Sweep busts top gangs of North Shore

Sweep busts top gangs of North Shore
By O’Ryan Johnson  |   Saturday, November 6, 2010  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

GUN SHOW: Some of the 34 guns seized in a gang bust on the North Shore.
Photo by Patrick Whittemore

A swarm of 500 police officers, state troopers and FBI agents from New England fanned out yesterday across the North Shore, where they rounded up dozens of thugs and seized high-powered firearms in order to stamp out violence in gang-ravaged Lynn and Lowell.

The sweep, dubbed “Operation Melting Pot,” targeted members of several street gangs in Lynn and Lowell responsible for out-of-control violence, including murders of rivals, said U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz.

“The people of Lynn deserve a safe community in which to live and raise their children,” she said. “Unfortunately, there are a few individuals, often belonging to violent street gangs, whose illegal activities diminish the quality of life for all.”

Three years ago, an FBI roundup crippled Deuces Wild, the most powerful gang in Lynn, leaving a power vacuum, FBI agent Jeffrey Wood — the man in charge of the agency’s North Shore Gang Task Force — wrote in an affidavit.

“Similar to other experiences, however, the dismantling of the leadership of these gangs eventually emboldened remaining gangs to step into the void,” he added. “The result has been a dramatic increase in gang-related murders, shootings, stabbings and other violence in Lynn.”

Woods’ chilling document details three years of increasing bloodshed, and includes the shooting of a 16-year-old girl, knife fights inside one Lynn school, a gunfight outside another and the shooting of a teenage girl in January whose willingness to testify left her paralyzed by gunfire. Wood states that in September the FBI wire-tapped a hotel room where gang members discussed plans to attack during a baby’s christening.

Standing in front of two folding tables covered end to end with illegal firearms, police chiefs Kenneth Lavallee from Lowell and Kevin Coppinger from Lynn said the arrests and seizures take dangerous tools away from reckless criminals who have the potential to inflict untold tragedies upon their neighborhoods.

“Every time we can take a gun off the street, we prevent a potential tragedy, we prevent a potential death,” Lavallee said.

The operation targeting several warring gangs has lasted the past 18 months and has resulted in 61 arrests. Yesterday the leadership of those gangs were hauled away, which Coppinger said will send a powerful message to any gangbangers in Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, Haverhill and Chelsea.

“If you think you can come into our communities, we will target you,” he said. “We will follow you, build cases against you and prosecute you to the full extent of the law.”

The investigation was a wide-ranging probe into leaders and members of the Avenue King Crips, the Bloods, the Gangsta Disciples, the Deuce Boyz and the Latin Kings in Lynn and Lowell. Coppinger said while the gangs may carry the names of nationally recognized gangs, they are at best loosely affiliated.

“They aren’t taking orders from L.A.,” he said, though he added with the massive firepower they wielded, they were no less deadly.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1294383

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Shooting death at Lynn City Hall

Cops: Man shot self after grabbing officer’s gun

By O’Ryan Johnson
Friday, October 8, 2010


A man apparently shot himself in the head after struggling with a Lynn police officer for his service weapon as the cop worked a detail in front of Lynn City Hall yesterday, police said.

Lynn police Lt. William Sharpe said an officer was on a paid detail at a Verizon work site when a man attacked him.

“The attack was unprovoked,” Sharpe said.

He said during the fracas the man grabbed the officer’s gun. Sharpe said a Verizon worker attempted to come to the officer’s aid. A witness told police the worker pulled the man off of the cop. Once the man had control of the officer’s gun, he shot himself, Sharpe said.

The officer was injured in the struggle, but Sharpe said he was not hit by gunfire. The officer has been placed on paid leave while the circumstances of the shooting are investigated. Sharpe said police have several direct witnesses to the mayhem, and so far each has backed up the officer’s initial account of the story that he was attacked unprovoked.

Police did not identify the dead man, pending notification of next of kin. They said he was not working at the Verizon job site.

Kirsten Anderson, 29, of Lynn said minutes before the shooting, she was walking into the courthouse about two blocks from the shooting.

She said she saw the man walking out of the courthouse and toward City Hall.

The area around the shooting was sealed off by police tape, and large crowds swelled and were dispersed as police investigated the scene. City workers peered down at the carnage from their offices floors above.

The man’s body remained in the street covered by a white sheet. Within the crime scene a Verizon truck was parked beside an open manhole and a Verizon hard hat lay on the ground near the body.

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One dead in Lynn after struggle for cop’s gun

By O’Ryan Johnson
Thursday, October 7, 2010

A man apparently committed suicide with a detail cop’s gun after the two struggled for control of the weapon at a Verizon work site outside Lynn City Hall this morning, police said.


Witnesses told police a Verizon worker may have saved the officer by trying to pull the man off him.

Police said an apparently deranged man who was not working at the site attacked the officer, grabbing his gun. They struggled, and the man broke free with the gun, then shot himself, Lynn Police Lt. William Sharpe said, citing witness accounts.

The officer was also injured, though not by gunfire, and is now on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation, Sharpe said.

Sharpe said investigators are questioning several “direct witnesses.”

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