Police ward off critics, make multiple arrests

Vidya Rao

Against the backdrop of the city’s escalating violence, Boston Police made arrests in two recent high-profile murder cases.

Calvin Carnes and Robert Turner, the two 19-year-old men accused of murdering four young Dorchester men in December in what has become known as the Bourneside Street basement case, were arrested last Friday and arraigned on Monday.

Prosecutors allege that the December 13 slayings of Edwin Duncan, 21, Christopher Vieira, 19, Jason Bachiller, 21, and Jihad Chankhour, 21 were perpetrated by Carnes and Turner, and the motive may have been to steal guns and sell them on the street.

Duncan, Vieira and Bachiller were members of a rap ensemble known as “Graveside” and childhood friends of Carnes. The three young men were shot multiple times while in the studio, and their friend Chankhour was shot in the back and through the heart as he was running for the door.

According to police, the suspects later attempted to sell the 9mm Glock, AK-47 and shotgun that they had stolen from the victim’s studio on the street but were unsuccessful in doing so.

Carnes is charged with four counts of first-degree murder, four counts of armed robbery and two other gun charges, while Turner is charged with four counts of being an accessory after the fact and two gun charges.

Pleas of not guilty were entered for both men. Carnes has been held without bail and bail for Turner has been set at $1 million.

Suffolk County Chief Homicide Prosecutor David Meier said that the six-month investigation of the suspects yielded considerable evidence. An eyewitness places a man fitting Carnes’ description getting into Vieira’s car on the night of the murders. Carnes’ fingerprint was found on Vieira’s car, which he allegedly stole from the scene. The blood of one of the victims was also found near the driver’s seat.

Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole commended the police department’s homicide squad for its work, pointing to the arrests made in the Bourneside Street basement case as well as last week’s arrest of Rodrick Taylor in the murder of Dominique Samuels, who was suffocated and set on fire.

“These charges on the heels of the arrest last week in the Dominique Samuels murder should silence the critics,” she said.

The Boston Police Department has dealt with multilateral criticism for its low clearance rate of only 30 percent of the homicides that occurred last year — a 10-year-high of 75 murders.