DORCHESTER, MASS. (WHDH) - After a student shot another student outside the Burke School in Dorchester, a man in the area described the scene he saw in the immediate aftermath.
The student shot was hospitalized and in stable condition, and the other student is in custody, according to police.
As police canvassed the area around the school, including at a Burger King down the block from the shooting, they also showed up in droves in a local man’s backyard, where he said he found a gun on the ground.
The neighbor, who lives on Washington Street, said he first saw a large police presence down the road, then received an alert from his security cameras outside his home, alerting him to activity.
When he went outside, he saw police in his backyard.
“There was a gun right here,” witness Robert Nicholls said. He added that he believes the gun was thrown over a nearby fence into his yard because none of his cameras picked up the actual alleged shooter.
Nicholls said he didn’t see the suspect in the area, he was only alerted to the activity from his motion-activated security cameras. Nicholls said he talked to police, though he said he didn’t see anything.
Others in the area described hearing shouting before the shooting, and one heard three shots fired. Several people said they felt scared, upset and unsafe in the area.
Rev. Eugene Rivers, a pastor and community advocate in the neighborhood, said he’s calling on the City to install metal detectors in the schools and to come up with a more proactive approach to keeping kids safe at school.
This is the second incident at the Burke school in a month– a student was stabbed there in September.
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