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Man who thought he'd outrun violence identified as Boston's first murder victim this year
By adamg on Fri, 01/09/2015 - 8:23pm
Friends are identifying the man shot to death as he sat in a car on Harrishof Street Thursday night as Alex DoSouto, 24.
DoSouto was a student at Roxbury Community College, where he played guard on the basketball team. In his last game, on Dec. 13 against the University of Connecticut at Avery Point, he scored 11 points.
Reaction online was swift and sad:
The @njcaa is saddened by the passing of #Roxbury MBB guard Alex DoSouto, our condolences go out to his family & the Roxbury community
— NJCAA (@njcaa) January 9, 2015
Our bball family at Roxbury has lost 1 of our players with the shooting death last night of men's team PG #10 Alex DoSouto. #WhenWillItEnd
— Roxbury Womens Bball (@roxwbball) January 9, 2015
This was DoSouto's second attempt at college basketball. In 2010, while on the basketball team at English High, he was accepted to Potomac State College in West Virginia - where he wanted to play and get good enough to transfer to a Division I team.
But in July of that year, he was sentenced to 2-3 years in state prison for serving as the driver for two guys who held up a man in Quincy at gunpoint in 2008. As the Globe wrote:
Unlike his three older brothers - all shot, one fatally, in street violence - Alex DoSouto appeared destined to escape the Cape Verdean gang life that has long roiled his Dorchester neighborhood. He repudiated the gun culture, established himself as an all-city schoolboy basketball star, and earned his diploma last month from English High School.
The judge in the case acknowledged the robbery took place before DoSouto got shot in the leg and became a serious student, but said he still had to pay for the crime. In 2012, the Massachusetts Appeals Court upheld the conviction.
Three other people in the car with DoSouto Thursday night were also injured, one critically.
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Comments
Looks like a co defendant in
Looks like a co defendant in the robbery that he did time for, was shot and killed this August 31st.
Yes on Claybourne St. It
Yes on Claybourne St. It appears as if these two were very immersed in the Cape Verdean gang war that seems to have reignited lately.
It is tragic that these young men are dying, but damn it, look at how they are living.
WHAT DOES HIS BROTHERS GOT TO
WHAT DOES HIS BROTHERS GOT TO DO WITH THIS LAST TIME I CHECKED WE ARE ALL INDIDVIDUALS.... HOW CAN YOU SAY THEY WERE IMMENSLY INVOLVED IN GANGS..
NOW THATS JUST ASSUMING!!! HE COMES FROM A GREAT FAMILY AND WAS A GREAT KID....PEOPLE CAN CHANGE....DIDNT KNOW IT WAS A CRIME......CRIME OS FOR WHOEVER COMMITTED THIS AWFUL CRIME....LETS MAKE A DEAL WHEN THIS GOES UNSOLVED LIKE MANY
How can I say he was immersed
How can I say he was immersed in the culture. Well, because my brother is in the gang unit, and he was extremely well known to the BPD. He had a chance to get out. He didn't take it. And now he's gone.
Your brother's in the gang unit?
And he's telling you details on specific investigations?
Do you see any problems with that?
Nope. What "investigation"
Nope. What "investigation" specifically was mentioned in that comment?
The investigation of the murder of Alex DoSouto
It's kind of what we are talking about here.
There's a unit at BPD that investigates homicides.
It's called the "Homicide Unit."
Kids turn to gangs because
Kids turn to gangs because their older brothers did or because they need the protection or because they're coerced. And they are kids. Kids make bad decisions all the time.
This kid survived gang life, did time for the robbery and worked to turn his life around. He deserves a lot of credit. He had plans and he worked to achieve them. He wanted to be an entrepreneur.
Why do gang related shootings go unsolved?
Is there a specific reason that stands out above others?
Well,
because people are afraid to speak up, due to fearing for their lives if they do.
Gang Murders
This was laid out pretty well in a Globe story last week. A shooting outdoors doesn't leave any of the forensic evidence that police find inside like fingerprints and DNA. It's not like a domestic violence case where you have a built-in suspect and just have to connect the dots. You have a guy with a whole rival gang full of potential enemies who might not even know him personally but shoot him because he's on the wrong street, everyone who knows who did it won't talk, and police have absolutely nothing to go on. It's actually amazing that any of these things get solved.
