“What the judge did was double harm," former Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins said, commenting on the arrest of a man who wouldn’t have been free to go on a second shooting spree if a judge hadn’t ignored her sentencing request in 2020.
The second shooting spree took place on May 11 of this year, as CBS News Boston details, noting that a private citizen helped a state trooper end the threat:
“The shooting on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts Monday left two men in critical condition Tuesday as police tried to piece together what happened.
“Investigators said 46-year-old Tyler Brown of Boston walked down the street with a rifle and randomly shot 50-to-60 rounds at people and cars. He was later shot by a state trooper and a Marine veteran.”
In 2021, since-retired Suffolk Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders ignored requests by Rollins and police for Brown to be given a 10-12 year sentence after he was convicted for attempting to kill Boston police officers by firing 17 rounds at them during a shootout – while he was out on parole from his 2014 sentence for a knife attack and just days after he had been released from a psychiatric hospital.
Brown, who also had a cocaine conviction in 2008, pleaded guilty to eight charges, including armed assault with intent to murder and attempted assault and battery by means of discharging a firearm.
Instead of heeding the request of police and prosecutors, Judge Sanders sentenced Brown to only five years in prison, saying she was doing so based on her “intuitions”:
“Mr. Brown, I do understand that I am taking a risk here – and just pray that my intuitions are right.”
The judge’s intuitions were not right, however, since Brown was arrested for his second shooting earlier this month when he otherwise would have been only about halfway through serving his prison sentence.
“The police officers he tried to kill in 2020 and their families deserved an apology for the lenient sentence. The judiciary was not going to give it to them, so I did,” Rollins told The Boston Herald in a statement commenting on Brown’s latest arrest:
“Our recommended sentence of 10 to 12 years with 5 years probation was completely appropriate. Had it been followed, Brown would have been in a DOC (Department of Corrections) facility, not attempting to kill innocent civilians and members of law enforcement in Cambridge.”
“Brown was on probation for a violent offense he committed in 2014 when he attempted to kill and harm Boston police officers in 2020,” Rollins said. “He clearly had not learned his lesson. And, he had escalated from a violent crime using a knife in 2014, to a violent crime using a .40 Glock semi-automatic firearm in 2020, where he fired 13 rounds at the police.
“This outrageous act of violence was entirely preventable and the result of a Parole Board and governor who treat criminals like victims and victims like afterthoughts,” Republican gubernatorial candidate and Marine Corps veteran Brian Shortsleeve said in a statement.
“When I’m Governor, every member of the Parole Board will be fired,” he added. Democrat Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey “has no right playing politics with our lives on the line,” Shortsleeve said.
