Case details underscore city’s plight
As Crisostomo Lopes was hauled into a police vehicle, minutes after he allegedly helped kill a 14-year-old boy, he shouted his gang’s name over and over again, police said yesterday.
The outburst, described by police, demonstrates the powerful grip of street gangs in some of Boston’s most troubled neighborhoods and the daunting task city officials face as they try to break their hold before the traditionally violent months of summer begin.
In the last moments of daylight Sunday, police said, Lopes, 20, grabbed Nicholas Fomby-Davis as the boy rode his brother’s moped down Bowdoin Street. Police said Lopes held the eighth-grader as an alleged fellow gang member, Joshua Fernandes, 16, shot the 14-year-old boy at least three times.
Lopes and Fernandes, who both live in Dorchester just a few blocks from Fomby-Davis, were arraigned in Dorchester District Court yesterday in a courtroom packed with the victim’s relatives.
The defendants stood behind a door, their faces obscured, as Assistant District Attorney Patrick Haggan described the shooting. Lopes and Fernandes pleaded not guilty to murder and were ordered held without bail.
Family members let out their grief after the hearing.
“There will never be an end to this if parents don’t know what their kids are doing,’’ Fomby-Davis’s aunt, Angela, wailed outside the courtroom. “Stop letting the streets raise your kids.’’
Fomby-Davis’s killing, the second time in a month a 14-year-old has been shot to death in Boston, sparked outrage in his neighborhood and prompted meetings at police headquarters and in the mayor’s office.
“This gang lifestyle is leading to murder in the city,’’ said Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis, whose department took the unusual step of releasing pictures of alleged gang members Monday. “These individuals represent themselves broadly and throughout the community as members of this gang, and it’s important to hold them accountable.’’
Larry Mayes, the city’s chief of human services, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino and about 20 city leaders agreed to send ministers and city workers into the homes of so-called impact players, gang members believed to be responsible for much of the violence in the city. The goal, Mayes said, is to find out what kind of social services might help prevent violent crime.
“We need to combine efforts, be coordinated, strategic, and intentional about staying in there with those families so we can . . . help the community improve,’’ Mayes said.
Menino is scheduled to meet with clergy today about the violence, and the Rev. Miniard Culpepper, a Dorchester pastor, said he is trying to put together another meeting of religious leaders from around the state tomorrow. Culpepper said he wants to recruit as many ministers as he can, assign groups of them to certain parts of Boston, and have them reach out to young people as mentors. “The ministers have to get out of the pulpits and into the streets,’’ said Culpepper. “How can they not when our babies are dying?’’
Prosecutors did not describe a motive yesterday for the killing of Fomby-Davis.
Several law enforcement officials have told the Globe that Lopes and Fernandes belong to a gang that has been feuding with a Dorchester group with which a male relative of Fomby-Davis is associated. But police are still investigating whether that connection led to the killing of Fomby-Davis, who was not a gang member, according to prosecutors and family members.
Fomby-Davis was a student at the Dearborn Middle School in Roxbury, where he was known as a bright teenager with a good sense of humor who excelled in English classes, according to Carol Johnson, the school superintendent, who visited his classmates yesterday morning. He had planned to study engineering in high school, she said.
“He was a very talented young man, from what I heard,’’ said Johnson. “When students are so capable and have so much potential, it’s all that more disturbing to have something like this happen to them.’’
Fomby-Davis was one of two students in the Boston school district killed over the weekend.
Ivol Brown, 17, an 11th-grader at Community Academy in Roxbury who recently transferred from Charlestown High School, was stabbed to death Sunday in an unrelated attack. Grief counselors were sent to Dearborn, Charlestown, and Community Academy yesterday.
“I’m not sure any of us know why this happened,’’ Johnson said. “Students not feeling safe in their communities is a big concern for us.’’
Governor Deval Patrick said he spoke by phone yesterday to Fomby-Davis’s parents, to “tell them how sorry I am and how horrible I know they must feel, having lost a child.’’ The governor had also offered condolences to the family of Jaewon Martin, 14, who was gunned down last month on the Roxbury-Jamaica Plain line. “I acknowledged that I know their heart is broken and they probably can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.’’
Prosecutors said Fernandes, a junior at Odyssey High School, used a .25-caliber handgun to shoot Fomby-Davis.
Officer Anthony Williams, an off-duty gang unit patrolman, witnessed the shooting while driving on Bowdoin Street.
Lopes took off on a bicycle in one direction, and Fernandes ran in the other, Haggan said. Williams, driving his own car, chased Fernandes.
During the chase, Williams said, he saw Fernandes crouch next to a
As officers arrested Fernandes, Lopes came riding down the street on the bicycle. When Williams ordered him to the ground, Lopes began cursing at him and then threatened him, Haggan said. “You’ll catch it, too,’’ Lopes allegedly said to Williams.
Lopes’s cousin, Joao Tavares, defended the 20-year-old.
“He is a good kid who has had some problems as a teenager,’’ Tavares said yesterday, standing outside the family home on Homes Avenue hours after the arraignment. “Many times he’s out and we don’t know what he’s doing or where he’s at. His parents work two jobs, and they’re never at home, so Crisostomo is on his own a lot. He’s very shy, hardly ever talks.’’
Lopes has an arrest record that includes breaking and entering charges, trespassing, and threatening to commit a crime. He is unemployed, according to his booking sheet.
Fernandes also has a record; he was arrested last fall after police stopped a car he was riding in and discovered a handgun inside a hidden compartment in the vehicle, said two law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss Fernandes’s record.
He was charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition. But when the case went to trial in March, a juvenile court jury acquitted him.
John Ellement, Jonathan Saltzman, Jamie Vaznis, and Michael Levenson of the Globe staff contributed to this report. 