You people are pathetic
Because the victims are usually black/minorities & the police DO NOT CARE! Why hasn't the mayor addressed crime in Boston since he was elected by the same minorities that are dying on its streets? BECAUSE HE DOES NOT CARE! Listen, I know this child & his family personally and they are all decent, hard working people. Alex was released from jail in 2012 and had been working extremely hard to live out his lifelong dream of attending college. White people will NEVER understand or empathize with us that come from nothing. CV people come to the U.S. with NOTHING and they work as hard as humanly possible to try and provide for their families. Our children have gotten caught up because years ago, we were the VAST minority and families, like the "gang" you refer to him being a member of, had no choice but to protect each other. Please don't comment on things you know NOTHING about and are not attempting to educate yourself about. Alex was someone's child, he had several siblings, a host of nieces/nephews, & countless cousins/extended family. Not to mention, he was somewhat of a local celeb on the basketball scene. He was an amazing child who made some bad choices like every human being makes. He didn't deserve to die for them, no one does! Please let this child and his family find peace. What he did is not what should be focused on. The epidemic that is robbing these young men of they're lives and these communities of their future leaders should be discussed. Oh and if you did thorough research (since you want to look up his co-defendant) you should be able to find COURT DOCUMENTS (not speculation) that will show that the victim couldn't identify him and said he didn't remember seeing him the night of the robbery. The judge in his case was trying to prove a point and I hope she can sleep at night and her conscious is clear. You robbed that young man of his future and in turn, took his life!
What do you mean, "you people"?
Look, I think most of us see the tragedy of the death of Alex DoSouto. Here's a kid trying to turn his life around, trying to make his life better, gunned down. However, since you are coming at us as you are, here are some things for you to think about.
No one "has" to join a gang. Yes, there is a problem with Cape Verdean gangs, and their violence does detract from the fact that most Cape Verdean immigrants are not gang bangers, but are trying to achieve the American dream. That said, one does not hear of gang violence amongst Haitian or Vietnamese immigrants, and these are two immigrant groups that have settled in Boston at the same time as Cape Verdeans. Moreover, Cape Verdeans have been settled along the South Coast of Massachusetts for over a century, yet one does not read of this nonsense in New Bedford. No, this in neither something foisted upon the community nor natural to Cape Verdeans. This is an issue of two groups of men who have decided that lawlessness is their way of life, and sadly when one man appears to be moving away from it death ensues.
But how is this some fault of the mayor? Gang wars have darkened various corners of Boston for decades. If you think this does not affect white people, read up on Charlestown's Code of Silence. Same crap that fell Alex. The difference is that eventually the community got fed up with the shit and started talking to the police. People were arrested, tried, and convicted, and now there are no longer sudden shootouts at the hockey rink after a game, yet no witnesses. 3 people were there when Alex was killed. Are they helping the police bring the killer or killers to justice? Or put it another way. The killer of Alex DoSouto probably (I don't know, I wasn't there) had something to do with the death of Shongi Fernandes. If his killers were behind bars, perhaps Alex would still be alive.
Lastly, do you really believe 3 guys drove to Quincy, robbed Asian immigrants like they were Walhbergs, then somehow met up with Alex DoSouto shortly thereafter and right after that the cops stopped the car used in the robberies that DoSouto had nothing to do with? The Appeals Court didn't think so, either. Look, if he plead guilty or if the others tried to make things better for him by testifying that he had nothing to do with the robberies (assuming that was the case), then sure, he could have stayed out of prison. Yet he made many, many choices in his life that turned out bad. The judge didn't make him take part in a crime. On the list of people who should feel bad, there are a lot of "friends" of Alex DoSouto who are higher up that list.
Take Responsibility
Although I agree with some of the things you said. Crimes like these don't go unsolved because of the race or color. They go unsolved because witnesses keep quiet. There have been plenty of solved murders involving minorities.
Placing blame on the police seem to be the common thing to do in this community. Alex was a good kid but unfortunately what comes around goes around.
There's other things that he's done that never was caught...
Because it is a story
Reading the Globe this morning, the story of the death of Alex' untimely passing sounds even worse than what Adam writes. This is the example of a kid trying to turn his life around.
That said, a family having to bury their second son, with two more sons also having been shot. Yes, this is noteworthy. Sad, but noteworthy. If you don't think it is odd that 4 brothers have been shot at various times, I would say that you don't know what normal is.
As for the gang angle, the Globe notes the gang link, discusses a gang war, and notes that all of the brothers were trying to escape gang life after the first death in the family.
The shame is that it looked like Alex was on his way up in life. Rest in Peace.
The Globe story
Here.
