March 23, 2022
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The two as-yet unidentified assailants whose gunshots wounded a teacher and a student in a spray of bullets launched into a group of students and teachers attempting to board a school bus at Dorchester’s TechBoston Academy on March 15 fired indiscriminately, Suffolk County’s lead prosecutor said on Monday.
There have been no arrests following the brazen late afternoon violence.
Police report that the two assailants used a scooter to drive into the school’s parking lot and fire approximately 10 rounds toward the bus that passengers were boarding for a trip to a state basketball semi-final tournament game in Framingham between TechBoston and Watertown, hitting 31-year-old history teacher Kherson Bethel and a 17-year-old student. Both were taken from the scene with serious, but non-life-threatening injuries.
Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden told the Reporter on Monday that there is “still very much an active investigation. We are working hard at it and hope we will be able to get this one. I can tell you from being there right after and talking with the teachers and students, that I think the faculty and students at TechBoston were really great and right and purposeful in expressing that this wasn’t a TechBoston thing.”
He added, “There is the unfortunate reality that this can happen at a wonderful school like TechBoston simply by it being located in the city…There is no reason to believe anyone involved was from TechBoston other than the two victims.”
The teacher, he said, was a chaperone for the trip to the game and several students were also moving onto the bus as the shots were fired. He does not think the wounded student or the teacher were targeted in of the attack, which took place around 5:40 p.m.
“It’s not a school shooting in the sense of student-on-student violence,” Hayden said. “As far as we know, it wasn’t a student involved in the perpetration. At the end of the day…we have victims – a teacher and a student – that were shot in a school setting. That makes it a school shooting in my mind. We hope and we pray that would be sacred ground. Not that any shooting scene is any better than another.”
The decision to play in tournament competition that night drew some concern, but the game went on, and TechBoston lost, 59-50.
Teacher and assistant basketball coach Justin Desai tweeted that the entire school community was proud of the players.
“Championship level pride for Tech Boston Hoops and TechBoston student athletes last night,” he tweeted. “We were given the option to postpone. Players and coaches decided we wanted to play. Last night our kids fought through and fought on. Not a W, but a triumph of a different level.”
The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletics Association (MIAA), coaches and referees reportedly gave the players an option to postpone, and they chose to continue. Neither the MIAA or Boston Public Schools would comment on the matter, citing an ongoing investigation.
Hayden said the team was not in any danger that he knew of and said the decision to play the game was a “tough call. I told [them] that it’s our job to do everything we can to find who is responsible,” he said. “Most importantly…it is a great school community. I believe part of the motto is ‘a school built on love.’ I encourage them to live that out right now and let the same spirit that brought them to the bus to go cheer on their basketball team carry them through this. This is not a TechBoston incident.”
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