Five are shot in city as pattern of violence extends into new year

Gunfire rang out on Boston streets in the early hours of 2006, discouraging residents of crime-plagued neighborhoods who hope the new year will bring a slowdown in violence.

Five people suffered gunshot wounds in three apparently unrelated shootings between midnight and 6:30 p.m. yesterday in Roxbury and Dorchester, Boston police reported. All the victims, four of them shot in the legs, were expected to survive.

Police, who did not release the names of the victims, had made no arrests as of late yesterday, according to spokesman Officer Michael McCarthy.

In the first reported shootings of the new year, a 16-year-old from Roxbury and a 20-year-old from Dorchester were shot in the legs outside a party on East Cottage Street in Roxbury about 1:30 a.m. Both were taken to Boston Medical Center.

The third person shot in the city in 2006 was a 23-year-old man, wounded in the hand. The victim, who was taken to Brigham and Women's Hospital, told police he was walking on Whitfield Street in Dorchester about 5:15 a.m. when two men approached and shot him.

Last night about 6:15, two men were shot outside 17 Puritan Ave., near Columbia Road. Both men, ages 54 and 40, are from Dorchester. They were taken to Boston Medical Center for treatment.

The eruption of violence overnight made for a troubling transition from 2005, when Boston saw 75 homicides, the most in a decade. At the same time, the rate of arrests in homicide cases declined last year.

The final gunshots reported in the city in 2005 were fired from a passing car near 749 Morton St. in Mattapan about 8:30 p.m. Saturday, when two 14-year-old boys walking down the street were shot in their legs, police said.

''Where's it going to stop? When is it going to end?" asked one Morton Street resident yesterday.

The 44-year-old father of three sons, who was scraping snow off the sidewalk near where the 14-year-olds were shot, declined to give his name, citing concern for his safety.

''The police are doing what they can do. Now it's up to the kids," he said, watching his 6-year-old son scamper up and down the sidewalk.

Around the corner, longtime neighborhood resident John Lender said police should patrol the area on foot. ''They should walk the streets," the 69-year-old said, scraping ice off his car.

Last month, police announced a new collaboration with federal officials to step up law enforcement in the 10 most violent spots in the city. About 85 percent of the city's violent crime occurs in Mattapan, Roxbury, and Dorchester, police have said.

''The bottom line is that about 25 percent of our gun violence is happening in less than 1 percent of our geography," Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole said last month, announcing the crackdown.

Like others interviewed in Mattapan yesterday, Lender said that despite the weekend's shootings, he is hopeful the new year will bring less violence.

''It's got to get better," he said. ''It can't get no worse."