Also possibly worth noting: This incident yesterday afternoon at Stonehurst and Hamilton - he lived on Hamilton.
You bash the guy above and
You bash the guy above and yet you just gave out the address of a victim of an ACTIVE MURDER INVESTIGATION!! Wow. Get off your high horse.
Can you come up with a better reason to bash me, please?
Not sure which address you're referring to - either the murder scene or the street on which the victim lived - but alas for your theory of my high-horsedness, neither came from a top-secret mole.
The murder scene came from Boston Police themselves, in a press release they posted on their very own and very public Web site (I don't have any brothers I can even remotely pretend work for the BPD gang unit). His home street came from the Boston Globe, which actually sent a reporter down there to talk to his relatives.
You can't label a person of
You can't label a person of their past history. What's so hard about this is that the family is suffering from a loss love one but dealing with the media bringing up his brothers being killed and other crimes. Shame on the media digging up dirt for a story and not trying to find the killer
Shame!
Shame on the news media for reporting the news! They should be out there solving murders instead, like reporters do in the movies! And how dare they represent a person based on his actions instead of how his relatives want to imagine him!
Trying to outrun violence? Complete epiphany in 104 weeks?
With all due respect to the deceased, he was only 24 and was shot on at least two different occasions that we know of. He was also charged with robbery on at least two different occasions that we know of. What else was on his criminal record? FYI, they usually don't start off with felonies carrying a life-sentence. The 2010 Globe story by Bob "Taxi Driver" Hohler is absurd, urging leniency in the 2008 Quincy armed robbery because by the time of sentencing in 2010, Mr. DoSouto had supposedly left the thug life? Are we to believe a complete gang-free epiphany in 104 weeks or less?
DoSouto would have been far better off earning a free BU degree during a much longer state prison sentence in the armed robbery conviction than in his attempts at college as a free man. If the Globe and Hohler gained leniency and early freedom for DoSouto they have a lot to answer for. The man given leniency and freedom is now dead.
And how long does it take you to have an epiphany?
Surely your mind isn't that slow that it takes more than two years.
Me, I've never been shot, but I'd imagine that would have a way of speeding up your thinking process when it comes to thinking about your future.
Most people don't need to be
Most people don't need to be shot TWICE before realizing a life of crime and gang affiliation isn't a good life choice.
It's wrong one man crime waves get the celebratory "turning their life around" treatment while the good kids in the same neighborhoods get nothing but the climate of fear and victimization.
Stop condoning gangsters whose "turn" is disingenuous. Their victims and the neighborhoods they defile with violence deserve better.
Plenty of kids despite their environment do right and good amongst their peers and neighbors. It is highly insulting for them to hear how the bangers terrorizing them "are good kids turning their lives around".
I didn't realize so many people knew his life so well
And who know so much about the investigation into his death.
As for me, I don't really know why he was shot. The Globe quotes police as saying the shooting appeared "targeted," but doesn't specify if he was the target - there were three other people in the car.
For a society where the majority of people practice a religion that supposedly focuses on redemption, we sure are quick to assign blame and to assume somebody had it coming.
He was in a gang. What else do you need to know?
He was in a gang. That's like being Hitler. What else do you need to know? ;-)
The reality on the street
It is claimed that the reality on the street is that if you're not in some gang, you'll be victimized by every gang.
Who claims that? We are not
Who claims that? We are not in 1980's Harlem.
Epiphany or complete gang free epiphany?
I believe I wrote complete gang free epiphany. I have instant epiphanies Adam. Like "don't order dessert after a restaurant meal." Often I will order it anyway. A complete dessert-free epiphany would be to abstain from ordering dessert altogether.
In this case, the Globe suggested (and still suggests) that after being shot, convicted in two robberies and implicated in at least two others (where the victims didn't show up in court) that the victim had repudiated gang life. So we're to believe
lightninggunfire struck the same person twice on different occasions prior to age 25? Um, OK.It seems that many of these
It seems that many of these senseless murders happen when the victim is sitting in a car, talking with friends. Like those three young women a few years ago. It is not a good idea to linger in a parked car, regardless of the neighborhood!!! You are a sitting duck. If you want to talk, get indoors.
Condolences to the family for the loss of this young man.
Those three girls were working with the drug dealers...harlem st
They were set up chicks actually. Four Corners/Norfolk Kings gang terriorry. One of the three girls were innocent. People dont randomly shoot three women sitting in a car.
Sources in the families and police say so...