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July 14, 2005

Yawu Miller

A Fourth of July cookout in Dorchester turned violent last week after a gunman and several dozen police officers inflicted bodily injury on revelers who came out to see a neighborhood fireworks display, according to eyewitness reports.

Police responded after gunman Terence McClanahan reportedly fired into the crowd, striking two men. Both were subsequently transported to the hospital. After McClanahan was arrested, accounts of what happened varied.

According to a Boston Police Department press release, a near riot ensued when Tammy Gill, 23, entered the crime scene, approached the officers, was ordered to leave, then cursed at officers and swung her harms at one, striking him in the neck. Police say numerous people began approaching the officers at that point.

Gill, and her cousin Jovany Eason, 16, were then subdued, police say, and taken into custody.

But according to accounts given by Gill, her relatives and witnesses to the event contacted by the Banner, Gill was at least 30 yards from the crime scene when the confrontation occurred.

“We were looking for each other,” said Aria Eason, one of a group of seven relatives who were visiting the cookout. “We noticed there was something going on. There were a lot of police. A lot of people were leaving. There was a lot of commotion.”

Grenville Freeman, who was visiting his uncle, said the police began the fracas by stopping the girls as they attempted to leave the area.

“The girls weren’t messing with the cops,” he said. “This one cop started going off like he wanted to fight the girls.”

Freeman said one of the girls was crying as she approached the police. She was the first one hit by the officers. After the first officer pulled out his baton, others joined in the beating.

Freeman, says he was standing on the lawn of his uncle’s house while the police encircled the girls, then pushed them into a car parked in front of the house, smearing the girls’ blood on the vehicle. While the girls were against the vehicle, the officers used pepper spray, according to both Freeman and the girls.

“They pulled out the mace and sprayed it everywhere,” Freeman said. “People got mace in the eyes and on their faces.”

Freeman himself was sprayed as was his younger cousin and the woman who was in the car the girls were pushed against. Aria Eason recalled seeing three young children in the car who were crying hysterically as the police were beating the girls.

The woman in the car managed to pull all three of her children out of the car before she was sprayed in the face, Freeman said.

Gill and her cousins said they lost their vision once they were sprayed.

“I couldn’t see anything,” she said. “They were punching me in my ribs. I fell between two cars. One cop put his knee on my throat and punched me in my mouth. Another was hitting me on my legs with his baton. Then they dragged me to the police car.”

Aria Eason, 22, said she saw Gill curl into a fetal position while she was being beaten. She asked an officer if she could take Gill home, then was rushed by other officers.

Eason said an officer called her a bitch and pulled down her shirt.

“I felt them kick me in the stomach,” she said. “That’s when I curled up into a ball.”

All three cousins interviewed by the Banner showed lacerations, scrape marks and bruises on their backs, torsos and legs. Saradon Richardson, 19, had her arm in a sling and bruise marks on her shoulder. Richardson said she was thrown to the ground by an officer, and then stomped.

Most residents on Capen Street refused to talk to the Banner about the incident, citing fears of retaliation from police, although several confirmed Freeman’s description of the events leading up the beating.

Freeman said he and other neighbors shouted at the police to stop the beating before being hit with pepper spray.

“I said you’re beating up girls,” Freeman recalls. “You’re grown men.”

Gill was charged with assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, resisting arrest, assault and battery on a police officer, affray, disorderly person and riot. She was released on personal recognizance.

Jovany Eason was charged with delinquency to wit: assault and battery on a police officer and resisting arrest. He was released on personal recognizance.

The shooter, McClanahan, was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, firearm discharged within 150 feet of a dwelling. One victim was treated for a gunshot wound to the right calf, another for a wound to the back of the head.

Police would not comment on the incident, citing department policy not to comment on cases after suspects have been arraigned, but faxed to the Banner a redacted copy of the incident report.

Gertrude Eason, mother of Jovany and Aria, said the incident has left her son and daughters traumatized and fearful of the police.

“You know there’s crooked cops,” she said. “You see so much happening all the time. But you never think it’s going to happen to you.”

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