Family, friends of slain Mattapan man describe him as a ‘good guy’
A 30-year-old father was gunned down as he sat in his car late Thursday night on Cedar Street in Mattapan, a stunned friend of the victim and longtime resident told the Herald.
“The tire was flat, there was a bullet hole in the driver’s-side window,” the woman said, adding she had just seen the man moments before the gunfire erupted. She declined to give her name.
Police responded to the Cedar Street scene just before 10 p.m. and found the victim, identified only as a 30-year-old man, suffering from apparent gunshot wounds. He was rushed to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
Another woman, speaking through tears, said the man was her cousin and described him as a family man who was raising two young children.
“I can’t believe it. I just talked to him,” she said. “I got a call last night after 11 saying my cousin was in the hospital and he might not make it.”
Hours after the shooting, leftover scraps of yellow police tape blowing in the breeze were all that remained of the crime scene on the quiet residential street. A police cruiser sat nearby for much of the morning and detectives milled about the area as well.
The longtime resident and friend of the victim said her daughter and the deceased man were close.
“He was a good guy, my daughter and he were friends,” she said. “He was so respectful to me and everything. When he’d come around, he’d help me take the trash out at night, I never had a problem with him. When my daughter called and told me he just got shot, I couldn’t believe it.”
The woman said she has lived on the street for 15 years and could recall only one other incident, a shooting last September just steps from where this week’s killing took place that left a man severely injured.
The BPD homicide unit is actively probing the shooting, police said, and anyone with information is encouraged to call detectives at 617-343-4470 or provide tips anonymously by calling the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1-800-494-TIPS or by texting the word “TIP” to 27463.