she said.

She said she saw the victim's friends put him into a car, frustrated in waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

But the friends never made it to the hospital. Just blocks away, at Columbus Avenue and Cedar Street, they crashed, Boyle said, and emergency medical technicians picked up the victim.

''It's so sad," the neighbor said. ''He doesn't even hang around here. He just came by to say hi to his friends. . . . It's just crazy. He was only 18."

Yesterday, the door of the house where the victim was shot was pocked with what appeared to be several bullet holes. A mop was in the entryway. Two young men walked up the stoop and placed two burning votives emblazoned with images of Christ at the base of the door.

Homicide detectives, who were inside inspecting the doorway, briefly questioned the young men. The young men declined to speak to a reporter.

The neighbor, who is 23 and has lived on the street for five years, said it was not the first time she had heard gunfire in the area.

''There's always shooting around here," she said. ''It's not safe for kids to play."

It was not the only report of gunfire in Boston during the weekend.

In Dorchester, about 1:30 p.m. yesterday, a 20-year-old resident was shot several times in the arm and leg, Boyle said. The victim, who was expected to survive, told officers that he had been walking near Harvard Street when a man he did not recognize approached him and opened fire with a handgun. Officers had not arrested anyone or identified any suspects in the shooting yesterday, Boyle said.