Friends say Mendes feared a violent end
Alex Mendes feared that he would die violently, like his brother Bobby.
He predicted so during a speech to mothers who lost children to violence several weeks ago in Birmingham, England, where local police had invited him and his mother, Isaura, a family friend said yesterday.
''You might never see me again," he told the women, according to Bishop Filipe Teixeira of St. Martin De Porres Church in Dorchester, who said he heard the story from Mendes when the 24-year-old returned from England in April. On Saturday, Mendes told a cousin to stay off the streets because ''things were heating up," said Hal Cohen, a longtime family friend.
Later that night, a white car stopped in front of a Wendover Street building where Mendes was standing with friends. Someone in the car fired into the group, fatally hitting Mendes in the back, his friends and witnesses said yesterday. The shooting occurred just a few blocks from the intersection where Bobby Mendes was stabbed to death in 1995.
Yesterday, as Mendes's mother arranged a funeral for her youngest son, friends struggled to understand why a man they said abhorred violence was slain.
Several Wendover Street residents and friends of the Mendes family blamed the shooting on a resurgence in Cape Verdean gang violence since January. ''I don't even believe it," said Ann Fernandes, 46, whose own son, Chris Resende, was fatally shot at a Sweet 16 party in Dorchester in 2000. She last saw Mendes Saturday, when he walked by her on the street and paused to say hello.
Yesterday, she stood on Wendover Street, looking at the candles and the stuffed dog someone had placed on the bottom of the wooden steps of the multifamily apartment building where he fell.
Mendes was a working as a security guard at Citizens Bank in Uphams Corner and had been living with his parents on Groom Street, a few blocks from where he was shot.
Isaura Mendes stood in her hallway yesterday, surrounded by relatives and friends, and said her son had given her strength after his brother was killed. She declined to comment further.
On Wendover Street, friends spoke of a good-natured man who used to buy neighborhood children ice cream and laughed easily.
''He's peaceful," Yuri DePina, 19, said. ''I never saw him in trouble."
Mendes had a minor record for traffic infractions and a 2002 charge of marijuana possession that was dismissed. But friends said he detested violence.
As a member of St. Martin's Young Cape Verdeans Club, Mendes often walked through Dorchester looking for at-risk youth who needed mentoring, Teixeira said.
The night he died, he went to visit friends on Wendover Street with his older brother, Teixeira said. Mendes was laughing and talking with friends shortly after 10 p.m., recalled a 17-year-old resident who said she saw Mendes seconds before he was shot.
The teenager, her 3-month-old son, the teenager's mother, and a cousin sat in a
As the family drove down Wendover Street, they heard several gunshots, then the sound of a car pulling away. Terrified, they began to speed down Wendover, but the car caught up with them, forcing the women to pull over. Then more shots rang out before the gunmen's car drove away.
''They shot at us eight times," said the teenager's mother, who believes they were targeted because the gunmen thought they were witnesses. Police would not confirm that the family was targeted, but the Globe is withholding the family's name because they may have witnessed a crime.
''I've been inside since this happened," the teen's mother said yesterday as she sat on her bed. ''I'm not going out. I'm scared to go outside."
Brian R. Ballou and John R. Ellement of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com. 
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
