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Dorchester shooting victim identified as Haverhill pastor

Daniel Mayers grew up in the same Dorchester neighborhood where his life was taken in broad daylight, his family said.

Daniel Mayers, 33, was identified by police Thursday as the victim in a fatal shooting on Columbia Road in Dorchester earlier this week. Mayers was a church leader in Haverhill, his family said. Handout, via The Boston Globe

By Abby Patkin

May 26, 2023

Boston police have identified the man killed in a daytime shooting in Dorchester Monday as Daniel “Danny” Mayers, a Haverhill pastor and onetime Boston Public Schools employee.

Officers found Mayers, 33, suffering from apparent gunshot wounds in a vehicle near 243 Columbia Road Monday afternoon, The Boston Globe reported. He was about a half-mile away from St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, where his father, the Rev. Thomas W. O. Mayers, was rector for nearly 20 years, his family said in a statement obtained by the Globe.

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Mayers was rushed to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

“We are extremely devastated and this loss is unfathomable as we try to understand the details of this tragedy and find who took the life of someone who impacted so many others in nothing but the most positive ways,” Mayers’s family said in their statement, a copy of which was shared by NBC10 Boston.

Mayers grew up in the same Dorchester neighborhood where his life was taken in broad daylight, his family said.

He led Family of God church in Haverhill, according to the Globe, and his family said he also spent more than a decade working for “the Boston Public Schools Welcome Center, Transportation, and Special Education Departments.”

In a press conference alongside Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox, Mayor Michelle Wu described Mayers as a “beloved uncle and son and someone who’s active in his church as a pastor, and longtime Boston Public Schools employee and public servant,” according to the Globe.

Mayers’s family said he “always tried to do everything within his means to assist any colleague, parent, or student he ever came across that reached out to him for assistance, navigating with ease between English and Spanish.”

Boston police have not announced any arrests in the fatal shooting, asking anyone with information to call BPD homicide detectives at 617-343-4470 or make an anonymous tip by calling 1-800-494-TIPS.

Mayers’s family also pleaded for the public’s help solving the case.

“As a family, we are all hurting, and the lack of information that would help with the ongoing investigation leaves us with an even deeper sense of loss,” the family said. “If anyone in the public has information that may be helpful in finding the person who committed this heinous and senseless act, we plead with you to please come forward and assist the authorities in helping our family seek justice for Danny.”