BOSTON (WHDH) - A large crowd gathered around officers and began dumping water on them Tuesday as they attempted to take a Mattapan man into custody on a weapons charge.
Officers responding to a radio call for a person with a gun near the intersection of Maple and Cheney streets around 5:40 p.m. stopped 44-year-old Jermaine Thomas, who was carrying a fanny pack over his shoulder, according to a release issued by police.
That is when the crowd gathered around the officers and police say Thomas began to grab the arresting officer’s wrists and squeeze them.
In the struggle, a body camera was knocked off an officer and retrieved by a bystander.
Then a fire hydrant in the area was opened and officers said a “heavy flow of water” was directed toward them while an unknown suspect began throwing buckets of water on them as well.
During the arrest, officers said they felt an object consistent with that of a firearm inside Thomas’s fanny pack. They were able to recover a Ruger LCR .38 SPL revolver, loaded with five rounds of ammunition.
“I’m alarmed by the level of hostility my officers had to face while arresting a felon armed with an illegal firearm. They were attacked by members of the very same community they were attempting to protect by affecting this arrest,” Boston Police Commissioner William G. Gross said. “Public safety is a shared responsibility, we need to continue to work together, not in opposition towards one another, to achieve that goal.”
Thomas is facing his third subsequent unlawful possession of a firearm charge, an unlawful possession of ammunition charge and resisting arrest.
He is expected to be arraigned at Roxbury District Court.
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