Early Saturday evening on Nov. 6, a Boston Police officer was stabbed in the neck whilst responding to a domestic violence call at 27 Ingleside St., Dorchester. The suspect was fatally shot on site by another responding officer following the stabbing, and later pronounced dead after being moved to a Boston area hospital.
The Boston Police Superintendent in Chief Gregory Long held a news conference around 9 p.m. at the corner of Blue Hill Avenue and Edgewood Street following the incident.
Several Boston Police officers responded to the domestic violence call around 6:15 p.m. on Nov. 6. Upon entering, the responding officers encountered the suspect on the third floor of a Dorchester home.
After seeing the officers, the suspect reportedly lunged at them with a knife, and immediately stabbed an officer on the landing of the third floor. Directly following the assault, “another officer on scene discharged his firearm, striking the suspect,” said Long. A knife was later found at the scene of the crime.
According to the Boston Globe, there have been multiple instances in recent years where a suspect has been shot dead and an officer was wounded in response to a domestic violence call.
In 2016, two officers were involved in a shootout with the alleged assailant and were both shot in the process; one in the leg and the other in the upper body. The suspect in this incident, 33 year old Kirk P. Figueroa, was hit in the exchange of gunfire and killed on site.
The police officer stabbed was brought to a local hospital with serious, though not life-threatening, injuries. Several other officers, who were seemingly uninjured in the altercation, were also brought to the hospital to be evaluated out of precautionary measures.
As of Sunday night on Nov. 7, the injured officer was discharged and released from the hospital.
The name of the officers involved, as well as the name of the man who died, have yet to be released.
Officers stayed late at the scene on Saturday night, extending the crime scene multiple blocks to conduct their investigations. Officers conducted interviews with neighbors and citizens in the area, and were searching for any potential videos of the incident in question.
The Suffolk District Attorney’s Office will be taking over the case with assistance from the Boston Police Firearm Discharge Investigation Team.
The team was introduced to investigate matters regarding Section 6—which specifically relates to the discharge of firearms—of the Boston Police’s Use of Deadly Force Act, which provides “guidelines and regulations governing the use of deadly force by members of the Department”, according to the Boston Police Department Rules and Procedures.
This act is intended to monitor and ensure the safety of the Boston public as well as the officers of the force, and establish clear procedures for the investigation of the use of firearms by department members.
Section 6 of the act, pertaining to the discharge of firearms, states that “the law permits police officers to use reasonable force in the performance of their duties but only to the degree required to overcome unlawful resistance.” If the discharge resulting from the Nov. 6 incident is declared a “reasonable use of force,” then the officer will not be found responsible.