MEDFORD, MASS. (WHDH) - An investigation is underway after a 23-year-old Revere man was shot and killed behind the Cambridge District Courthouse Thursday, officials said.
Local and state police officers were called to the scene on 4040 Mystic Valley Parkway in Medford shortly before 5 p.m. for reports of the shooting, according to Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan.
A preliminary investigation indicates that 44-year-old Chenghai Xue and his nephew, whose name has not yet been released, were at the courthouse because Xue was seeking an extension on a restraining order that he had filed against his nephew, Ryan said at a press conference. The continuance was denied.
After the two exited the building, Xue allegedly got into his car and hit the victim and several other cars in the lot. After he hit his nephew, Ryan said Xue got out of the car and shot him several times.
The 23-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene.
“It’s my understanding that his nephew, now deceased, was outside of his car, and then he just drove into him and pinned him against the other car, and then reversed, and then began the gunshots,” said the suspect’s attorney, Bill Barabino. “It’s really upsetting and I think if any of us met him, I think you’d say he was a very kind and gentle guy, but obviously, he was building stuff up inside that none of us knew about. He didn’t have the ability to express it.”
Barabino described the suspect as an otherwise gentle man with his Ph.D. and two kids.
“People are always at the courthouse for incidents that are upsetting in some way, either they are a victim, they are a witness, they have found themselves in trouble– It’s already a place that’s a very heightened situation. To have something like this unfolding, particularly at the end of the day as people were leaving the courthouse, employees were leaving, other things were finishing up, people making their way to the parking lot, is extremely concerning,” Ryan said.
Xue is due to appear in Somerville District Court Friday on a murder charge in connection with the incident.
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