Dorchester teen slain in broad daylight

Dorchester teen slain in broad daylight

By Christine McConville and Colneth Smiley Jr.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Dorchester teenager Kris McKinney was gunned down yesterday in broad daylight just around the corner from his family’s home, according to Hub investigators who have launched a manhunt for the cold-blooded killers.

“He is well-known to police,” Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said last night about McKinney. “Detectives are still trying to determine facts and circumstances.”

Stunned neighbors said McKinney, 18, was standing with a group of other young men, including his brother, at the corner of Whitman Street and Norfolk Avenue shortly after 3 p.m. when a car approached them.


McKinney was blasted twice, first in the head and then in the leg, as he tried to flee up Whitman Street, bystanders said.

He was rushed to Boston Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

“I just lost my son,” an anguished woman screamed at police when she came upon the crime scene at about 5 p.m.

As horrified friends and neighbors looked on, the woman, whom the Herald was unable to identify, grabbed onto a nearby mailbox to steady herself and repeated, “I just lost my son . . . He’s gone.”

Neighbors said McKinney had just been released from a youth lockup only a few days ago.

But they also portrayed him as a kindhearted neighbor who befriended little kids and shoveled neighbors’ walks after snowstorms.

“Yeah, he’s been in trouble,” one man said, “but he’s just a kid.”

Rattled residents said they regard Whitman Street — a dead-end block off bustling Norfolk Street, hard by Codman Square — as a haven from surrounding hot spots of crime.

“There’s a crime watch over here, so (the shooting) is uncommon,” a Whitman Street resident told the Herald.

But yesterday afternoon, while the neighborhood kids came home from school and the adults returned from work, Boston police and their dogs searched the area for stray bullets and clues.