BOSTON (WHDH) - Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Boston Police Commissioner William G. Gross on Thursday demanded an end to violence across the city after an immigrant store clerk was seriously wounded in a shooting during a robbery in Roxbury earlier this week.
“I want to address a shooting that happened on Tuesday night. Someone, apparently committing a robbery, shot a store clerk in Roxbury in a brutal and cold-blooded act of violence,” Walsh said during a news conference at City Hall. “That victim is a young man, an immigrant, who went to work on Tuesday to earn money and to try to stay safe from COVID-19. Now he’s in the hospital fighting for his life.”
Tanjim Siam, 21, was shot when confronted by an armed robber while working behind the counter at M&R convenience on Shawmut Avenue around 9:30 p.m.
Abdul Matin, the owner of the store, said Siam moved to Boston just four months ago after arriving in the United States from Bangladesh in hopes of getting an education.
“His life is in God’s hands we do not know if he is going to survive,” Matin said.
Matin said Siam did everything the armed robber asked — handed over cigarettes and cash — but the thief still took him to the back of the store, demanded he lay down and shot him.
Walsh said his heart breaks for Siam and all of his loved ones before urging the community to stop committing senseless acts of violence.
“I just want to say how angry and frustrated I am, at the cruel and senseless violence of this act, and others we’ve seen this summer,” Walsh said. “We work every day to eliminate the root causes of violent crime. But someone committing a crime like this makes a choice…a choice to inflict pain and suffering on a fellow human, and perpetuate violence and trauma in their community.”
No arrests have been in connection with the shooting but Walsh said the gunman must be punished.
“They need to be held accountable for those choices and those harms. And the violence needs to stop,” Walsh said.
Gross called the shooter a “coward” for opening fire on a young man who came to Boston to simply seek a better way of life.
Boston’s top cop added that he and Walsh are “tired” of dealing with gun violence and called on the judicial system to do more to keep criminals off the streets.
“Our communities are not desensitized to violence. They care,” Gross said. “I only hope that the judicial process is listening: stop releasing people caught with guns on GPS bracelets.”
Boston police are currently reviewing surveillance video in and outside of the Shawmut Avenue store in an effort to track down a suspect.
Humayun Morshed represents Boston convenience store owners and said there was a second store robbed in Roxbury that same night and owners and employees are scared.
“Special request to the police department, we need your help this time more than anything we need your support,” he said. “People are scared, we do not know who is going to be next.”
Gross said his department will work with city convenience stores to ensure they are all equipped with surveillance cameras.
Those who know Siam say his prognosis does not look good.
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